Oh great - just what we need - yet another programming language. Never mind that there ain't enough people to teach kids and adults the languages we already have.
Most of the languages I've learned, I didn't have anyone teaching me -- just an implementation and some written reference material.
And 0.1, meaning it's currently unusable. Why not wait until 1.0 is ready before announcing it?
Uh, because something doesn't get ready for production use except by people bashing on it, and that doesn't happen if no one knows it exists. So, generally, software products -- and especially open source ones -- are announced (and available to use) well before there first production-ready release.
Lisp still has a null value, like Java and most other languages.
Yes, Lisp -- like many other languages -- has a special null value. This is very different from a null pointer.
If you run (cdr '()), you get an error.
Yes, that's one of the common differences between a null value and a null pointer; manipulations involving a null pointer can often produce incorrect results rather than a proper failure.
Actually...the problem can be solved by re-thinking their codebase rather than coming up with a tailor-made language that may/may not really fix things.
The language isn't a may/may not, its an "absolutely won't" fix things -- on its own.
A new language only fixes anything in an existing codebase as part of re-thinking their code base. OTOH, if, as part of rethinking their code base, they've found extensive recurrent problems where the solutions in the existing implementation language are cumbersome, using a new language where doing it right is more straightforward than in the existing implementation may be appropriate.
An "empty list" in lisp is usually implemented as a null pointer.
Maybe, but that's irrelevant.
Lisp knows where lists end because the cdr field of a pair is null. So lisp has null pointers, they just hide it behind some S-expression terminology.
No, Lisp, the language, doesn't have null pointers (or pointers, per se, at all). A Lisp implementation in another language may implement some lisp features using pointers, including null pointers, in the host language, but that's very different than Lisp having null pointers
There would be no good way to differentiate the "end" tag from real data.
What, comparison operations (the way you'd distinguish a null pointer) don't work on special values that don't happen to be null pointers? There may be some languages where that is true (though they wouldn't be much good), but Rust doesn't appear to be one of them.
Since this comes from the people who have identified a problem in a codebase they own that this is intended to address, I don't think that that's the case. It may not be a problem you have, and it may not be the solution you'd prefer in their place, but that's not the same thing as it being a solution in search of a problem.
The Firefox codebase definitely has some huge issues, but does anyone remember the big Netscape rewrite for version 6?
Presumably, the whole point of Rust's C++ compatibility is that you don't need to do a big rewrite if you have an existing C++ codebase, you do module-by-module rewrites as is convenient.
thought that null pointers are necessary in order to terminate a linked list.
A distinct value that it is distinguishable from a valid link is necessary to terminate a linked list; the use of a null pointer as the conventional manner of doing this is just what happens to be convenient in certain languages.
How else can one terminate a linked list other than creating a tag labeled "end"?
A tag labelled "end" doesn't have to be a null pointer; using the former for the latter is convenient in languages which don't easily support tagged union types, since then it allows you to use something that appears (to the type system) to be the same type as is used for real references but which can be distinguished from real references in conditional tests.
If you have a good enough type system, you don't need null pointers (and the dangers that they bring) to serve in this role.
From the article: "null pointers are not allowed". So what better type is there to represent what amounts to a tagged union between a reference to an object and a value representing the lack of an object?
a tagged union between whatever type of object reference you intend, and the internal type () -- nil -- which has only one value representing the concept of nullity.
They aren't paying for the privilege of promoting Twitter and Facebook
Correct, they aren't paying them at all.
they're paying for the privilege of accessing them to use them search rating valutations.
Viewed in that light, its a question of the value of the signal compared to the offered price. The fact that it is viewed as worthwhile to Bing doesn't mean its worthwhile to Google.
But, as the current fury from FaceTwitterSpace about Google not using public, non-personalized profiles from their networks that seem to loosely correspond to the Google+ results that are relevant to a search to augment SPYW, there is a promotional effect to those networks of Google using their data -- even just their public data -- that clearly has considerable value to those networks.
It was Google that declined to renew the Twitter deal when it expired. Likewise, Facebook allowed similar access to Google that Bing has, but again, Google declined.
Why should Google pay for the privilege of promoting Twitter and Facebook?
So yes you are correct, you can disable personal results FOR YOU, but everyone else can still view the personalized results that would still put YOU in THEIR search result list
So, what, you want to restrict how discoverable information is to the recipients after you've actively shared the infromation with them?
Is Facebook fine with Google scraping data from their network? If Google did that without asking, wouldn't that make Google evil?
If Facebook is voluntarily offering up said data, then certainly Google should use it.
Facebook (and Twitter, et al.) seem to be saying this: "We are going to do everything we can to stop you from getting our data, unless you pay us vast amounts of money to get access to it; but, if you do manage to index any of our data, we demand that you use it as much as possible to promote our services."
Very little of that is relevant if it reduces the student's final book costs by 70%. I'll happily give Apple their book lock-in all day long if it saves me a few grand on textbooks. Wouldn't you?
As a consumer, no. A significant portion of the value of a textbook, to me, is that I can keep it for life and use it as a reference, let other people borrow it, and, heck, pass it on to the next generation. (Certainly, when I was young, I spent a lot of time with my Dad's old text books.)
DRM-free, open-format digital textbooks would be nice to have, but DRM-laden (as I expect most will be), not-quite-standard-format textbooks lose a lot more than 70% of the value of physical textbooks for me.
anyone that's had to pay their own college bills knows books are a complete racket
And a platform-specific format one of whose major selling points to publishers is support for restrictive DRM is going to make this market less of a racket?
Unfortunately, the exclusionary rule doesn't punish the cop who broke the law. What we need is a doctrine that says any search, arrest, detention, etc that oversteps legal authority is a crime just as if any non-police officer had done it.
We have actual laws that violations of civil liberties under color of law are crimes.
The problem with such laws as a remedy to police misconduct is that prosecutors almost never prosecute under them even now, and if you remove the exclusionary rule, you'd have even less incentive for prosecutors to prosecute violations (with the exclusionary rule, police habitually overstepping their bounds is a problem for prosecutor's ability to secure convictions, which gives them some incentive to deter police misconduct of this type, which would be missing without the exclusionary rule.)
Of course, prosecutors are going to be poorly-disposed towards prosecuting the cops they work with daily. So we'd need an independent meta-justice system to keep tabs on that.
And then another independent meta-meta-justice system to keep tabs on misconduct in the meta-justice system, etc., etc., etc., ad nauseum, ad infinitum.
Now can we get this legal precedent applied to domain seizures? Trolling sites for illegally shared files is alll well and good, but claiming the site operators know what is going on is about as much probable cause as was available in this case.
If this is intended as a reference to the recent Megaupload.com case, if you read the indictment there you'll note that there was a search warrant served, and that part of the basis for the indictment is the response of the owner to that search warrant, as well as what was found in the course of search.
You don't have to have the magic words "you are under arrest" said or be booked.
True, but irrelevant.
Whenever you are dealing with the authorities and you are not free to leave, you are arrested.
Paul was (as described by the TSA) free to leave, he was not free to enter the secure area of the airport except with law enforcement escort (and then, only for the express purpose of leaving the secure area.)
Being required to have a law enforcement escort while transiting a secured area is not arrest.
According the TSA, Paul was not detained at the checkpoint by the TSA, but was not allowed to proceed into the secure area because he refused the pat-down required by TSA procedure, and was escorted out of the checkpoint by police. He subsequently rebooked on a different flight and was rescreened without incident. This seems to be covered in most of the news stories on the incident ( CNN, MSNBC, Reuters.)
It's not that bad. It really should say "are" instead of "is" but otherwise it's okay.
No, it is not. The main problems -- aside from the "is" instead of "are" one -- are that it is a run-on and missing a few commas for other reasons.
Instead of: "According to Google over the top ads is not good for user experience and thus such websites might not get high ranking on Google web search."
It should be: "According to Google, over the top adds are not good for user experience, and, thus, such websites might not get high ranking on Google web search."
There are more problems than grammatical errors in the sentence, too; it would be a lot better as: "According to Google, over the top ads are not good for user experience, so such websites should not get high ranking on Google web search."
The problem is that the government had no business getting into the marriage business in the first place. It used to be a religious institution, until some kings decided that they didn't like the church having all that power and decided to stick their noses into it.
While its hard to clearly separate religious and government institutions that existed before the adoption of the norm of church/state separation in the host society (which really begins in the modern era), marriage historically was largely governed principal by general, rather than any special ecclesiastic, law even in the Christian West through the early part of the Middle Ages, was performed under local customs that often predated the local adoption of Christianity, and didn't involve the clergy at all; during the Middle Ages, the Church became involved, first by having clergy present as witnesses (though still, for some time, prohibiting marriage inside the sanctuary of a church), and later -- as the Church acquired a role as a kind of "international government" in Europe, through prescribed rites and an active regulatory role.
If marriage hadn't become a secular state institution, we wouldn't *need* to have this debate.
It is more defensible to reverse this to say "if the Church hadn't become a quasi-governmental entity and expanded its area of regulation into marriage and other traditional areas of government control, we wouldn't need to have this debate."
The idea that marriage was an institution of the church before it was an institution of government governing the distribution of property is nearly as historically inaccurate as the idea that it is some kind of universal truth that marriage has (prior to recent years) historically always been between one genetic male and one genetic female.
(I guess rackspace is big enough vs. megaupload that they don't get shutdown though - ridiculousness of scale ?).
Megaupload didn't get shut down because some users were sharing illegal content and megaupload's innocent staff wasn't practically able to police it all.
Megaupload got shut down based on evidence that their owners were actively using the system themselves to distribute and access illegal copies, that they were knowingly paying people for providing illegal copies, and that they organized their business model to promote and profit from illegal distribution by users while providing what they apparently thought was just enough concealment (including a limited and selective pretense of compliance with takedown requests) of their active involvement with infringement to avoid legal repercussions.
Has Megaupload been found guilty of anything? If not, why has their site been shut down? If copyright laws apply to the internet, then why doesn't due process?
Due process, as applied in US law outside of the internet, doesn't prevent seizures of alleged instrumentalities of crime without anyone being found guilty of anything, so why would you expect that it would when applied to the internet?
Slashdot Mirror
Most of the languages I've learned, I didn't have anyone teaching me -- just an implementation and some written reference material.
Uh, because something doesn't get ready for production use except by people bashing on it, and that doesn't happen if no one knows it exists. So, generally, software products -- and especially open source ones -- are announced (and available to use) well before there first production-ready release.
Uh, no, there are meaningful differences.
Yes, Lisp -- like many other languages -- has a special null value. This is very different from a null pointer.
Yes, that's one of the common differences between a null value and a null pointer; manipulations involving a null pointer can often produce incorrect results rather than a proper failure.
The language isn't a may/may not, its an "absolutely won't" fix things -- on its own.
A new language only fixes anything in an existing codebase as part of re-thinking their code base. OTOH, if, as part of rethinking their code base, they've found extensive recurrent problems where the solutions in the existing implementation language are cumbersome, using a new language where doing it right is more straightforward than in the existing implementation may be appropriate.
Maybe, but that's irrelevant.
No, Lisp, the language, doesn't have null pointers (or pointers, per se, at all). A Lisp implementation in another language may implement some lisp features using pointers, including null pointers, in the host language, but that's very different than Lisp having null pointers
What, comparison operations (the way you'd distinguish a null pointer) don't work on special values that don't happen to be null pointers? There may be some languages where that is true (though they wouldn't be much good), but Rust doesn't appear to be one of them.
Since this comes from the people who have identified a problem in a codebase they own that this is intended to address, I don't think that that's the case. It may not be a problem you have, and it may not be the solution you'd prefer in their place, but that's not the same thing as it being a solution in search of a problem.
Presumably, the whole point of Rust's C++ compatibility is that you don't need to do a big rewrite if you have an existing C++ codebase, you do module-by-module rewrites as is convenient.
A distinct value that it is distinguishable from a valid link is necessary to terminate a linked list; the use of a null pointer as the conventional manner of doing this is just what happens to be convenient in certain languages.
A tag labelled "end" doesn't have to be a null pointer; using the former for the latter is convenient in languages which don't easily support tagged union types, since then it allows you to use something that appears (to the type system) to be the same type as is used for real references but which can be distinguished from real references in conditional tests.
If you have a good enough type system, you don't need null pointers (and the dangers that they bring) to serve in this role.
a tagged union between whatever type of object reference you intend, and the internal type () -- nil -- which has only one value representing the concept of nullity.
The question really is how well "Apple's target" represents the interests of the people making decisions about the use of textbooks in classes.
Correct, they aren't paying them at all.
Viewed in that light, its a question of the value of the signal compared to the offered price. The fact that it is viewed as worthwhile to Bing doesn't mean its worthwhile to Google.
But, as the current fury from FaceTwitterSpace about Google not using public, non-personalized profiles from their networks that seem to loosely correspond to the Google+ results that are relevant to a search to augment SPYW, there is a promotional effect to those networks of Google using their data -- even just their public data -- that clearly has considerable value to those networks.
Why should Google pay for the privilege of promoting Twitter and Facebook?
So, what, you want to restrict how discoverable information is to the recipients after you've actively shared the infromation with them?
Facebook (and Twitter, et al.) seem to be saying this: "We are going to do everything we can to stop you from getting our data, unless you pay us vast amounts of money to get access to it; but, if you do manage to index any of our data, we demand that you use it as much as possible to promote our services."
That's not quite it: it is "please do more (at no cost to us) to promote our services that compete with yours directly."
As a consumer, no. A significant portion of the value of a textbook, to me, is that I can keep it for life and use it as a reference, let other people borrow it, and, heck, pass it on to the next generation. (Certainly, when I was young, I spent a lot of time with my Dad's old text books.)
DRM-free, open-format digital textbooks would be nice to have, but DRM-laden (as I expect most will be), not-quite-standard-format textbooks lose a lot more than 70% of the value of physical textbooks for me.
And a platform-specific format one of whose major selling points to publishers is support for restrictive DRM is going to make this market less of a racket?
We have actual laws that violations of civil liberties under color of law are crimes.
The problem with such laws as a remedy to police misconduct is that prosecutors almost never prosecute under them even now, and if you remove the exclusionary rule, you'd have even less incentive for prosecutors to prosecute violations (with the exclusionary rule, police habitually overstepping their bounds is a problem for prosecutor's ability to secure convictions, which gives them some incentive to deter police misconduct of this type, which would be missing without the exclusionary rule.)
And then another independent meta-meta-justice system to keep tabs on misconduct in the meta-justice system, etc., etc., etc., ad nauseum, ad infinitum.
If this is intended as a reference to the recent Megaupload.com case, if you read the indictment there you'll note that there was a search warrant served, and that part of the basis for the indictment is the response of the owner to that search warrant, as well as what was found in the course of search.
True, but irrelevant.
Paul was (as described by the TSA) free to leave, he was not free to enter the secure area of the airport except with law enforcement escort (and then, only for the express purpose of leaving the secure area.)
Being required to have a law enforcement escort while transiting a secured area is not arrest.
I believe that neither party from which accounts have been provided is unbiased and presenting either of them alone as a fact is irresponsible.
According the TSA, Paul was not detained at the checkpoint by the TSA, but was not allowed to proceed into the secure area because he refused the pat-down required by TSA procedure, and was escorted out of the checkpoint by police. He subsequently rebooked on a different flight and was rescreened without incident. This seems to be covered in most of the news stories on the incident (
CNN, MSNBC, Reuters.)
No, it is not. The main problems -- aside from the "is" instead of "are" one -- are that it is a run-on and missing a few commas for other reasons.
Instead of: "According to Google over the top ads is not good for user experience and thus such websites might not get high ranking on Google web search."
It should be: "According to Google, over the top adds are not good for user experience, and, thus, such websites might not get high ranking on Google web search."
There are more problems than grammatical errors in the sentence, too; it would be a lot better as: "According to Google, over the top ads are not good for user experience, so such websites should not get high ranking on Google web search."
While its hard to clearly separate religious and government institutions that existed before the adoption of the norm of church/state separation in the host society (which really begins in the modern era), marriage historically was largely governed principal by general, rather than any special ecclesiastic, law even in the Christian West through the early part of the Middle Ages, was performed under local customs that often predated the local adoption of Christianity, and didn't involve the clergy at all; during the Middle Ages, the Church became involved, first by having clergy present as witnesses (though still, for some time, prohibiting marriage inside the sanctuary of a church), and later -- as the Church acquired a role as a kind of "international government" in Europe, through prescribed rites and an active regulatory role.
It is more defensible to reverse this to say "if the Church hadn't become a quasi-governmental entity and expanded its area of regulation into marriage and other traditional areas of government control, we wouldn't need to have this debate."
The idea that marriage was an institution of the church before it was an institution of government governing the distribution of property is nearly as historically inaccurate as the idea that it is some kind of universal truth that marriage has (prior to recent years) historically always been between one genetic male and one genetic female.
Megaupload didn't get shut down because some users were sharing illegal content and megaupload's innocent staff wasn't practically able to police it all.
Megaupload got shut down based on evidence that their owners were actively using the system themselves to distribute and access illegal copies, that they were knowingly paying people for providing illegal copies, and that they organized their business model to promote and profit from illegal distribution by users while providing what they apparently thought was just enough concealment (including a limited and selective pretense of compliance with takedown requests) of their active involvement with infringement to avoid legal repercussions.
Due process, as applied in US law outside of the internet, doesn't prevent seizures of alleged instrumentalities of crime without anyone being found guilty of anything, so why would you expect that it would when applied to the internet?