people just concentrate on the best tool for the job instead of worrying about things like, "coolness".
Graham was saying that great hackers have motivations besides just getting the job done, that a great hacker cares about the aesthetics of what they create, about the process of coding itself, not just about the result.
He's never claimed that there's one best tool -- after all, he ended up talking about Python, when his personal love goes to Lisp. His point was that for some people there's more to it than the job (and these people tend not to choose Java).
You're exactly the enterprise developer he's talking about. Enterprise developers don't do it because they love enterprise programming. You have to be really sick to love enterprise programming.
You use Java for many reasons, I would guess. In large part because you have a job using Java? You got a job using Java because Java has certain attributes and advantages, many of which are valid. But those advantages are soleless. They are advantages like "you can find Java developers". Or the conservative nature of your workplace. Risk avoidance. Even encapsulation -- a technique intended to save developers from themselves. People who consider that an advantage are exactly the people Graham is not talking about.
A lot of people choose Java, but only a very small number for open source projects, especially if you discount projects that were initiated by corporations. If Java is so great, why don't they use it? Because, in that case, the developer has a choice. Because the choice is left to their personal aesthetic sense -- exactly the sense Paul Graham spends so much time talking about.
Changing topics: aspects. Aspects are stupid. They make sense in a language like Java that has no metaprogramming capabilities. They are absurd in other languages like Python or Lisp. It's a whole technique built around a broken language. Metaprogramming facilities like metaclasses and macros do everything aspects do, only they do it reliably and transparently. Aspects are literally just a form of macro, and yet they manage to obfuscate even that simple idea, maybe to make it appear revolutionary.
The Web Hypertext Application Working Group (what-wg) is actively working on improving HTML 4's forms, in a way that you can improve your existing HTML-based applications. They are also trying to address issues of IE compatibility.
I know most blogs are, indeed, just self-centered rambling, or 15 year old girls talking about their latest dream with N'Sync and a pony
Yes, and apparently they are getting in the way of all the people who are looking for relevent information about N'Sync and ponies.
Personally I find the blog search results to be just as relevent as other sources of information, and sometimes one of the only places to get up-to-date information on certain subjects. They also make ranking work in many ways, as they are more likely to link to good content than commercial sites (which incestuously link in a much more manipulative way) -- blogs point to a lot of good content created by individuals, content that wouldn't be highlighted by many other timely sites on the internet.
Apparently some people need to learn how to construct a meaningful query. Use meaningless keywords and you'll get meaningless posts. Search for N'Sync and it's inevitable you'll be pointed to crap. It's just that now, it's not the canonical crap you were used to.
You may have to tough it up and take a path that is not enjoyable to you, as most of the rest of us normals have done, and save the soul-nourishing for the weekends and holidays.
How depressing and stupid. Just because you can't always have the path you want, it doesn't mean you have no choice. People have a lot more choices in their life than they seem to realize.
This doesn't realy apply to Wikis, but for comments you can use redirects to foil this spamming. Well, not to prevent it, but at least to remove the incentive.
This foils PageRank in some ways (after all, valid comments with links should increase the rank, at least some of the time). It would be a shame to do the same with all Wikis. Otherwise more onerous authentication may be necessary, which is also against Wiki principles (though common in Wiki implementations). Or some vetting, perhaps using this PageRank-fooling measure until the page changes are approved.
Small shops can be stable and have reasonable expectations as well. One of the principles of XP is the 40 hour work week (sometimes called Sustainable development). You are more likely to find XP-influenced methodologies at a smaller shop. From what I can tell, a lot of these smaller shops are going to be companies that serve a niche clientelle.
Again, let them know your priorities up front, and if they respect your time (which is what you're looking for) then it won't count against you.
120,000 terrorists in the US? C'mon! Has ANYONE on/. ever met a "terrorist"?
Depending on the definition, I've met many:
the term "domestic terrorism" means activities that appear to be intended to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion.
(quote from PATRIOT, source)
Any protester could be included in this definition (after all, they only say "appear", not "are"). Authorities always try to color protesters as violent mobs to the media, and frequently to a jury as well. It's only a very small step to add the word "terrorist" to the charges.
How much better is that seat than just tilting your seat forward? I adjusted my seat to angle the horn down (maybe 30 degree angle), and it definitely makes riding more comfortable. Is this seat much better than that?
Medical bills are also the largest cause of bankruptcy in the US.
But, to be fair, a whopping 2% of Canadians think the US has a better health care system (reference, 2/3 down). Over half a million people can't all be wrong!
If you really want an efficient car, a small car is the way to go. Things like the Smart car, I believe, have considerably better mileage than the current hybrids. It's unlikely that the complexity of a hybrid could make those cars any more efficient. Sure, not everyone can get by with a small car (or something a bit larger, like a Metro, which is also very efficient). But a lot of people could, especially if it's a second car for the household.
As a side benefit, small cars make the roads safer, and take up less space (which many people don't care about, but with tight street parking a small car is pretty sweet). And if you are really concerned about the environment, I suspect a small car has a lot less up-front environmental cost. I have a feeling a hybrid has significant costs above a typical gas car because of all the batteries (which are little bundles of toxicity, no doubt with many toxic byproducts during production).
Of course if you want real efficiency, a motorcycle beats them all.
I think you underappreciate the skill and thought that needs to go into programming. Design and implementation are one and the same. Designing and implementing efficient algorithms is a niche skill in both programming and computer science, more and more so as time goes on.
There's a lot of mathematical/philosophical ways to think about application programming, though it takes a little more imagination, and a little higher math (abstract algebra and further, calculous isn't really related).
Sometimes I think this isn't appreciated because mathematics can't deal very well with systems as complicated as those in the typical application, and mathematicians have a hard time dealing with systems which they can't describe completely. When you factor in I/O, many of the traditional CS theorums don't apply. But without I/O you aren't doing anything very useful.
And in the end, computer science without code isn't computer science, it's just math.
I heard we have like 3 or 4 pounds of bacteria in our colons. Personally, I plan to have a colectomy just to keep myself further away from this harmful source of bacteria. Mothers who love their children should consider doing this for their children as well!
There's an interesting article comparing Google and Akamai which talks about that as well, since they have technical similarities, but are strategically very different -- Akamai does massive web hosting, while Google does massive web applications.
Personally I find a lot of useful content on blogs. Like recently I found this little Javascript recipe -- I looked through lots of other unhelpful Javascript forum posts, mailing list archives, and other junk that came up before finding the answer. A blog certainly has better content than all of those. And the blog actually existed, where the more substantial Javascript reference sites didn't cover this technique, or worse were out of date and suggested the technique was impossible.
Maybe you are just searching incorrectly. If you search for pictures of cats, you'll get lots of pointless blog posts. But what do you expect? Put in a good search query, and the blog content will enhance the results, or provide substantive results where otherwise there would have been none.
The 2000 election was only a fiasco because they were able to do a recount. Electronic votes mean there will be no confusion, no recounts, no ambiguity. See this article about a claim that 2002 was already fixed, but this time with no checks.
They messed up in 2000, they made the fraud too obvious. Of course, people still didn't pay attention to it -- they paid attention to hanging chads and that bullshit, but not to the disenfranchisement of black voters which was far worse.
Don't the cable companies have a point? It doesn't cost them anything to give you 300 channels vs 10. It may effect how they apportion your subscription to their content providers, but that's really a separate issue.
Cable companies have a bit of overhead based on infrastructure costs and general billing/customer costs. Everything else is just accounting. And since the 10 channel customer doesn't actually cost them any more than the 300 channel customer, what is the point to them of providing that distinction?
This doesn't mean that cable companies are providing a fair value, or that they are being responsible with their monopoly power; maybe this is a way of punishing them for their abuse. But if you don't consider that, their position seems reasonable.
That was my point -- even if it's not done efficiently, it's still better than the stupid stuff we're wasting money on now. Because at least some positive things will come out of it.
Damn straight! I'd rather we throw money at infrastructure than at insanely expensive and stupid military projects. At least then we, as a society, will get something out of it. Ditto farm subsidies -- pay people to make infrastructure, not to sit on their butt, or worse pay them to waste energy making ethanol.
Hell, at least during the Depression the WPA made useful things... things that are still around today. It was really all busy work from an economic point of view, but from a societal view it had some use. Why can't someone propose that for an economic plan? Even if it doesn't boost the economy, at least it does something.
A big part of the problem is that bandwidth needs can spike, but bandwidth is priced based on continuous needs.
Some of these games sites really are providing large files on a consistent basis so that they can justify paying for lots of bandwidth on a continuous basis (well, they can if they get subscriptions, but that's a different issue). But can a company justify the bandwidth that's required for a short period when they make a single release? That happens a lot for content producers, since content has sudden surges in popularity, either due to releases or the peculiarities of the internet (e.g., slashdotting).
Sure it's easy... when you work there. I believe there's something on the order of billions of dollars that is unaccounted for in the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Honestly, I find it hard to believe someone on the inside isn't stealing them blind. I find it hard to believe they don't know that it's happening, and maybe even who it is that's doing it.
In this regard, paper is more error-prone than electronic records, because it's generally easier to destroy paper records. At least when you're on the inside.
Slashdot Mirror
He's never claimed that there's one best tool -- after all, he ended up talking about Python, when his personal love goes to Lisp. His point was that for some people there's more to it than the job (and these people tend not to choose Java).
You use Java for many reasons, I would guess. In large part because you have a job using Java? You got a job using Java because Java has certain attributes and advantages, many of which are valid. But those advantages are soleless. They are advantages like "you can find Java developers". Or the conservative nature of your workplace. Risk avoidance. Even encapsulation -- a technique intended to save developers from themselves. People who consider that an advantage are exactly the people Graham is not talking about.
A lot of people choose Java, but only a very small number for open source projects, especially if you discount projects that were initiated by corporations. If Java is so great, why don't they use it? Because, in that case, the developer has a choice. Because the choice is left to their personal aesthetic sense -- exactly the sense Paul Graham spends so much time talking about.
Changing topics: aspects. Aspects are stupid. They make sense in a language like Java that has no metaprogramming capabilities. They are absurd in other languages like Python or Lisp. It's a whole technique built around a broken language. Metaprogramming facilities like metaclasses and macros do everything aspects do, only they do it reliably and transparently. Aspects are literally just a form of macro, and yet they manage to obfuscate even that simple idea, maybe to make it appear revolutionary.
The Web Hypertext Application Working Group (what-wg) is actively working on improving HTML 4's forms, in a way that you can improve your existing HTML-based applications. They are also trying to address issues of IE compatibility.
That link doesn't work for me, try: anthropik.net/ununfahrenheit911
Yes, and apparently they are getting in the way of all the people who are looking for relevent information about N'Sync and ponies.
Personally I find the blog search results to be just as relevent as other sources of information, and sometimes one of the only places to get up-to-date information on certain subjects. They also make ranking work in many ways, as they are more likely to link to good content than commercial sites (which incestuously link in a much more manipulative way) -- blogs point to a lot of good content created by individuals, content that wouldn't be highlighted by many other timely sites on the internet.
Apparently some people need to learn how to construct a meaningful query. Use meaningless keywords and you'll get meaningless posts. Search for N'Sync and it's inevitable you'll be pointed to crap. It's just that now, it's not the canonical crap you were used to.
This foils PageRank in some ways (after all, valid comments with links should increase the rank, at least some of the time). It would be a shame to do the same with all Wikis. Otherwise more onerous authentication may be necessary, which is also against Wiki principles (though common in Wiki implementations). Or some vetting, perhaps using this PageRank-fooling measure until the page changes are approved.
Again, let them know your priorities up front, and if they respect your time (which is what you're looking for) then it won't count against you.
Depending on the definition, I've met many:
Any protester could be included in this definition (after all, they only say "appear", not "are"). Authorities always try to color protesters as violent mobs to the media, and frequently to a jury as well. It's only a very small step to add the word "terrorist" to the charges.Anyone want to guess one of the CIA's main sources of income? This site has ongoing related coverage, a documentary on the subject, and of course Google will tell you more, since the one attempt to cover this in the mainstream media resulted in the journalist being slandered and the paper denouncing its own article (more on that).
How much better is that seat than just tilting your seat forward? I adjusted my seat to angle the horn down (maybe 30 degree angle), and it definitely makes riding more comfortable. Is this seat much better than that?
But, to be fair, a whopping 2% of Canadians think the US has a better health care system (reference, 2/3 down). Over half a million people can't all be wrong!
As a side benefit, small cars make the roads safer, and take up less space (which many people don't care about, but with tight street parking a small car is pretty sweet). And if you are really concerned about the environment, I suspect a small car has a lot less up-front environmental cost. I have a feeling a hybrid has significant costs above a typical gas car because of all the batteries (which are little bundles of toxicity, no doubt with many toxic byproducts during production).
Of course if you want real efficiency, a motorcycle beats them all.
There's a lot of mathematical/philosophical ways to think about application programming, though it takes a little more imagination, and a little higher math (abstract algebra and further, calculous isn't really related).
Sometimes I think this isn't appreciated because mathematics can't deal very well with systems as complicated as those in the typical application, and mathematicians have a hard time dealing with systems which they can't describe completely. When you factor in I/O, many of the traditional CS theorums don't apply. But without I/O you aren't doing anything very useful.
And in the end, computer science without code isn't computer science, it's just math.
I heard we have like 3 or 4 pounds of bacteria in our colons. Personally, I plan to have a colectomy just to keep myself further away from this harmful source of bacteria. Mothers who love their children should consider doing this for their children as well!
There's an interesting article comparing Google and Akamai which talks about that as well, since they have technical similarities, but are strategically very different -- Akamai does massive web hosting, while Google does massive web applications.
Maybe you are just searching incorrectly. If you search for pictures of cats, you'll get lots of pointless blog posts. But what do you expect? Put in a good search query, and the blog content will enhance the results, or provide substantive results where otherwise there would have been none.
They messed up in 2000, they made the fraud too obvious. Of course, people still didn't pay attention to it -- they paid attention to hanging chads and that bullshit, but not to the disenfranchisement of black voters which was far worse.
Cable companies have a bit of overhead based on infrastructure costs and general billing/customer costs. Everything else is just accounting. And since the 10 channel customer doesn't actually cost them any more than the 300 channel customer, what is the point to them of providing that distinction?
This doesn't mean that cable companies are providing a fair value, or that they are being responsible with their monopoly power; maybe this is a way of punishing them for their abuse. But if you don't consider that, their position seems reasonable.
That was my point -- even if it's not done efficiently, it's still better than the stupid stuff we're wasting money on now. Because at least some positive things will come out of it.
SkyWeb!
Hell, at least during the Depression the WPA made useful things... things that are still around today. It was really all busy work from an economic point of view, but from a societal view it had some use. Why can't someone propose that for an economic plan? Even if it doesn't boost the economy, at least it does something.
Some of these games sites really are providing large files on a consistent basis so that they can justify paying for lots of bandwidth on a continuous basis (well, they can if they get subscriptions, but that's a different issue). But can a company justify the bandwidth that's required for a short period when they make a single release? That happens a lot for content producers, since content has sudden surges in popularity, either due to releases or the peculiarities of the internet (e.g., slashdotting).
In this regard, paper is more error-prone than electronic records, because it's generally easier to destroy paper records. At least when you're on the inside.