That's nothing : in an episode of NCIS, they have to crack a remote system (or prevent a cracker for cracking their own system, I don't remember), so they employ the usual technique : they type very fast on the keyboard. But since they're really in a hurry, they enhance this well-known technique : Abby and Mc Gee both type, at the same time, very fast, on the same keyboard. Go beat that!
Oh - bonus points if you store the Calendar instance in a static variable, and never require the getInstance() call again.
This would introduce a bug in your application, since Calendar.getInstance() always returns a new instance, containing the current time at the moment it is created. Storing it in a static variable and reusing it would return the same time forever.
Moreover, Calendar is not thread-safe and is mutable, so storing it in a shared static variable is a really bad idea.
Subversion calls this a feature branch. You branch the trunk, which stays open to the public. You make regular commits to the branch, and when the large refactoring is done in the branch, you reintegrate the branch into the trunk. The trunk remains stable during the whole process. How is it different with a distributed system?
mind you, by default those things allocate in 6-index chunks, so every 6 objects you add it copies the whole ArrayList to a new one, with 6 more spots available. @_@
There's a reason Java got the sluggish reputation, but it's not because the JIT code is slow. It's because the developers can get by with less of an understanding of what goes on behind the scenes, which never turns out good...
Huh. You might well be the one who doesn't understand what goes on behind the scenes. Just read the source code:
public void ensureCapacity(int minCapacity) {//...
int newCapacity = (oldCapacity * 3)/2 + 1;//...
}
It thus allocates half the current size of the list each time the capacity is reached, and not just 6 slots.
I've seen two definitions of Web2.0: user-contributed contents, and the use of AJAX/DHTML.
The first characteristic doesn't need any new technology: Slashdot is a good example of a web site containing lots of user-contributed contents, and works for ages. No need for a 2.0 version of the web.
The second one is newer: we already had DHTML, but didn't have XMLHttpRequest. This is where abuse can lead to bad design and bad usability, IMO. My advices to web developers: just because the content of your web site is dynamic and the site contains some forms doesn't mean you have a web application like GMail! Most of the time, it's just a web site, and should work like a traditional web site: the back button should work, opening pages in new windows or new tabs should work. Just because you may refresh the body of the page without reloading it entirely doesn't mean you should. Think about why frames are usually avoided when you plan using AJAX: it might cause the same annoyances.
I don't see why laying off people would make them more competitive against AMD. Sure, their HR department will have less work afterwards, but they're not the ones who will make Intel more competitive. This is just to make the actions go up and make the investors richer, but it won't make them more competitive to AMD, and more attractive to customers. My compassion will to the laid off employees, and my money will go to AMD when I'll buy a new chip.
Ads on the clothing could be used to reduce the price so people actually wear it...
In fact, people are usually paying more to wear clothes with ads: t-shirts with a big Ni*e slogan, sweat-shirts with an Adid*s or Reeb*k logo, etc.
I'm pretty sure being transformed into a moving light-emitting ad would make lots of people feel super-cool, and they would be ready to pay for that:-(
You're right, but the ethical reason of the vegeterians (most of the time) is not: do not eat meat because it will make the cows disappear (species-oriented thinking). It is rather: every time you eat meat, an animal has suffered, often during its whole life (individual-oriented thinking). If everyone stops eating steaks, there will be less cows, but the cows still living on this planet won't suffer as much, and there will be less suffering.
What amazes me, as an ex-vegetarian, is all the persons who eat meat but are disgusted by the idea of eating dogs or cats, and even more disgusted by the idea of eating their own dog or cat. See, once you start giving some value to the life of an individual animal, you don't eat it. Vegetarians are the same: they give some value to the life of each cow on this planet, and thus refuse to eat them. That doesn't mean they want as many cows as possible on the planet, or even that they are concerned about the survival of the cow species.
To me, as soon as the C code uses pointers, it is potentially malicious. That's one of the reason why so many people choose Java, C# or other pointer-free languages.
Actually, it's really simple. But Internet Explorer doesn't support that bit of CSS. So really, it's Internet Explorer that has to improve, not CSS.
It's simple... until you have to make it look good. Add a border between the left bar and the body that goes down to the footer, and it becomes trickier. Then add to the mix that you don't want the body to fall below the left bar when it becomes larger than expected (big images or large tables), and it's even harder. Not to mention the problems when you start additioning percents together to make it 100% and you see scrollbars appearing. No, really, CSS should have made it as easy as using tables for layout, and it hasn't.
I agree with you regarding the bad support for CSS in IE. But it's still the most used browser, and when you have to deliver real applications, CSS and IE can make you mad!
Regarding the technique mentioned for the footer, I'll bookmark it. But it validates my remarks: this technique is not well-known; it's completely counter-intuitive; it needs hacks to work in several browsers; and it needs absolute sizing of the margin of the footer, which make it less accessible. Things should be easier than that.
XHTML and CSS are the way to go, but CSS definitely has to improve. Designing a liquid two-column with header and footer layout using CSS is a nightmare, especially if you have to support several browsers. Doing the same thing with a simple table is much more simple. Just having the footer at the bottom of the page, and not just behind the body is (AFAIK) impossible with CSS. The easiest solution is often to go with fixed size and absolutely positioned divs, but then you reduce the accessibility of the page (if you change the font size, the div doesn't become larger). Once again, these problems don't exist with table layouts. IMHO, CSS has failed in the areas of layout, size and positioning.
He said "on normal roads", meaning "not on motorways". And normal roads outside of cities have a speed limit of 90 km/h in Europe (everywhere I've been in Europe, at least)
I'm surprised that Java and Servlet hosting isn't as popular as PHP
The main reason, IMHO, is that PHP is much more easy to install on a typical Apache web server, and much more appropriate for mutualized hosting.
With PHP (as a module or CGI), once a HTTP request is finished, all the resources (memory, DB connections, file handles, etc.) are given back to the operating system. With Java, the JVM keeps running after a request, and might keep locks on resources without anyone noticing.
This is a key advantage of Java for private hosting, because it makes caching, connection pooling and so on easy to handle. But it must be a nightmare to handle in a mutualized hosting, because any sloppy programmer could eat all your memory and DB connections.
Since MS Word has to be able to read the file and associate styles with paragraphs, I don't see how they would do it without mentioning the name of the style used by a paragraph somewhere in the XML.
You're describing what planning means (or designing, or whatever). I know that planning is important. What I consider doubtful is planning *ahead*, i.e. designing for more than what the application must do, just because the requirements might change in the future.
In my (short) experience, I've found that planning ahead is, most of the time, a bad idea. It takes time. It makes the code more complex than it could be, and thus less readable and maintainable. And when the spec finally changes, it changes in a way that makes this additional layer of complexity useless, and another layer is added on top of it.
There can be no argument that the US would be restricted much more than the #2 consumer of petroleum, China, under Kyoto
Hmmm. There is a strong argument: if the climate is changing now, it's because of the high CO2 emissions during the whole 20th century. And most of the CO2 emissions of the 20th century came from the US, Europe, and other industrial countries: not from China or India.
US has to make more efforts now because it has polluted much more in the past.
Seriously, if all the "shared" files aren't free, why should I help them by offering my bandwidth to their other customers? It's a bit like if I went to a shop, bought a disc, and the shop gave me 100 other copies to distribute by myself to other customers.
While this is not the first waste process of this type it is the first to be cost effective
How can such a thing be not cost-effective? Is there an alternative, other than letting people (and animals) slowly die from cancer for thousand years?
We will have to do something with nuclear waste, whatever the price is!
High scores can be achieved with 2 and 3 letter words and leave fewer openings for opponents
I agree with your advice. However, (at least here in France and in Belgium) real scrabble players always play in duplicate mode, where this kind of tactics (leave fewer openings for opponents) disappear along with the chance factor. Here's how it works.
Every player has his own scrabble game. One of the players takes letters in a bag and tells all the other ones which letters he takes. All the other players take exactly the same letters. Then all the players try to find the best word, and at the end of the time, each player takes the score of his own word, but the word that is finally put on the board is the one that had the highest score. Then the cycle restarts.
This way, no more chance factor!
JB.
It's now a major pain to install a windows system from scratch, using the original CD. You now have to - think about getting the latest service pack first - think about getting a firewall with its license key (love it when the firewalls ask to be registered before working, and need an internet connection to be registered!), - think about getting an anti-virus (same story) - then install the system (disconnected from the network, of course, so forget about "configuring an internet account" during the install) - install the service pack - install the firewall and the anti-virus and make sure that they're running - go to windows-update and patch your system - start to play.
This is an impossible task for 99% of the regular windows users, who don't even know what a firewall is and how to configure it. There have been improvements in the installation process of OSes and applications, in order to make it possible for reg. users, but all these efforts have been ruined by virus and worm writers. And I'm not even talking about spyware, adware and spam...
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, but, in other news:
Extra! Extra! Read all about it.
Pinball wizard in a miracle cure.
Extra! Extra! Read all about it.
Extra!
(The only song I know the lyrics by heart)
That's nothing : in an episode of NCIS, they have to crack a remote system (or prevent a cracker for cracking their own system, I don't remember), so they employ the usual technique : they type very fast on the keyboard.
But since they're really in a hurry, they enhance this well-known technique : Abby and Mc Gee both type, at the same time, very fast, on the same keyboard. Go beat that!
Oh - bonus points if you store the Calendar instance in a static variable, and never require the getInstance() call again.
This would introduce a bug in your application, since Calendar.getInstance() always returns a new instance, containing the current time at the moment it is created. Storing it in a static variable and reusing it would return the same time forever.
Moreover, Calendar is not thread-safe and is mutable, so storing it in a shared static variable is a really bad idea.
I suffer from stammering, you insensitive clod!
Subversion calls this a feature branch. You branch the trunk, which stays open to the public. You make regular commits to the branch, and when the large refactoring is done in the branch, you reintegrate the branch into the trunk. The trunk remains stable during the whole process.
How is it different with a distributed system?
mind you, by default those things allocate in 6-index chunks, so every 6 objects you add it copies the whole ArrayList to a new one, with 6 more spots available. @_@
There's a reason Java got the sluggish reputation, but it's not because the JIT code is slow. It's because the developers can get by with less of an understanding of what goes on behind the scenes, which never turns out good...
Huh. You might well be the one who doesn't understand what goes on behind the scenes. Just read the source code:
public void ensureCapacity(int minCapacity) { // ... // ...
int newCapacity = (oldCapacity * 3)/2 + 1;
}
It thus allocates half the current size of the list each time the capacity is reached, and not just 6 slots.
I've seen two definitions of Web2.0: user-contributed contents, and the use of AJAX/DHTML.
The first characteristic doesn't need any new technology: Slashdot is a good example of a web site containing lots of user-contributed contents, and works for ages. No need for a 2.0 version of the web.
The second one is newer: we already had DHTML, but didn't have XMLHttpRequest. This is where abuse can lead to bad design and bad usability, IMO.
My advices to web developers: just because the content of your web site is dynamic and the site contains some forms doesn't mean you have a web application like GMail! Most of the time, it's just a web site, and should work like a traditional web site: the back button should work, opening pages in new windows or new tabs should work.
Just because you may refresh the body of the page without reloading it entirely doesn't mean you should. Think about why frames are usually avoided when you plan using AJAX: it might cause the same annoyances.
I don't see why laying off people would make them more competitive against AMD. Sure, their HR department will have less work afterwards, but they're not the ones who will make Intel more competitive.
This is just to make the actions go up and make the investors richer, but it won't make them more competitive to AMD, and more attractive to customers.
My compassion will to the laid off employees, and my money will go to AMD when I'll buy a new chip.
I'm pretty sure being transformed into a moving light-emitting ad would make lots of people feel super-cool, and they would be ready to pay for that
You're right, but the ethical reason of the vegeterians (most of the time) is not: do not eat meat because it will make the cows disappear (species-oriented thinking). It is rather: every time you eat meat, an animal has suffered, often during its whole life (individual-oriented thinking).
If everyone stops eating steaks, there will be less cows, but the cows still living on this planet won't suffer as much, and there will be less suffering.
What amazes me, as an ex-vegetarian, is all the persons who eat meat but are disgusted by the idea of eating dogs or cats, and even more disgusted by the idea of eating their own dog or cat. See, once you start giving some value to the life of an individual animal, you don't eat it. Vegetarians are the same: they give some value to the life of each cow on this planet, and thus refuse to eat them. That doesn't mean they want as many cows as possible on the planet, or even that they are concerned about the survival of the cow species.
To me, as soon as the C code uses pointers, it is potentially malicious. That's one of the reason why so many people choose Java, C# or other pointer-free languages.
It's simple... until you have to make it look good. Add a border between the left bar and the body that goes down to the footer, and it becomes trickier. Then add to the mix that you don't want the body to fall below the left bar when it becomes larger than expected (big images or large tables), and it's even harder. Not to mention the problems when you start additioning percents together to make it 100% and you see scrollbars appearing. No, really, CSS should have made it as easy as using tables for layout, and it hasn't.
I agree with you regarding the bad support for CSS in IE. But it's still the most used browser, and when you have to deliver real applications, CSS and IE can make you mad!
Regarding the technique mentioned for the footer, I'll bookmark it. But it validates my remarks: this technique is not well-known; it's completely counter-intuitive; it needs hacks to work in several browsers; and it needs absolute sizing of the margin of the footer, which make it less accessible. Things should be easier than that.
XHTML and CSS are the way to go, but CSS definitely has to improve. Designing a liquid two-column with header and footer layout using CSS is a nightmare, especially if you have to support several browsers. Doing the same thing with a simple table is much more simple.
Just having the footer at the bottom of the page, and not just behind the body is (AFAIK) impossible with CSS.
The easiest solution is often to go with fixed size and absolutely positioned divs, but then you reduce the accessibility of the page (if you change the font size, the div doesn't become larger). Once again, these problems don't exist with table layouts.
IMHO, CSS has failed in the areas of layout, size and positioning.
He said "on normal roads", meaning "not on motorways". And normal roads outside of cities have a speed limit of 90 km/h in Europe (everywhere I've been in Europe, at least)
The main reason, IMHO, is that PHP is much more easy to install on a typical Apache web server, and much more appropriate for mutualized hosting.
With PHP (as a module or CGI), once a HTTP request is finished, all the resources (memory, DB connections, file handles, etc.) are given back to the operating system. With Java, the JVM keeps running after a request, and might keep locks on resources without anyone noticing.
This is a key advantage of Java for private hosting, because it makes caching, connection pooling and so on easy to handle. But it must be a nightmare to handle in a mutualized hosting, because any sloppy programmer could eat all your memory and DB connections.
I think it will depend on the way the author of the document made it. If the author has used styles, you will certainly have something like
<p style="Title 1">My heading</p>.
If the author hasn't used styles, you will have something like
<font name="arial" size="18" style="bold">My heading</font>
Since MS Word has to be able to read the file and associate styles with paragraphs, I don't see how they would do it without mentioning the name of the style used by a paragraph somewhere in the XML.
You're describing what planning means (or designing, or whatever).
I know that planning is important. What I consider doubtful is planning *ahead*, i.e. designing for more than what the application must do, just because the requirements might change in the future.
In my (short) experience, I've found that planning ahead is, most of the time, a bad idea.
It takes time. It makes the code more complex than it could be, and thus less readable and maintainable. And when the spec finally changes, it changes in a way that makes this additional layer of complexity useless, and another layer is added on top of it.
Hmmm. There is a strong argument: if the climate is changing now, it's because of the high CO2 emissions during the whole 20th century. And most of the CO2 emissions of the 20th century came from the US, Europe, and other industrial countries: not from China or India. US has to make more efforts now because it has polluted much more in the past.
We'll finally be able to watch a HDTV film in a crowded bus on a 2cm-large screen. Cool!
Seriously, if all the "shared" files aren't free, why should I help them by offering my bandwidth to their other customers?
It's a bit like if I went to a shop, bought a disc, and the shop gave me 100 other copies to distribute by myself to other customers.
And the cost of the destruction of the nuclear plant after its 20 or 30 year lifespan is completely omitted as well!
We will have to do something with nuclear waste, whatever the price is!
High scores can be achieved with 2 and 3 letter words and leave fewer openings for opponents
I agree with your advice. However, (at least here in France and in Belgium) real scrabble players always play in duplicate mode, where this kind of tactics (leave fewer openings for opponents) disappear along with the chance factor. Here's how it works.
Every player has his own scrabble game. One of the players takes letters in a bag and tells all the other ones which letters he takes. All the other players take exactly the same letters. Then all the players try to find the best word, and at the end of the time, each player takes the score of his own word, but the word that is finally put on the board is the one that had the highest score. Then the cycle restarts.
This way, no more chance factor!
JB.
It's now a major pain to install a windows system from scratch, using the original CD.
You now have to
- think about getting the latest service pack first
- think about getting a firewall with its license key (love it when the firewalls ask to be registered before working, and need an internet connection to be registered!),
- think about getting an anti-virus (same story)
- then install the system (disconnected from the network, of course, so forget about "configuring an internet account" during the install)
- install the service pack
- install the firewall and the anti-virus and make sure that they're running
- go to windows-update and patch your system
- start to play.
This is an impossible task for 99% of the regular windows users, who don't even know what a firewall is and how to configure it. There have been improvements in the installation process of OSes and applications, in order to make it possible for reg. users, but all these efforts have been ruined by virus and worm writers.
And I'm not even talking about spyware, adware and spam...