It really depends on which version of Actionscript you're using. Actionscript 3 was a marked deviation from AS1 and AS2. It highly resembles Java - Object Oriented, single inheritance, supports (multiple) interfaces, has the ability to be strongly typed if you choose, has packages, etc.
To further blur the distinction between the two, when you compile your AS3 project it actually uses the Sun Java compiler and compiles to Java bytecode. So at this point the only difference between Java and Actionscript3 is the parser (and the massive amount of libraries available to Java programmers but not to Flash programmers).
I'd think someone would wear a seatbelt because it keeps you from dying needlessly and leaving your loved ones. I'd think anyone that cared about their loved ones would cry at their funeral because they will really miss having them around for the rest of their lives.
Doesn't matter what you see the after life like - as a human you'll miss your loved ones here and now if you care about them. It's part of being human.
Did you actually READ the article you linked? Straight quote from it:
Now, some of Spider's code (possibly all of it) was based on the TCP/IP stack in the BSD flavors of Unix.
Oops! http://www.hu.freebsd.org/hu/arch/2001/Jun/2413.html And here we have testimony of the vast similarities between the BSD stack and NT's TCP stack. It's a good summary of a long discussion on the mailing list - read the mails leading up to it if you need more facts.
This file includes parts which are Copyright (c) 1982-1986 Regents
* of the University of California. All rights reserved. The
* Berkeley Software License Agreement specifies the terms and
* conditions for redistribution
in there. Or read a whopping 20ish lines down to see
Basic system type definitions, taken from the BSD file sys/types.h.
By variant we mean "includes BSD code". Even the Windows TCP stack in the NT line (including 2000 and XP, but I don't know about Vista) was an-only-slightly-if-at-all modified version of the BSD TCP implementation, and there could be more BSD in Windows, I haven't kept on top of that.
OSX includes BSD code, but isn't a variant of BSD. It's a hybrid of mach and BSD, and it's unclear just how much of each (and how much original Apple/nextstep code) is in there.
Yep. My clients have the same ability with their Office 2003 licenses. And it only took them paying me a ton per hour to figure out how, download the upgrade, and train their staff how to use it (for instance, they didn't get the save as... thing without help).
This is what standards are for. They should have been able to do this for free. I'd rather they didn't have to pay me: it isn't fair.
Agreed, but especially for web developers the ability to drag a file from a remote server onto your text editor, edit, save, and it saves the remote copy for you is priceless.
Beats the pants off of "download, edit, save, upload"
The ability to do this over ftp and ssh/sftp has been built into gnome and kde apps for years now. I haven't found competing functionality in Windows or OSX.
After you get spoiled by little features that end up being huge time savers like this, it's hard to call the competition usable. No offense - like I said I'm just spoiled.
Oh sure, those things were taught at my Uni. All the kids in the mandatory databases class learned about normalization, how to tell if something's in third normal form, etc.
I'll bet good money none of them really remember any of that stuff: they learned it for the test because they were forced to, and then forgot.
I'll admit I forgot a lot of the stuff that I just had to learn solely because some prof wanted me to learn it. I remember almost everything I learned on my own, because I wanted to learn it. And don't be so belittling: we're not talking VB.
I earned the degree, and looking back I really learned a lot less during college than I did on my own. Motivation and curiosity are amazing teachers.
The only really new thing college taught me was how to drink. Yay.
I'm pretty much in agreement. The compiler can't check your comments: It's explicitly told to ignore them.
While it's a ridiculous example, someone could easily change
std::string mkdec(std::string x)// Converts x, a string representing a hexidecimal number, to a decimal string.
To
std::string mkdec(std::string x)// Do a little dance, make a little love, get down tonight
And everything would still compile just fine, but all of a sudden new devs on the project are left in the dark as to what mkdec() does without reading through its code. If someone named the function convert_hex_string_to_decimal_string something cryptic or incorrect it would appear in many places (everywhere the function was used) and be much more noticeable and likely get fixed sooner.
Another fun one I've seen in legacy codebases a lot is
//Only used in this place or that place, or for this or that purpose.
int some_func() { blah }
... and that comment was written 5 years ago and is completely wrong. People used doxygen or intellisense or whatever and saw that this function exists and takes the input/output they want but never saw that comment so they used it in 1000 other places.
Or another fun one.
/* function foo()
does this, that, and another thing. ... big long description of inputs, outputs, constants that affect it, whatever...
*/
void foo() {blah }
... and the description is horribly out of date because it's been changed a million times.
I'll say it again: the compiler can't check your comments, and it's just too easy to change some code that will make a comment wrong and not realize it. So comments have their place but their use should be judicious.
"Self documenting code" (good variable and function names, etc) that the compiler can verify for you are preferable.
Funny you should mention that. Flash 9 runs on the JVM. So they're pretty much the same thing at this point. As of Flash 9(may have been sooner, but I've only worked with 9), Flash is Java plus a few extensions, once compiled.
Actionscript3 compiles to Java bytecode, and runs on the JVM. Not sure about AS2 and below.
Well there are benefits to running 64-bit other than addressable memory space.
One is that floating point operations can be a lot faster, and another is that a few opcodes that protect against stack smashing (disallowing negative array indexing, for example) are only available in the 64-bit opcodes. The latter is perfectly possible in 32-bit, it just never made it in there.
So 64-bit has a few advantages, but there are also some big disadvantages (code segments taking up 2x the memory space, for example).
This is not an exhaustive list of the ups and downs, but just mentioning a few.
A common workaround is to use a 32-bit chroot for Firefox and Flash. It's complicated, but if you're using 64-bit *nix you're expecting complications for things like flash or wine.
Slashdot Mirror
So what you're saying is that you didn't get the joke?
It really depends on which version of Actionscript you're using. Actionscript 3 was a marked deviation from AS1 and AS2. It highly resembles Java - Object Oriented, single inheritance, supports (multiple) interfaces, has the ability to be strongly typed if you choose, has packages, etc.
To further blur the distinction between the two, when you compile your AS3 project it actually uses the Sun Java compiler and compiles to Java bytecode. So at this point the only difference between Java and Actionscript3 is the parser (and the massive amount of libraries available to Java programmers but not to Flash programmers).
I'd think someone would wear a seatbelt because it keeps you from dying needlessly and leaving your loved ones. I'd think anyone that cared about their loved ones would cry at their funeral because they will really miss having them around for the rest of their lives.
Doesn't matter what you see the after life like - as a human you'll miss your loved ones here and now if you care about them. It's part of being human.
Did you actually READ the article you linked? Straight quote from it:
Now, some of Spider's code (possibly all of it) was based on the TCP/IP stack in the BSD flavors of Unix.
Oops!
http://www.hu.freebsd.org/hu/arch/2001/Jun/2413.html
And here we have testimony of the vast similarities between the BSD stack and NT's TCP stack. It's a good summary of a long discussion on the mailing list - read the mails leading up to it if you need more facts.
Or why not cut straight to the chase: http://research.microsoft.com/invisible/include/winsock.h.htm
You may notice things like
This file includes parts which are Copyright (c) 1982-1986 Regents * of the University of California. All rights reserved. The * Berkeley Software License Agreement specifies the terms and * conditions for redistribution
in there. Or read a whopping 20ish lines down to see
Basic system type definitions, taken from the BSD file sys/types.h.
Because I wrote the comment for heaven's sake, and it was meant to be funny not insightful.
Hell I can't figure out why it could be seen as insightful.
Kind of my point.
By variant we mean "includes BSD code". Even the Windows TCP stack in the NT line (including 2000 and XP, but I don't know about Vista) was an-only-slightly-if-at-all modified version of the BSD TCP implementation, and there could be more BSD in Windows, I haven't kept on top of that.
OSX includes BSD code, but isn't a variant of BSD. It's a hybrid of mach and BSD, and it's unclear just how much of each (and how much original Apple/nextstep code) is in there.
It'd be the best April Fools day ever.
I agree. When I program an app in Qt, it runs beautifully on Windows even if I originally wrote it in Linux. All I have to do is recompile it.
All the compatibility issues are taken care of for me. Feels almost like someone wants my app to be compatible. Call me crazy.
Yep. My clients have the same ability with their Office 2003 licenses. And it only took them paying me a ton per hour to figure out how, download the upgrade, and train their staff how to use it (for instance, they didn't get the save as... thing without help).
This is what standards are for. They should have been able to do this for free. I'd rather they didn't have to pay me: it isn't fair.
I agree Microsoft has pulled off worse travesties than Apple, but that's because it's had the power to do so.
I support Apple and Linux as much as I can until Microsoft doesn't have the market share necessary to abuse everyone.
At that point I'll re-evaluate who I support.
Agreed, but especially for web developers the ability to drag a file from a remote server onto your text editor, edit, save, and it saves the remote copy for you is priceless.
Beats the pants off of "download, edit, save, upload"
The ability to do this over ftp and ssh/sftp has been built into gnome and kde apps for years now. I haven't found competing functionality in Windows or OSX.
After you get spoiled by little features that end up being huge time savers like this, it's hard to call the competition usable. No offense - like I said I'm just spoiled.
Which makes me hope all attempts to write to the EEPROM are being logged in the new driver, with stacktraces.
Otherwise what's the point of testing them? Sure they won't brick your card, but you can't get very useful feedback.
Oh sure, those things were taught at my Uni. All the kids in the mandatory databases class learned about normalization, how to tell if something's in third normal form, etc.
I'll bet good money none of them really remember any of that stuff: they learned it for the test because they were forced to, and then forgot.
I'll admit I forgot a lot of the stuff that I just had to learn solely because some prof wanted me to learn it. I remember almost everything I learned on my own, because I wanted to learn it. And don't be so belittling: we're not talking VB.
I earned the degree, and looking back I really learned a lot less during college than I did on my own. Motivation and curiosity are amazing teachers.
The only really new thing college taught me was how to drink. Yay.
He's you in 25 years...
No, I have a degree. I just think, in hindsight, it was a meaningless gesture to get one.
Fuck college. I learned more with curiosity + search engines in Jr. High and Elementary school than college ever came close to.
While it's a ridiculous example, someone could easily change
std::string mkdec(std::string x) // Converts x, a string representing a hexidecimal number, to a decimal string.
To
std::string mkdec(std::string x) // Do a little dance, make a little love, get down tonight
And everything would still compile just fine, but all of a sudden new devs on the project are left in the dark as to what mkdec() does without reading through its code. If someone named the function convert_hex_string_to_decimal_string something cryptic or incorrect it would appear in many places (everywhere the function was used) and be much more noticeable and likely get fixed sooner.
Another fun one I've seen in legacy codebases a lot is
//Only used in this place or that place, or for this or that purpose.
int some_func() { blah }
... and that comment was written 5 years ago and is completely wrong. People used doxygen or intellisense or whatever and saw that this function exists and takes the input/output they want but never saw that comment so they used it in 1000 other places.
Or another fun one.
/* function foo()
... big long description of inputs, outputs, constants that affect it, whatever ...
does this, that, and another thing.
*/
void foo() {blah }
... and the description is horribly out of date because it's been changed a million times.
I'll say it again: the compiler can't check your comments, and it's just too easy to change some code that will make a comment wrong and not realize it. So comments have their place but their use should be judicious.
"Self documenting code" (good variable and function names, etc) that the compiler can verify for you are preferable.
3 the taste of my foot. Guess I should have checked before I said that.
Actually Flash 10 is supposed to include hardware accelerated 3D.
The next version of Flash (10) is supposed to have hardware accelerated 3D as well.
At this rate I wouldn't be surprised if the Adobe Reader was leveraging the GPU in its next release.
Yep. That one's pretty bad, but I've also seen "Error: SUCCESS". I was baffled.
Actually I think the likelihood she was duped by phishing is greater. It'd be much easier to phish a yahoo account than brute force its password.
Funny you should mention that. Flash 9 runs on the JVM. So they're pretty much the same thing at this point. As of Flash 9(may have been sooner, but I've only worked with 9), Flash is Java plus a few extensions, once compiled.
Actionscript3 compiles to Java bytecode, and runs on the JVM. Not sure about AS2 and below.
Well there are benefits to running 64-bit other than addressable memory space.
One is that floating point operations can be a lot faster, and another is that a few opcodes that protect against stack smashing (disallowing negative array indexing, for example) are only available in the 64-bit opcodes. The latter is perfectly possible in 32-bit, it just never made it in there.
So 64-bit has a few advantages, but there are also some big disadvantages (code segments taking up 2x the memory space, for example).
This is not an exhaustive list of the ups and downs, but just mentioning a few.
A common workaround is to use a 32-bit chroot for Firefox and Flash. It's complicated, but if you're using 64-bit *nix you're expecting complications for things like flash or wine.