BECAUSE JAVASCRIPT OBJECTS ARE PECULIAR. The difference between those two syntaxes is VITAL to understanding WHY they are peculiar. JavaScript's objects don't function like objects in other languages, especially at the conceptual (abstract) level.

An object is a generic, fundamental aspect of JavaScript.

To correct your weak analogy, imagine an Engineer is building a bridge, and he doesn't understand tension and compression. "Bah", he says "It's stuff anyone could learn by just reading a sufficiently detailed reference". "Fuck it", he says, "I'll just use a bunch of solid rocks!". So he goes and piles together rocks to make a bridge. It takes him 5 times longer to build the rock bridge (instead of a suspension bridge), and he suffers many failures along the way. In the end the bridge is pretty shitty, but it works, barely. It certainly isn't something that is going to last for very long. God forbid you have to use this bridge.

The engineer is you, and the bridge is the style of coding you are suggesting. These details are not "quirks".

It's sad how few web programmers have read this text. Don't be intimidated by its size, most of it is simply reference material, and not part of the tutorial chapters. If you read this book cover-to-cover (well, except for the hefty reference pages), you will be a JavaScript expert.

If you are a web programmer, and you can't answer any of the following questions, consider reading this book.

1.) What does the "new" keyword actually DO in javascript (hint: if you don't say about .prototype you are wrong).

2.) How would you implement a hash in Javascript? Related questions, how are Arrays and Objects different and similar? What is the shorthand notation for them? What does hasOwnProperty do? What is the difference between writing "obj.property" and "obj['property']", when "obj = {}" ?

3.) Explain how scope works in Javascript. How does this relate to closures?

Javascript gets a bad repuatation mostly because it is misunderstood.

My computer science is rusty, but essentially it wants to know if polynomial time solution algorithms (n^2, n^3, ..., n^c: where c is constant) exist for EVERY problem that is verifiable (solution checkable) ALSO in polynomial time.

Classic example, traveling salesman problem. Imagine you have to visit 5 cities, find the ordering of visits that yields the lowest total distance traveled. This problem is NP hard, thus it requires exhaustive search ( 5! solutions => n! time) to find an optimal solution. Verification of an optimal solution can be done in polynomial time (i.e. you already have the answer).

The cool part about P=NP, is that if ONE algorithm is found that solves an NP hard problem in polynomial time, ALL problems are solvable. You can map one sort of NP problem (e.g. traveling salesman), to another sort (e.g. 3-SAT), and have it remain NP. So if for one NP hard problem, you find a solution in P, it follows that ALL NP problems are solvable in P.

So basically it boils down to finding a holy grail of algorithms.

P.S. Apologies in advance, I haven't touched my Sipser book in 3 years.

Isn't this public key encryption? You DO know how that works right? Even if the eavesdropper has the public key (transmitted across the wire), it won't do jack. Think of it as 1-way encryption.

I was hoping to see some intelligent discussion of the pros/cons of choosing careers in science, but of course this is Slashdot, and all career discussions must degenerate into bashing mangers, finance, and boo-hooing the dangers of outsourcing. So let me inject some positive and rational comments into this mess.

The financial industry is full of climbers, and it sucks to work with those people. Smart people get jammed into confining roles with no ability to solve problems or exercise creativity. I know some really smart people who have left finance to return to academia, leaving behind $500K+ salaries. Almost everyone I know who works in finance/accounting hates their job or boss.

There are plenty of jobs outside of management that pay livable wages. Live within your means, and find a spouse who makes a decent living too. Americans are so damn greedy they don't understand that driving an economy car and living in a normal house doesn't mean that you are poor.

Finally, outsourcing. HAHAHAHAHA. Having seen it in action, I think it's hilarious that people feel threatened by it. Sorry folks, American and European universities still churn out the best qualified engineers in the world. The people willing to work for $5 /hr aren't nearly as competent, and you have the global economy to thank for that. Would someone please offer some evidence of a outsourcing success story?

My friends who work in science (PhD candidates, receiving full-tuition and stipends) get drunk on Tuesday nights. They travel to conferences in San Francisco and Prague. They set their own hours and work on stuff that means the world to them. There is some guidance in their research but they call the shots and decide what to research. That is pretty damn cool. One of my friends has parents who are professors and they sure do alright.

If you want to work in science, or engineering, don't listen to the Slashdot haters. There is plenty of opportunity left in this world, just work hard and get your stuff done; you can make a living doing something that you enjoy.

He won the 2007 Scripps National Spelling Bee also.

Depends... Remember folks, mathematics, statistics, chemistry, geology, and even computer science are available at liberal arts colleges.

Don't hate on the liberal arts. Sure there are plenty of bullshit majors, but I do feel much more well-rounded in my education. Technically-minded people forget that you don't need to make a living based off what you went to college for. People skills can be just as valuable as programming skills. College is simply a rite-of-passage into the adulthood for some, rather than a vocational school. And to be blunt most people are too dumb (and socially capable?) to be engineers.

(my liberal arts experience)
The uni that I graduated from allowed you to take any of those majors for a B.A. (liberal arts) or B.S. (college of engineering). Liberal arts math was actually harder; much more theoretical and you were allowed only a basic scientific calculator. Instead of taking 2 semesters physics, which isn't of tremendous use to non-engineers, you were allowed to take 4 semesters of foreign language. Finally, I got to choose the upper-level classes I wanted to take for CSCI, rather than having to take a predetermined emphasis/track, e.g. "Computer systems programming", "Web programming", which actually allowed me to take harder graduate-level classes.

Do you know how the FBI has operated since its inception? Google the FBI and MLK Jr. , the FBI and communists, the FBI and 1960s radicals. I don't know why people don't realize this is business as usual.

For the same reason as always, to line the pockets of the richest 5% while subduing the people with fantastic lies about "Freedom". The easiest early example would be The Sedition Act of 1798, which effectively made anti-government speech treasonous. We are a nation of hypocrites; our leaders rule under the principle of doublethink, whereby "Freedom" enjoy supreme lip-service, but truly must it exist only to keep the masses docile and in servitude.

American "Freedom" as you are taught in school is A LIE; it is pandering and idealistic. It ignores the fact that our founding fathers decreed that "All men shall be created equal" while holding slaves. It glances over the MANY instances of genocide of American Indians. You'll never read about the times that people have been imprisoned or worse for practicing freedom of speech. America is a great country, but you must understand that the common notion of a worsening state of affairs is a product of ignorance.

what if you hold a button to track with your eyes?

As someone with mounting RSI problems, who has tried everything short of surgery, this will be a godsend if it is available within 5 years.

Past tense. They no longer do. No matter how much "geek cred" their OS has for using QT or whatever Nokia phones use nowadays (haven't even seen one for years), the company is in crisis. Just because us geeks like something, doesn't mean the general public or shareholders will. Windows mobile in the past was absolute garbage, but it looks like their new OS could at least be a contender.

The metric system is the tool of the devil, my car gets forty rods to the hogshead, and that's the way I likes it!

Nah, that's what interviews are for. Technical questions and coding exercises are much more fair in this respect.

As someone who worked shitty programming and IT jobs for ~$10 /hr since high-school, I want to punch you in the face for suggesting that I deserve minimum wage for 2 college degrees, 3 years of (professional) programming experience, 5 years of IT experience, and 10+ years of hobbyist programming.

I went to a school with a pretty good CSCI program. The breakdown was like 15% - 20% talented programmers, 30% average programmers, and 50% below-average.

The talented programmers were competent; could probably step into any job and perform at a level consistent with a mid-level programmer, minus the ins-and-outs of the languages. The average programmers were suited to be junior-level programmers. The below-average were suited to helpdesk / QA.

Yea? And its also insane to pay some dumb-ass senior who can barely fucking program javascript just because they have 10 years of experience programming shitty code elsewhere. I worked with dozens of people who were making 80k+ doing just that, how many kids do you know making senior level salary for doing what you described?

Before this disintegrates into the inevitable slew of religion bashing...

From TFA:

Maybe its because mathematics is (often) an approximation. You can hide oodles of complexity with a constant, especially in a system that is not understood i.e. the universe.

Wow that's convincing. So basically, constants are either random, hiding complexity, or rooted in some string theory nonsense about infinite parallel universes. Oh yea, or they are created and tuned by God/gods/FSM, which is what this "evidence" claims to refute.

The constant expressing the universe's rate of expansion is positive, however:

And this is it. Some dude ran some simulations on a computer, simulations of a poorly understood system. And from this, we can conclude that our universe is not designed for life to exist. And yet here we are.

Theoretical physics is planted mid-way between science and pseudoscience. The field seems to be in its infancy, much like chemistry was in the early 1700s. This experiment isn't much different than the one that proved the existence of "phlogiston". Much of the evidence is "proven" without an understanding of the underlying principles, just on the basis of logical jumps and conclusions.