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Comment Re:Not all projects should be done in C# or Java (Score 1) 389

Nice addition:

The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) has been using Python since 1998. This email from Thanos Vassilakis, then a programmer for NYSE, highlights the reliability, manageability, and ease of use enjoyed by Python programmers (not to mention family life!):

    On the New York Stock Exchange we use three languages in production to deliver serious trading services to the Specialists: c, C++, Python.

    Perl, tcl/tk, Java are used but for scripting, tools, and minor services where performance and memory foot print are not an issue. Yes, used correctly Python meets our performance, security and reliability requirements.

    We have had Java projects and launched Java services, they have all failed. We have many in the pipeline (thanks Big Blue) but NYSE's only serious internet based service is written in Python, and was launched in 1998. It is still up in it's sixth version, with no down time! The fifth version was rewritten in Java, 6 months overdue, failed, and replaced by python ( which took two weeks).

    Here at SIAC and NYSE Python is recognized by management to give results that other languages just can't achieve.

    For performance we have extended Python with our own specialized c objects, and we have used swig extensively to integrate to our legacy code, and middleware.

    Thanks Python, you let me get home to my kids.

    thanos

NYSE has run Python since 1998, when it rolled out its first internet application. It has experienced no downtime and has enjoyed Python's significant backward-compatability character ever since.

http://python.about.com/b/2006/11/17/the-new-york-stock-exchange-nyse-and-python.htm

Comment Re:My upbringing means I don't get lost (Score 1) 520

I also grew up in a rural area and somehow I've just got a built-in compass. Even when not directly seeing the sun in large cities, it's for me very easy to see what north/south is just by the type of light. Light in the north is more clear and white then light in the south. I've always had a bedroom with a window exactly north, perhaps that's why. :) But even in windows and staircases, I can usually just keep track of which is north. For navigation to streets I don't know in a city, I take e.g. a Google Maps print out, spot the general direction compared to $current_location and move towards it. Somehow it just doesn't matter to be if I go left-right or straight-left..etc. I end up where I need to go almost perfectly time after time again. :) And at night: the stars (Big Dipper/Cassiopeia/Orion are easy to spot). Also the moon can be useful: http://adventure.howstuffworks.com/true-north3.htm
Hardware Hacking

Submission + - Cold Fusionat room temperature possible after all?

StarfishOne writes: DailyTech reports the following interesting bit of news today:

" Cold fusion, the ability to generate nuclear power at room temperatures, has proven to be a highly elusive feat. In fact, it is considered by many experts to be a mere pipe dream — a potentially unlimited source of clean energy that remains tantalizing, but so far unattainable.

However, a recently published academic paper from the Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (Spawar) in San Diego throws cold water on skeptics of cold fusion. Appearing in the respected journal Naturwissenschaften, which counts Albert Einstein among its distinguished authors, the article claims that Spawar scientists Stanislaw Szpak and Pamela Mosier-Boss have achieved a low energy nuclear reaction (LERN) that can be replicated and verified by the scientific community."


NewScientist is also running an article on this subject, but that article is only available for subscribers.

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