I thought the exact same thing when I started as a software engineer in 1996, almost 20 years ago. Only back then we actually generated HTML in C++ on the server (with home-brewed "html template" processors.) And we had to deal with things like COM, and browsers were far less standardized. We also had to deal with database design, only we had to make home-brewed Object-Relational Mappings, because the frameworks for that weren't that good either. Marshalling an object from the database through the business logic and onto the client and back required all kinds of hand-written code. We also had to worry about deployment, but we could only dream about something like WiX. I don't want to hear any complaining about build systems if you haven't been subjected to the horrors of makefiles. We had source control way back then too, but it was less flexible, less salable, and more difficult to use.

And check this out. If we didn't know a tool or API or algorithm or data-structure (oh yeah, we wrote our own back then), you couldn't just google the answer. You had to actually find it in a book, or learn it from a friend or colleague.

They problem is not that they don't know what they're talking about. The problem is that they think they do. There's no excuse for it. Journalists aren't expected to be experts in the things they write about. They're just expected to not be full of shit.

I tried [software] because so many people told me it was ready, not to be some unpaid QA/alpha tester for buggy crap. That's the kind of work you'd have to pay me to do, free is not worth it. Expect people to get angry when you pull a bait and switch on them, even if you didn't do the baiting. And even though all it costs me was time I actually value my time and despite those who waste it.

Huh. You've just brilliantly described my experience as a user of high-end seven-figure Enterprise Ready! software. I can imagine the vendor's management team in conference: "QA? Testing? That's what the user base is for."

Sigh.

I think this conversation has gone off the rails. Does that make it actually on-topic?

This is a holdover from C where you have to declare all your variables at the beginning of the scope. In C++ (and IIRC now in C) you can wait until you have the initializer before you declare the variable. Uninitialized variables should almost never be used, and always commented.

But how can you subtract hours from watts?

Fabulous! what every project wants - nay, needs - is to import THOUSANDS of different modules.

Yeah, and that's exactly how many modules are used in a typical Drupal site... why are people who truly know nothign about Drupal posting bad things about it..?

PHP input filter is disabled by default from Drupal 7 on... really it's only good for prototyping.

Who wants PHP version 1?!? It's been PHP:Hypertext Preprocessor since version 2 or so.. =)

Wasn't Facebook originally on PHP..?

Couldn't they use quantum entanglement, and send information faster than the speed of light..?

Well, with copy/paste templates, you can understand the error messages. With C++ templates, the error messages are each kilobytes of jibberish, written in a strange dialect of lisp using angle brackets instead of parentheses.

Also, you don't need half a whiteboard to write the full name of a type.

No, no -- he's clearly talking in terms of coconuts to sparrows.

:-P

I am in favor of sensible regulation. This one isn't sensible, so I oppose it.

It's amazing though. Express any support for any sort of law or regulation, even the law against murder and suddenly some think you want to decide how many times they can inhale in an hour. I have no idea why.

Sometimes I think it has everything to do with how many times they inhale in an hour, and quite what they are inhaling. Some of their viewpoints just don't make sense otherwise.

:-P

Cry freedom all you want, but when something goes bad in the industrialized food chain, millions of innocent people are affected. And if there is no trace, fixing the problem may take months or years.

The last big food poisoning scare I recall hearing about was E. coli in tomatoes and lettuce that had been grown using untreated sewage. Spent brewery grains have nothing to do with that.

The last big meat-related food poisoning scare I recall hearing about was E. coli in processed chicken that had come from offal winding up in the machinery, and then in the meat. Spent brewery grains have nothing to do with that.

The last big meat-related scare I recall hearing about that wasn't E. coli was from BSE caused by cattle eating feed mixed with dead cattle. Spent brewery grains have nothing to do with that, at least directly.

So what would this proposed change in regulation possibly have to do with preventing food poisoning? I'm honestly at a loss for what problem this would fix.