They aren't being left behind
They are right behind.

Since when is the fact that programs have bugs news.

Being a programmer is almost as depressing as being a meteorologist. People use your services/products on daily bases but only remember you when you get things wrong.

Also making a bug free application is almost as hard as making a faultless weather prediction for an entire month.

I don't know why we,programmers and meteorologist, even try (though programmers also catch and throw).

Here's the algorithm

1. Patent an 'invention'
2. If you notice someone is using your invention, DON'T SUE
3. Wait for them to actually succeed, and invest time. money and creativity in creating something useful that's loosely based on your half-baked idea that you patented
4. Sue the successful company
5. Profit

or just randomly sue successful start ups until you find one that used your patent

Patents have really lost their purpose.

By the way I've just patented

1 step one
2 ???
3 profit

pattern so from now on I can sue anyone who used a systematic approach to generated profit.

P.S.
Anyone else chuckled after reading the name Charles Nutter?

My dad has harnessed this power and uses it consciously when somebody tries to talk to him.

It's sort of spam filter.

Now semiseriously this might help you sleep but wouldn't it also make you more vulnerable and exposed when sleeping. Noise can be an indicator of danger. Evolutionary wouldn't the early human actually benefit from light sleep? Or to put it into modern context wouldn't you like to be woken up if someone is breaking into your house? What I am saying is that I am not sure I would call these people 'lucky'.

Are you summarizing sex or doom?

Sex...it's just like doom.

It's been 17 years since I enjoyed either.

Are summarizing sex or doom?

Sex...it's like doom.

Bonus 'joke':
It's been 17 years since I enjoyed either.

1 Elo BenchmarkOpen 0.723834
2 EdROpen 0.729125
3 whiteknightOpen 0.731656
so at this moment elo is back on top.

Could it be that people have been done some quickly jumpening to conclusions?

I guess george is working at /. now.

This worth the news simply cause this is one of the few decent looking games for linux.
Any linux purist (i.e. someone who has no dual boot) who likes computer (as opposed to console) games should try this, yes all ten of you.
If not for any other reason then to encourage more developers to do this.
If more developers do this it will indirectly improve code quality, cause programming a multi platform game/software requires a certain level of code quality.
I hope linux and windows client here are developed separately.

I still prefer League Of Legends, mainly for it's more lighthearted design.

or pedophilia.

Seriously though, it was ..well not 'nice'...but a right thing to do I suppose. I am not sure how old are these kids you're talking about. If they were 12-13, maybe using violence was not the best choice....but i suppose if they were around 18..and still bullying it is fair to say they deserve a beating.

But you are right, support from and adult or older sibling in these situations means a lot. The worst thing about these situations is that the bullied person starts feeling like they are on their own.

at the bottom of TFA there are links to related articles...and there's one which talks about something i tried to explain here. It is not exactly same, but it's probably much clearer then i was.
http://www.skorks.com/2010/03/the-difference-between-a-developer-a-programmer-and-a-computer-scientist/

I disagree with your analogies...especially the car analogy. Every craftsmen (in broadest terns, cooks, mechanics,programmers etc) needs or has great benefits from substantial understand of the abstraction level below his is working on.

By level below I mean that
Automotive engineer benefits greatly from knowledge of physics, probably mostly those involving friction and heating. Cause car parts are built around physics principles.

A car driver would benefit from knowledge of automotive engineering...a driver who understands how car works is GENERALLY a better driver.

A pizza cook greatly benefits from knowledge of spice production (chemistry would be two levels below), which spices go together, what plants are used. Differences in dough...some need to be baked for a longer time, and knowing or having insight to the reason why (as opposed to empirical knowledge) helps a lot.

On the other hand a spice maker WOULD greatly benefit from knowledge of chemistry, as chemistry is closer to the his level of abstraction then it is to the pizza makers'.

Now programming and mathematics...it depends.
If you are making new algorithms, compilers, frameworks, database engines you definitely benefit from knowledge of maths, and cant make a good database engine or compiler without knowledge of maths.

A web programmer, is on a higher level of abstraction...than database engine designer, and has less need for maths.

So it depends, on which level of abstraction as a programmer do you want to concentrate.

Do you want to make new and faster encryption modules, or do you want to be an application designer? Or maybe be jack of all trades kind of programmer?

Programming has evolved. and the term 'programmer' has become to general to have any use in discussions like this. It's like farmers and cooks, they are both food producers...but their jobs are quite different and require different knowledge. Nobody mixes those two professions up.

So in programming you have 'farmers'
which code the lowest level of software... drivers, compilers, frameworks

and programming 'cooks'
which use what 'farmers' grow to make 'dishes'.
or use frameworks to make applications.

Analogies are traps, so dont read too much into my analogy...and don't look too closely.

Just to complete the picture after using the same Data presented in the article and summing up all internet explorers and all firfoxes we get
ie first column firefox the second chrome third and others fourth

68.28% 20.46% 0.00% 11.27% 100.00% March, 2009
67.60% 21.18% 0.00% 11.22% 100.00% April, 2009
67.26% 20.58% 0.01% 12.16% 100.00% May, 2009
65.05% 20.47% 0.07% 14.41% 100.00% June, 2009
62.76% 20.75% 0.13% 16.36% 100.00% July, 2009
61.45% 21.36% 0.23% 16.96% 100.00% August, 2009
60.65% 22.27% 1.20% 15.88% 100.00% September, 2009
59.58% 22.69% 3.14% 14.59% 100.00% October, 2009
58.28% 23.29% 3.34% 15.09% 100.00% November, 2009
57.38% 23.23% 3.75% 15.64% 100.00% December, 2009
56.96% 22.39% 3.92% 16.73% 100.00% January, 2010

as you can see in past months ie has steadly lost market share( lost 12 %) while firefox...has been..actually pretty steady.

Chrome is the biggest winner in past few months

So as always with statistics it can be skinned anyway you want it.

For example why are firefox 3 and firefox 3.5 being treated as two different browsers. They are both Firefox version 3
If we were to add those to statistics Firefox 3 would have roughly the same share as internet explorer 8.0 that is 22.30%

Version numbering is affecting the statistics here, MS doesn't use the same philosophy as Firefox when it comes to versioning.
MS never had internet explorer 6.5...but it had internet explorer sp1 and sp2...which are as different from each other as firefox 3 and firefox 3.5. Yet internet explorer 6.0 is displayed as one browser.

Once IE 8 receives a sp or a major update should its statistics be split to ie 8 with sp and ie 8 without sp

How different two versions of the same browser have to be different to justify the splitting of their statistics.