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Comment Re: Perl (Score 1) 536

Serious problems like avionics, medical software, space-probes, life-support. Critical applications. Where errors and bugs are absolutely unacceptable. Or back-end OS software, or server software where you care about speed of execution.

Not ALL problems however exist in that abstract problem domain.

And this is the bit you're getting wrong. Turing-completeness has deeper ramifications than the ability simulate a Turing machine. It has to do with computability. The question of CAN we describe an algorithm to do X. And it turns out that if you have some basic building blocks like the ability to branch and remember things (and an infinite amount of space to work with), then you can compute anything that any other Turing complete machine could do.

High level languages lack the expressive capability to exert precise direct control over the hardware.
You can't write a device driver for a peripheral card in Lisp, because you need memory and port mapped IO, and Lisp lacks the ability to address the hardware directly.

As does EVERY language. Even Assembly. Microsoft's masm, or yasm are specific programs that know how to map x86 hardware to software, but the exact same thing can be done for a Lisp compiler. You're confusing an implementation of a language with the language itself. I could say that the KEIL51 C compiler gives me special function registers, sfrs, which are mapped to the 8051's serial port. BAM! just the same functionality that the assembler gives. Either you consider that an aspect of the language or you don't, but assembly, C, and Lisp are all in the same boat.

Comment Re:Streisand effect (Score 2) 239

It does now. Because it's rare and uncommon. And if it goes well for him and people like him, then you're going to see more and more people performing PR campaigns on their own histories, re-writing the past, and burying their past sins.

The streisand effect only happens when someone steps out of line and deviates from the norm. It was an oddity that Streisand sued Kenneth Adelman and Pictopia.com for some aerial photography. Because it made waves, it attracted eyeballs.

Stan O'Neal using this law is a oddity right now. Let's see how commonplace it is in 5 years.

Comment EU has gone too far for my tastes (Score 1) 239

"right to be forgotten"
Sounds like a con-artists wet-dream.

I understand the whole forgiveness thing. Some people deserve a second chance. Some people can change.
But what about my right to tell my friends that that asshole just screwed me out of a ton of money and that he can't be trusted?

Comment Re:Perl (Score 1) 536

It certainly is needed, if you want to keep white space insignificant.

Huh? Have you ever written a compiler? A C compiler could infer the end of statements, regardless of semicolons or whitespace.

Getting rid of semicolons would needlessly complicate lexical analysis.

Well, yes, a little. But so what if it's a little harder to make a compiler for the language? That has nearly zero impact on the vast majority of people using the language. I mean, have YOU ever contributed to the GCC?

Or were you talking about coders' ability to read the code?

The response to that would be that new statements should go on another line, what kind of barbarian are you if you don't do that? Whether or not the line ends with a semicolon doesn't especially make anything more readable.

Just take a chunk of C code. Now delete all the semi-colons. Is that so much harder to read?

Comment Re: Perl (Score 1) 536

Whoahohold on there buddy, let me fix that for you

but almost any idea that can be imagined can be expressed (implemented) in any Turing complete language.

When people talk about "expressiveness" they usually refer to how easy it is to express such thoughts, not if it's possible.

Anything else is just a subset of what you can do with assembler.

No, actually, that's not true. You see, anything any Turing complete language can do, can be done by any other Turing complete language... eventually. The actions are 100% translatable. It might take you a whole boat-load of code to replicate objects in C, but it can be done. And sometimes that a Turing Tarpit.

some things that can be done in assembler that can't be done in C

Not conceptually. I mean, sure, you can do things faster in assembly, using less opcodes, just as you can do things faster in C, using less lines of code. But if you want result X, C can get you result X.

Not easily. Not concisely. And not safely

And here's the crux of the argument. That C is harder, less concise, and not as "safe" as other languages. Now, I love C. I'd even say that it's the best language to tackling serious problems. But for web-dev? For "expressiveness"? No man, no. I have to disagree. C is unsafe as all get out. It let's you shoot yourself right in the foot. We don't need no stinkin' safties! C can do anything, but it takes a lot of work to wrangle it into shape. Have you looked at the GTK? You CAN make you own garbage collector, but that's a lot of code. And simply put, C is hard. It's not a good language to learn on.

Comment Re:Perl (Score 1) 536

Uhhhhhhh, I'd say there's two camps.

1) The sort that forces you to do something because that's a good practice. Good to learn on. "This is the way child".

2) The sort that gets out of your way to let you do what you want.

Take the semicoln in C. It's not needed. It's really just a pleasant confirmation to the compiler to let it know that your current statement is done. But it doesn't strictly need to be there for compilers to know that. It's certainly how the language was written and how all C compilers expect code to be written, but that aspect of C is from the first camp.

A good language to learn on should enforce good practices. A good language for getting shit done shouldn't. I know that unit testing is a good idea in theory, but sometimes I just want to crank out some code and see how it goes.

Comment Re:Seriously? (Score 4, Informative) 203

Hey, that story isn't all sad:

"Three officers were tried for manslaughter and other charges surrounding falsification and were sentenced to ten, six, and five years."

The entire narcotics department (that weren't in jail) was flushed with new hires replacing them and no-knock warrents are more restricted.

So far they're doing better than LA cops...

Comment Re:I see a problem here... (Score 1) 380

Right, there's no money in selling the ammonia.

But there's a profit to be made selling the thing that can run on free fuel as opposed to $5.00/gal oil.

And there's a fuckton of profit to be made inventing the technology that allows the car-makers to earn a profit over the heads of their competitors.

This would be a FANTASTIC business.

you can be damned sure no one will ever allow this to be a legit fuel for cars.

AAAAaaahhh, implied anti-competitive practices by the entrenched powers. That's a legitimate concern and if these guys wind up mysteriously murdered and/or promoted to the oil/gas industry, then you can bet your ass then people are watching and will chase after that golden opportunity, albeit quietly.

Comment Re:StarFlight (Score 1) 100

Holy SHIT!
You can go back up the stairs in Nethack!? Does the maker of Rogue know?

StarFlight did all of that.

No, actually it didn't. The reason they had a procedurally generated map is that they COULDN'T save the game-state to disk. Disks were really small back then. Size constraints are a thing of the past, but they were a super-bitch back in the day. Their "fractal engine" created the world from an algorithm. And then I think they saved a couple flags if the player dinked with a planet or advanced plot. Saving the delta could really add up, so I don't know exactly how they persisted their map.

Comment StarFlight (Score 1) 100

Back in my day, we had 800 planets that were procedurally generated, AND WE LIKED IT!

But really, the concept that you can procedurally generate an infinite universe is not that ground-breaking. I understand a lot of people are falling for the hype-train. And hey, it might be a really fun game. As long as there's something meaningful to do with all this PGC, and the game play holds water. But just because it's procedurally generated doesn't sell me on a game.

(Also, side-note, where the hell are the procedurally generated maps for the FPS genre? Why hasn't this happened yet?)

Comment Re:Not a dupe (Score 1) 358

By Richard Mullins | Tribune Staff
Published: April 29, 2014 | Updated: April 30, 2014 at 06:52 AM ...

The agency is proposing a fine of $48,000 against Humphreys.

News story: FCC proposes $48,000 fine
Followup story: FCC levies $48,000 fine
This just in!: Man recievers letter for $48,000 fine
You heard it here first: Man re-reads letter, yes the fine is for $48,000
Day 5 of ScrambleWatch: FCC confirms fine was for $48,000
Investigative journalism: Lawbooks confirm FCC can levie fines of $48,000
Sad tosser journalism: We called the FCC rather than mail them, against all conceivable actions, they said the fine was STILL $48,000

Comment Re:Not a dupe (Score 1) 358

Has anything changed? Is there additional details? New facts? Stuff that's actually new? Is it news-worthy?

If not, then it's not a follow-up, it's just a very old duplicate.

Hey, sometimes I understand a journalist being fed up that X is STILL in jail, or that Y has not yet been prosecuted. It's a little news-worthy when a deadline or something passes or an anniversary of an event happens. People forget sometimes. Sometimes that's tragic.

Not this guy though. He's just kind of a passive-aggressive vigilante wannabe that ended up a bigger problem then what irritated him.

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