The main problem I think is, there's only so many times you can take parcel x to somedude y in the next zone and have it feel like a new and interesting experience. I agree that it would take something like VR to make it fresh again. What I don't understand though is why so many MMOs follow the exact same formula instead of trying something unique.

We can and do build tools that make simple tasks simple for more people, but let's not let most people loose on the infrastructure of our technical civilization or force the professionals to use only tools designed for amateurs.

We should try to make complex things easy with better tools. We should not discourage people from attempting to program by making it more complex than it needs to be. The part about "forcing professionals to use only tools designed for amateurs" is a non sequitur. Nobody is "forcing" professionals to use amateur tools.

I think Stroustrup's main problem is he doesn't know how to make the complex simple but rather than simply admit this he lashes out at the entire concept.

"Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it's worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains." -Steve Jobs

I agree with you. Tools should facilitate correctness.

The primary requirement for a program is correctness.

Not necessarily. For many programs "good enough now" beats "completely correct when I no longer care about the result". For instance, many games cut corners when rendering graphics in order to increase speed. Does it really matter that a shadow is off by a couple of pixels if the alternative means the game will not run on a laptop at playable speeds?

ADA is the Americans with Disabilities Act or the American Dental Association. The programming language is called Ada.

If we were densely populated we wouldn't need airplanes to visit relatives and public transit would be more cost effective. There are plenty of efficiencies we could find before resources become an issue. Plus the sun provides plenty of energy and we could find better ways to harness that energy.

The real problem is that the leisure society we all dream about isn't compatible with 7+ billion people. Why? Because the earth is too small to account for all resources exploitation necessary to perform these luxury automations.

Malthusian Nonsense. You could fit the entire world's population in New Zealand.
http://www.fastcoexist.com/301...

So it seems like the best defense for the restaurant owner would be "we didn't actually condone him playing music"

I don't think you quite grasp the concept of hiring a DJ.

So? If they're going to use anything, they might as well pick the one that's being paid for by someone else. And from what I remember, Apple used to support a lot of schools back in the day (even though ours used PCjrs).

I think Ada and Pascal are the most easily readable.

Programming is bimodal in the following way: People who think logically and people who don't. Among those who think logically there is a variation of skill from average to great. Among those who don't think logically there a a variation of skill from ineffective to destructive.

$5 Slashdot registrations?

I don't know too many kids setting up new community spaces, at least not the ones spending less than $5.

On the other hand, maybe this can serve as a new baseline for some of the mods to be updated (or redone) for the newer (1.8.4+) Minecraft versions, especially if most of the server owners update their servers to fix this exploit/bug.

If you "get" algebra then you don't need to memorise rules.

Perhaps but nevertheless, in class as I remember it, they instruct you to memorize rules such as the following: "Negative bee plus or minus the square root of bee squared minus four a cee all over two a."

This may be a pedagogical failing but it is the way classes were taught in my day. But that was a long time ago, maybe schooling has improved since then.