"dialect" is a term used for arbitrary classification. there is absolutely no linguistic difference between what you call a "language" and a "dialect", both are the exact same thing.

language fragmentation is inherent to geographic distribution. there is no such thing as "proper english" unless maybe you are referring to a particular form of english dominant in england at a given time, which is a pretty useless definition in the current world.

dominant languages today have become such through military/economic/cultural expansion, and expansion naturally implies fragmentation. there is no more "english" to speak of, but "englishes" or whatever the plural of english would be in your particular english.

if old versions of chrome become a security concern it's google's responsibility to either provide a fixes or at least effectively warn users, period. has nothing to do with any aspect of any os chrome happens to run on.

it's much like you say but i see no conflict, really. google can have its way, and debian (ben) is just being consistent with being debian. users can have their pick so no problem. responsibility is still clearly outlined and any rogue chrome versions causing havoc will be chrome's fault, regardless of kernel. so google should at least inform the user that they dropped support for platform x so he could pick a different browser. they have done so in the past.

i made this reflection because of you mentioning "security concerns", but i don't know of any in this context. i understand now that tsync allows for cleaner implementation of sandboxing, but if you deliver a sandboxed browser for a platform you better make sure it's indeed properly sandboxed with the api available for that platform at that moment. IF chrome had known security issues with that then debian, being debian, should of course hold it back.

lol.

no. never. really?

freaky idea anyway, can't say i don't like it.

ubuntu has always been linux for casual users.

well, the initial motto was "linux for human beings" but, well, it's just a catchy motto.

now if you consider what it really means to be "an operating system for casual users" you realize that ubuntu is not at all far from windows or macos on that level, don't expect too much. however, it's free, and it's an entrypoint to more advanced distros. it's still not irrelevant.

yes, it is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
you fail to understand the single point of failure issues with ms components in general, not just ie. ie is just an example of having such vulnerable crap open to external access.

granted, i don't know if this still exists in windows 8. i very much guess so, but i don't really care. if you use windows, you should.

yes. it's old. ms has been lying and spreading bs and fud since day one. an egregious and sick example of their cynicism in this area is "compatibility mode".

bullshit.

gorgeous.

however, given just an expected output there will be lots of conforming inputs. you still need to figure out which of those randomly generated functions not only produces the same output by chance, but actually conveys the expected operation. in short, you would have to run the test for all possible inputs.

that's for a single unit test. imagining integration test just gave me a shudder :)

the demand of functionality however is also getting more. did you expect anyone to ask you to do elgamal encryption on a cell phone browser back in the day?

there will be always problems to be solved. the trivial stuff you can give to 'key punchers'. or robots, for that matter, once we have created the right tools. i don't think we have. article is bs (if it is even remotely related to the summary. didn't bother to read)

hey, we will have to invent some sort of agilatronics to plot the value of that onto our powerpointatrons!

yeah but his signature is cool!

there, FTFY

you can, just don't expect it to be widely adopted. plus your niche shouldn't have security and usability concerns.

also, be aware that applet support isn't likely to last much longer. several plugins aren't supported anymore on the desktop, and there aren't any at all for mobile devices or tablets. since java 1.7ish even running signed privileged applets on supported browsers on desktop is a pain. in short: maintaining applet support is problematic and nobody seems to bother anymore, specially since there is no benefit: js can now handle most of what applets did in the browser in the past, right out of the box and better.

there still are a few very specific usecases for applets like, for example, to access smartcard readers from a webapp. but even then, applet maintenance and deployment is hardly optimal and you'd probably will end up ditching the whole idea and lookig for a workaround.

and of course you don't have to learn "every language out there" if you don't want. however, if you want to do stuff for the web today (that's what applets were for) you simply won't get away without learning js. it's not optional.

"did you just say lisp?" XDDDD

very true for the "npm" constellation, and possibly for the particular projects/products you have experienced. but this just reflects that it's a new platform and a hyperactive ecosystem. sure it has it's fair share of hipster crap, but just keep looking, there's quite solid stuff too. and there is a lot you can do with pure node.

besides, running java applications on linux has sufferd the very same problems for years (hell, it still does sometimes!), even when java was more mature back then than node is now. and you sure will remember what a complete dependency nightmare java was before maven was adopted.

well, i'd say just avoid that software and ... it's my impression that you are overestimating what "professional" means nowadays. :-)