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Comment Re:Numeric equality in PHP (Score 1) 729

There's no particular reason to not have comparable values of different types

Sure there is - they have different types, therefore they're not equal. It's a ridiculous, useless operation, because it doesn't actually do anything more than always return false.

That said, there's good reason to have an "isSimilarTo" function, but that's not at all the same thing as equality.

Comment Re:bringing in more H1Bs will solve this problem (Score 1) 250

Actually, compiler theory is a great example of a language you can't easily learn in any language. The small lightweight structures it generates, and the referentially transparent transformations that you run those structures through lend it strongly to being done with functional languages, and if not, very close to the metal languages like C. Heavy weight OO languages tend to end up just causing you to write 3 tons of boiler plate, rather than actually learning the theory.

Comment Re:Powershell (Score 2) 729

Null-terminated strings were considered superior to using a length because they allowed strings to be > 255 bytes long (using 16 bits for the length would allow longer counted strings, but at that time with 4K of memory nobody in their right mind would suggest wasting a byte like that!).

Null-terminated strings also have the nice property that getting the "tail" is a very fast operation, since you just return a pointer to the middle. This meant that searches could return strings, rather than indexes. This then meant that every function that worked on text only needed one argument, a string, rather than two (a string and an index). The savings due to this were pretty significant.

Comment Re:Probably not. (Score 1) 546

I wouldn't say that learning to code necessarily outweighs a degree. But I do think university courses are too heavily focused on theory, and not enough practical application.

The job of a university is to teach theory. These are not vocational collages, they are universities. The practice is meant to be something you are more than capable of teaching yourself if you're any good at the subject.

Comment Re:The diet is unimportant... (Score 1) 588

No, exercise is not it. I mean, it does burn calories. But it's far harder to get thin by exercising more than it is to do so by eating less.

For example, even a relatively fit person will walk at 4-5mph at most. At that speed, they'll do about 10,000 steps in an hour. That's one hour to burn a whole 400 calories. If they run, they might make that half an hour, but that assumes that their cardiovascular system is up to running for half an hour straight, which lets face it. No fat person's is.

Alternatively, they can make the same dent in their net calories for the day by simply not eating one chocolate bar.

Exercise is great for you - but it's great for getting fit. Not great for getting thin.

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