Some people who don't like Python have a problem with having to copy and paste code through channels that apply lstrip() to every line of text, such as some forums.

Thanks. You're with me in the "pragmatic" column. I've been known to use /etc/hosts to block DNS resolution of hostnames responsible for the biggest sources of slowdown, and it made e.g. Cracked.com load significantly faster.

My point is to refute your claimed "difference between open source and free" by providing often-cited definitions of "free software" and "open source software" that lack substantial difference. To which definitions of "free software" and "open source software" were you referring?

Not everywhere, just everywhere in games. In the seventh console generation, Xbox Live Indie Games was the only way for indie developers to get a controller-oriented game in front of the public. The other consoles had no indie program to speak of, and PCs were usually on desks with monitors not big enough for two to four players to fit around.

I've been reading through that book, and I understand most of his . But on pages 112-113, he appears to despise the bitwise operators, because "In Javascript, [bitwise operators] are very far from the hardware and very slow. JavaScript is rarely used for doing bit manipulation. As a result, in JavaScript programs, it is more likely that & is a mistyped && operator. The presence of the bitwise operators reduces some of the language's redundancy, making it easier for bugs to hide." I read this as "emulators written in JavaScript ought not to exist". He also has something against continue, which I've used often to check preconditions for each element in an array.

So if you're collapsing a comment thread in a 200+ comment page, would you prefer to have to spend some of your data allowance on resending all 190 comments that aren't being collapsed? And if all applications that cannot be efficiently implemented as static HTML with link and form navigation ought to be native, how do you plan to use applications developed by someone who uses an operating system other than the one you use?

Not as Debian and Open Source Initiative define the terms. The Open Source Definition published by OSI is almost word for word the same as the Debian Free Software Guidelines.

Of course there's a money data type in Java. It's called multiplying all your dollar/euro/pound amounts by 100 and using int (or long for big B2B transactions over 10 million dollars or so) to count cents.

The native string type in Python 3 and Java is a UTF-16 Unicode. And PHP ships with libraries perfectly capable of UTF-8 Unicode.

Not from what I hear from some Slashdot users, who are opposed to the concept of JavaScript in general. They believe that HTML should be static and anything with "behavior" should be native. See previous anti-JavaScript sentiments by CastrTroy, epyT-R, and Anonymous Coward.

On some platforms there is in fact such a "shortage of high quality languages and run-times". Which other languages that you mention worked on Xbox 360 and Windows Phone 7 back when those were current? A few years ago, before Windows 8, Windows Phone 8, and Xbox One came out, people were demanding ports of phone apps to Windows Phone 7 and ports of games to Xbox 360. All XNA games for Xbox 360 and all third-party apps for Windows Phone 7 were required to use .NET.

$120 per year for one thing, $120 per year for another, and pretty soon all these recurring fees add up to real money that exceeds the income from an entry-level job.

Some devices require all third-party applications to be verifiably type-safe CIL compatible with the .NET Compact Framework. This means you won't be able to use IronPython because it and other DLR languages rely on Reflection.Emit, which was omitted from the Compact Framework. Nor will you be able to use CPython because standard C is not verifiably type-safe. Windows Phone 7 and Xbox 360 XNA come to mind as examples of such platforms.

For two reasons. One is to run the proprietary software on the free platform, much as Steam games run on Valve's Debian-based Steam OS or other Windows desktop applications run in Wine. The other is to run free applications on an incumbent proprietary platform. With .NET in particular, there have been a couple widely used platforms that use the CLR as their only runtime environment, such as XNA on Xbox 360 and Windows Phone 7. The same is true of the Java platform, which all third-party applications for a J2ME phone were required to use.

A lot of other people don't have that choice due at least in part to immigration laws.

Until you hit a site that has Adblockblock. I've noticed that a lot of sites are doing this nowadays for videos and even for text beyond the first couple paragraphs.