I think learning a programming language is far more practical than learning a 2nd language - at least in America. Most Americans do not need to speak a 2nd language during their everyday routine. Most people do not travel somewhere where a 2nd language is needed or where the native already don't know English.

Learning to program is far more practical because we can output many more computer scientists/software managers than people who sort of know a foreign language but soon forget it after 3-5 years after high school because they get to speak the language every day of their lives.

Of course, it always depends on the individual. Some people would be better suited to learn a 2nd language, which most (I think) would be better served in knowing a computer language.

In my experience, learning programming at an early age would have been far more useful than learning a 2nd language for 5 years. I have very little opportunity to speak in another language so I most have forgotten what I learned. Luckily my 1st language is English, which is used just about everywhere. On the EXTREMELY rare occasion that I go to a foreign country, most of the country's citizens know a 2nd language and usually that 2nd language is English.

So learning programming would have been much more useful and more practical in my particular case. I hope today's students are given a choice to learn whatever language they want: Spanish or French -- or -- C++ or JavaScript.

except in this case, the bridge isn't actually out. It may go out someday 50, 100, 200 or more years from now but it is uncertain exactly when.
And the compromise isn't to stop in the middle. It's to go over the bridge as usual but work to repair or replace the bridge.

There I fixed that for you.

I agree that the ultimate goal is to use renewable energy. But in order for us to use that kind of energy, we need it to be cheaper and more efficient than what it is now.

So let's come up with a solution that allows us to work towards that goal but at the same time allows us to use our non-renewable forms of energy that have proven to be cheaper and more energy efficient. Let's frack and drill and use cleaner natural gas all while we are trying to figure out how to make renewable energy work.

I don't know the details of the solution, but we should figure out those details together. The ultimate solution may not make us happy as we will surely have to give up a little in what we individually deem as the optimal solution. But isn't that when you know a compromise is good - when proponents of both extreme sides of the issue are not happy?

Let's stop the extremism from both sides! It will not hurt us if we continue to use fossil fuels for 10-20 years while we WORK TOGETHER on finding an optimal renewable energy source. And it won't hurt us if we move to renewable energy sources in 10-20 years even if it is slightly less efficient or slightly more expensive than fossil fuels. But the path we are on now IS hurting us. We are NOT working TOGETHER to find the renewable energy source and we're allowing enemy countries in the middle east to dictate our policies.

Can't we just get along?!

I think you might want to take off your sarcastic mode.

This is just my opinion, with which many agree. I have used JavaScript as well as other languages and I prefer the languages that have strict typing, built in class model, inheritance, interfaces, etc. I find it is easier to debug and maintain code in other languages. Sure, you can code in a similar fashion in JavaScript as you do in other languages, but because some of the coding elements are not built into JavaScript, the similar coding practices may be technically hacks. And because these coding practices are not standard across the industry, everyone on your team may not be practicing the same coding practices.

Anyway, that is just my opinion. Obviously you feel strongly opposed to my opinion.

I just feel that it would benefit everyone if JavaScript was revised so it learned from other languages and included at least a few of the features from other languages.

   

I wouldn't be able to convince my manager to such intermediate languages. No, not until such things get more popular with JavaScript developers and managers.

Don't worry. You're not alone. I wish JavaScript would either mature or be replaced by another language: i.e. Google's DART.

The problem is that there is a huge crowd of developers who know JavaScript and like anyone in the human race, they don't like change and would like to see the status quo.

I feel sorry for the Minecraft developers. Have fun with a language that doesn't have a class object system like every other modern mature computer language which makes working in a team environment so much easier.

While we're at it, why don't we introduce PERL to minecraft?

HTML was upgraded to HTML5 and CSS was upgraded to CSS3. Why can't JavaScript be upgraded so it is more in line with modern languages? If that could happen then Google could give up on developing their new DART language which is designed to replace JavaScript.

Now that I can code for both Windows8 and WindowPhone, I am more interested in coding for Windows.
However, I am unsure which language is best to use. I've heard from many people that C# is the best language to develop for Windows; however C++ seems to be the "native" language. I've read that if you're planning on creating games, then C++ is the way to go.

Does anyone have advice?

I just got my NJ license last week and no one told me not to smile. I guess it's not enforced consistently.

But the bigger issue is why hasn't renewing process gone digital? why do I need to wait hours to renew my license? What they should do is allow renewal of licenses to be done over the internet. You can submit your own photo if you follow certain guidelines: i.e. blank background, well lit, no hats/scarves, even no smile, etc. Then the NJ employee can approve your license if you followed all the directions and your photo looks like you are 4 years older than the previous photo that they have on record. If your renewal license is not renewed for what ever reason then you will need to come in person to renew your license.

It adds a bit of complexity, but I bet it would speed things up.

Giving users the choice to install flash on their mobile devices is good thing. It should be the people not installing flash player that should dictate that flash dies on the platform, not pressure from tech elitists.

Before it was removed from Google Play, the flash player was one of the top 5 things installed from the marketplace. That tells me that people wanted flash player. Adobe shouldn't have caved. They should have waited until people didn't want to install the flash player anymore. They should have waited until HTML5 was more popular than flash. They should have waited until HTML5 could do everything that flash could do.

But alas, I imagine the tech elitists here will say that choice is not a good thing, which I think is a shame.

Every situation is different. Some situations can safely be accessed over email, while others cannot. I had a situation where I had to pay out of pocket instead of relying of health insurance. In that situation, the doctor embraced email. So I don't think it is a legal restriction. I think it is because doctors don't see us patients as the customer but they see our health insurance plans are the customers. In the case, when I was the customer and there was no middleman like health insurance, the doctor catered to my needs.

Perhaps people (who can afford it), should forgo health insurance plans for non-severe ailments and pay from health spending accounts.

This is a follow-up visit, not an initial visit. For example, I just saw a doctor and told him everything that I could have told him by email or a question-assisted form. He didn't touch me and didn't ask me any questions. Plus, he had the benefit of seeing a report from a physical therapist so he could see a 3rd party's assessment of my situation. During these kind of follow-up visits, there is no reason that he could do one of 3 things if I had simply emailed him: 1) told me to stay the course and refill my script, 2) told me to come in for a procedure, or 3) ask that I come in because it was hard to access the situation.

Obviously different situations require different reactions. In my particular case, an email followup would have made sense. In other people's cases, the health issue may be too severe that a physical followup would be warranted no matter what.

In another personal experience, I had gone to a doctor where he didn't accept any insurance and only accepted out of pocket. In this example, the doctor was very accessible by email. I didn't need to meet with the doctor sooner than when I was scheduled for the revisit.

Healthcare is broken and unfortunately, I'm not sure it will be fixed until the doctors see us patients as the customers instead of the health insurance companies or governmental health programs.

I can't wait until we live in a world where we can electronically contact a virtual doctor (i.e. IBM's Wilson) and describe our problem, take pictures, webchat, etc, and the virtual doctor could triage and determine if we needed to see an actual doctor, or if it was a simple problem that a super computer could recommend some treatment. Obviously, even if the super computer thought we had something serious (i.e. cancer), then the super computer would recommend we see a real doctor and the super computer could send the report your doctor.

(I'm sure the super computer would have to send the report via fax, because the real doctors probably wouldn't have email -even in fantasy future world.)

I'd like to know why the medical profession isn't embracing technology. They still use antiquated 20th century tech: i.e. fax machine. It would be nice if you could email your doctor and save yourself time and money with a followup visit. The doctors could determine from the email if patients needed to physically come in or the doctors could determine that the patients didn't have to come in and they knew enough to prescribe the next step. If it is about wanting you to come in for a follow-up visit so they can charge your insurance money, then why don't then do what lawyers do and charge you when they respond to emails. We could save money at not having to pay the copays, the doctors would still be able to charge our insurance companies, and doctors' offices would be crowded less with people who didn't have to be there. It would also be nice if everyone in the medical field would adopt electronic patient records that patients can be in charge of: i.e. Microsoft Health Vault. That way a patient's medical records would centrally stay with the patient instead of many different doctors.