This is sickening. If your views are representative of how everyone in Google thinks about the fiasco (I honestly hope not), the kool-aid you're drinking must be wonderful.

Perhaps "cooperation" in Google really means "just play by my rules but we won't help you unless there's profit to be made", but it's not how the world is understood by the normal person. Make no mistake, I do think Microsoft is being a dick when they decided to intentionally ignore Youtube terms and conditions when making their own app, but I don't think this vindicates the behavior of Google trying to block them from making a native app. Besides, if Microsoft is doing this as a calculated move to force Google back to the negotiation table for youtube API access, then that says a lot about Google's commitment to practice what they preach about "cooperation".

"Cooperation" doesn't mean "we'll help you if the venture becomes so profitable that we just can't ignore you", just as "cooperation" doesn't mean "we'll comply with your terms after you send us C&D letters". "Cooperation" doesn't mean "be nice to us, maybe one day we'll do a favor for you (no guarantees!)".

To be clear, I don't think there's a moral duty for Google to provide competitor's platforms with the best experience (if HTML5 was so great, why would Google bother to write a native app?) when using Google's services, after all, it's a dog eat dog world out there. However, the "cooperation", "play nice" message by your Great Infallible CEO is sickenly hypocritical at best. Hint: when you make the world a better place, you make the first step. You don't point fingers at everyone else demanding they comply with your grand visions and blaming them when it doesn't work out.

It's also funny how you lambast Microsoft over aggressive license fees, then in the same post justify how complying with Youtube's terms and licenses (c.f. "funded") is so important. I mean, proprietary is bad when you can't use it, right?

Disclaimer: I don't work for Microsoft.

Wait, what?

Let's assume it is unquestionably true that AGW is true. Why does it follow that we should invest in trying to avoid it?

I'm not saying it's unequivocally a bad idea to do so, but given that you're using the term "invest", you probably know you have the cost of investment and the expected payout. How could you intelligently invest in something if you don't even have these figured out?

I haven't heard of any solid data suggesting what the actual cost and benefits are, beyond the "sky is falling" arguments, which I don't think is what the 97% consensus is about. Besides, the point of "you're not a climate research scientist" goes both ways. On what grounds are scientists credible in making economic and policy changes without consulting actual economists and policy makers?

Mathematics as a scholarly field has no way to deal with the fact that idiots exist in this world either. Should we abolish logic and proofs, and just prove by consensus?

Like, "Euler thought this statement was true... who dares opine against him?"

You know what, this kind of thinking held back scientific progress for a while, when they thought Aristotle (and the community consensus) was infallible.

A counter example is, well, a counter example.

In case you don't know what it is, a counter example is a way to show that the original point was not as rigorous as it purports to be, by demonstrating a case that the claim does not hold.

The original (implicit) claim is that when 97% of scientists agree on something, it must be right. The GP provides a counter example. In doing so, he does not claim that his example is representative of the vast majority of similar cases.

I guess the problem with this story is that it's neither here nor there. Statements that 97% people believe in can be true (usually) or can be false (rarely). But given that we actually have evidence and data, why should we try to ascertain the truth by looking at what other people believe?

It's like having a headline "97% people believe the world is round" -- yeah it's probably true, but if you really want to know the truth badly enough, you don't ask around for personal belief statistics, you try to go around the world to see whether you can get back to the original spot.

Yes I do. Sort of. If everything is inherently mathematical, the very word of "mathematics" will become meaningless.

Just as you don't think about particle physics and thermaldynamics when you're cooking food, I don't think about mathematics when implementing a "onclick" function in a button.

This is simply wrong, especially the latter part. The former part is mostly a moot question on philosophical definitions, but to claim that (all) computer programs are mathematical algorithms is to ignore the fact that (for example) the web browser you're using to view my comment, is definitely not a mathematical algorithm in any commonly understood sense.

Sure, a bunch of underlying subroutines to parse the html content and constructing the data structures might be somewhat mathematical, but reading data from network, changing pixels on the screen, handling user input events, are definitely not "mathematical algorithms".

To be clear, I do think most computer programs are "algorithms" in the broad sense, but I don't see anything inherently "mathematical" about (for example) implementing the specs of HTML5, or handling a user clicking the submit button.

I guess it's my folly to actually expect more on slashdot, but there's more to CS and software than what they teach you in CS101.

You'd drive me crazy too (well, I'm a relatively "young guy"). UMLs are usually unhelpful. The problem is not so much on the details of UML, but the very concept of top-down design in non-trivial software. It simply does not work beyond using it as some basis of scribbling a draft at the very early stage of designing the framework or architecture of the software.

Unit tests have their uses but it depends on context (sometimes integration tests are more practical).

One word: SHINY!!!! . I mean, why fix the bugs on IE6 when you can upgrade to the LATEST, GREATEST, IE11 BETA????

It's actually really rare to find somebody who believes in not fixing things that are not sufficiently broken. Yes, even for people running software companies. And seriously, good luck finding a dev who's willing to fix bugs on IE6-only websites if they could make a good living developing the latest shiny.

That actually sounds like what you're saying!

Android stood on the shoulders of the "mess" that you're bashing as crappy. It's based on Linux kernel and toolset, and was born as a direct competitor to iOS, which had its roots in OSX. Besides, how is it not "reinventing the wheel, resolving old solved problems, etc., Stupid." ?

I don't know how you'd draw the line between CS and software engineering, but IMHO good software engineers worth their salt should know more than how to write vanilla code in Java. I mean, it's not like you need to write a parser or compiler every other week, but you actually do encounter those situations once a while.

I think he was aiming for +5 Funny.

Stupid mods...

The most unfortunate thing with the latter case is that when you really attempt to treat it like compiled Javascript, the gotchas with C++ is long enough to fill a thick book (literally).

There's a reason why "PhD" is thought to be an abbreviation of "Permanent Head Damage".

For the record, I don't want to receive pictures of your boobs.