You seem to forget that in the 1960's, the technology to build robots like Curiosity didn't exist yet. And we do hear the same complaints about the Mars rovers (it costs too much, etc) these days as well.

That is such a short sighted thing to say. You have no idea who supplied the link to GeenStijl. It might've been someone working internally at FileFactory or even PlayBoy.

I knew there had to be AT LEAST one other person making the link between this article and Discworld :-)

There's a good chance that functionality hidden in those 200K lines of code can be rewritten in half that much code. Such spaghetti projects tend to bloat in amount of code as time progresses and multiple coders are working on it.

Just going out on a limb here, and I'm not sure if this is the case with this newfangled i18n-ed javascript nonsense, but we're basically talking keywords here. Single tokens without any of the grammatical complexities we have to deal with in natural languages. So basically, if I'd write a project in Dutch as:

functie test(i) {
als (i == 0)
retourneer waar;
}

Then your IDE could parse that and translate that to

function test(i) {
if (i == 0)
return true;
}

I'm not really in favor of this because it creates an IDE dependency but the problem may not be as big as many people make it out to be. The only real concern is that if people start using different language keywords, they will probably start choosing variable names in their own language as well, not to mention commenting (oh wait, nevermind, that's barely done any way).

The Doom 3 engine source code was released in November last year and John Carmack has already said that when the time is ripe, he'd do the same with id Tech 5 (the engine that powers Rage). So there's still (high profile) people that believe in it.

yours? Is that something in between hours, years and French days?

You seem bitter.
Maybe my statements were a bit bold and lacked the required subtlety, but you're making a completely incorrect assessment of me. I'm dealing with C often enough, but there are a lot of situations where using a language like C# or Java is the logical choice.
Such languages won't always allow for greater productivity, sure, but in one case it does and in another it won't. You almost seem to have some sort of animosity towards C# or Java, throwing basically anyonethat is using or preferring these languages over C on a "newer programmer" pile who aren't worth the air they're breathing.

Once again: all I'm trying to say is that in some situations you're better of using a language like Java or C# and in other situations you're better off using a language like C. Again other situations are better handled by PHP or ASP.NET. Choosing the right tool for the right job. That's all this is about. And anyone saying that the world is black and white where C is always better or where Java is always better is just not seeing things right.

I'm not saying Python is better for a business application than C. I'm just saying that for each problem, there is a tool. And there are situations where Python probably would offer some advantages over C and vice versa.

It's not about whether or not it's obvious or something that sprang forth from a genius epiphany. Apple (and other companies) try to get patents on everything not to make sure their innovation can be used as sellingpoint that is unique to their products, it is to fight legal battles like these. They're just taking potshots at everything in hopes they'll just hit one of them.

What I'm trying to say is that in the tech world, there's so much patent trolling going on, it's unreal. Anyone's astonishment at the stupidity of this patent or its related legal fights is just naive. It's no longer about innovation, it's about being annoying to your competitor.

What a crock of shit. C is just a different tool for a different job.
When writing business software for Windows desktop platforms you don't want to mess around with pointers, memory addresses or other relatively low level stuff like that. High level languages like Java, C#, heck, even Delphi are far more useful for that and allow for far greater productivity.
Sure, there are situations where C is the better choice, just like even lower level languages are sometimes a better choice, but claiming that people choose Java, C# or Python over C because they're ignorant is ignorant in itself. If, these days, you choose to build your windows forms application in C, then you're just getting yourself in a world of hurt that could easily be avoided by choosing a different tool (programming language).

The availability of a (commandline) console in id Software games has been a blessing IMO. The console in Quake 3 is a very powerful tool.

I still find it odd that Android doesn't allow you to selectively grant or deny permissions to apps.
It's up to the app maker to be sure to check if the app actually has access to the required function and if not, gracefully handle its inability to operate. The privacy invaders will probably still require you to grant all permissions before the app even properly shows its start screen but at least then you know you're dealing with a boogyman.
If an app requires access to my contact list and it states that it needs that info for social features, then you could choose to grant that permission. If you don't, then the app simply won't offer you any social functionality, but it could still offer its core functionality. Sure, after granting contact list permissions the app could still phone home that information, but the end user can be a bit more selective about things.

You know what's even funnier? The countless number of Christians ridiculing these people for believing that Nessy is real while they continue to pray to an imaginary entity every day of their lives.

The summary on /. links to page 2 of the article. Page 1 is here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/06/22/ceo-of-internet-provider-sonic-net-we-delete-user-logs-after-two-weeks-your-internet-provider-should-too/