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Comment Re:Nothing New, Doesn't Help Mono (Score 2, Interesting) 465

What I haven't seen mentioned is very important: even in BCL classes that are covered by ECMA-335, the members you find might not be what you expect. For example, there are no TryParse methods for any of the primitive types, which forces exception handling as flow control. "No one" uses the regular Parse methods in the face of unknown inputs. Honestly, there are a surprising number of items "missing" in the ECMA-335 standard. Originally I wanted to implement it precisely but I found it was hindering my ability to code with good practices. Where do you draw the line.

There are also some errors in the documentation in the standard. Not some large number of them, but certainly enough to make you wonder how flexible the promise is. Errors range from omissions to ambiguities to a couple instances of clearly incorrect/contradictory statements.

Comment We are so screwed. Maybe it's time to do something (Score 1) 339

The CIA wants to make the personal information of everyone public. At least that's what I get from a previous article and this one.

http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/11/204231

It's time for Ron Paul. Cause none of the others are going to do a dang thing about it.

It hurt watching this:
http://ivorytowerz.blogspot.com/2007/11/wolf-blitzer-is-human-rights-more.html

Feed Denied Entrance Into The US Thanks To A Google Search Of Your Permanent Record (techdirt.com)

For a long time, people have talked about how Google has effectively created the infamous "permanent record" teachers always warned us about in school. And, now, it appears that it's not just being used for background checks on dates and job reference checks, but for official government purposes as well. Joe McEnaney writes in to alert us to a story of a Canadian man who was denied entrance to the US after border guards did a Google search on his name and discovered a peer-reviewed academic paper he'd written years earlier that mentioned his own LSD use over 30 years ago. Setting aside any thoughts one way or the other on whether or not that should be a criteria for entering the US, just think of what this means for teens today who are discussing their lives very publicly on sites like MySpace. We've already wondered what will happen once the MySpace generation runs for office, but right now they might just want to be careful leaving and entering the country.
Programming

Submission + - How do you select a software license?

indraneil writes: "I am a code monkey and have been so for close to 5 years now. I have recently been doing some self-started work that lets me design, implement and test stuff all by myself. A couple of people have liked my prototype and wanted to use it.
I would be happy to let others use it, but I am unsure of what license to release it under. My CS course did not include any awareness of licensing and while I am aware of GPL, LGPL, Apache, BSD and Creative Commons licenses, I never got around to understanding them fully to be able to form an opinion on what suits me best. I notice that sourceforge also expects me to specify my licensing choice, while I am setting up my project.
So my question is:
If a person who does not know licensing, where does (s)he start to begin to be able to get a clearer picture of the same?"
Privacy

Submission + - Blizzard Seeks to Block User Rights, Privacy

An anonymous reader writes: In the overlooked case between Blizzard and MDY Industries, the creator of the WoWGlider bot, Blizzard is arguing that using any programs in conjunction with the World of Warcraft constitutes copyright violation. Apparently accessing the copy of the game client in RAM using another program infringes upon their rights. Under that logic, users do not even have the right to use anti-virus software in the event that the game becomes infected. Furthermore, Blizzard's legal filings downplay the role of their Warden software, which actively scans users' RAM, CPU, and storage devices (and potentially sensitive data) and sends information back to Blizzard to be processed. Both sides have a good case, and it will be interesting to see how this one resolves.
Programming

People Don't Hate to Make Desktop Apps, Do They? 233

Annie Peterson writes "Paul Graham has been making the argument that desktop development is dead — That's his premise for declaring Microsoft dead as well, and he claims that no one out there likes to develop for the desktop anymore. But that's not true, or is it? Desktop development is easier, faster, more productive, and infinitely more enjoyable — right? The question is, since web apps were originally built on desktop applications themselves, have the tables flipped? Or is it just wishful thinking?"

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