"I'd argue that Cobol and Fortran have carved out a niche where they *are* the best in their class."

Seriously, and I say this as someone who knows both Cobol and Fortran, what niches are Cobol or Fortran best at other than "applications that are already written in Cobol or Fortran"?

Last I checked Ruby execution was slow compared to Python. That, however, tells you where you shouldn't use it, not *that* you shouldn't use it. And Ruby can easily call C routines (with the usual caveats).

OTOH, in some task spaces, design in Ruby is fast compared to design in Python, and in almost all it's fast compared to design in C. (That said, I generally prefer to design in Python and then re-implement in C++.)

Whether it's serious or not depends on what you're doing. For me it fails only because I require Doxygen compatibility. (Mind you, I would rarely choose to use *only* ruby, but for some things it would be the superior choice.)

OTOH, Ruby is not a low level choice. It's a slightly higher level than Python. And I often design things in Python and then convert them to C++ (with, of course, minor rewrites).

So, "What do you mean by 'serious'?".

The real question is "Will they re-release the roadrunner cartoons?".

Do you really think fiction is a reasonable source of facts?

They moved fast and broke things.

Remember that models used from a decade or more ago always make simplifying assumptions, and that those tend to be unquestioned until data shows that they must be. Even now climate models can't handle all the variables known to be needed. Turbulence is *extremely* difficult to handle. And there probably is some "butterfly effect". The way that's normally handled it to run an ensemble of models with slightly different conditions, but they may all make some of the same simplifying assumptions.

Well, panspermia is possible, but not extremely likely. OTOH, if life started on Mars, it could well have spread to Earth on impact debris. The further away, the less likely. But remember that yeast have survived in space conditions for months, perhaps years...and that wasn't in extreme cold (though it was in inactive form).

OTOH, years is different from centuries. And for interstellar trips in a comet, centuries wouldn't be enough.

Those are descendants of LUCA. A better question would be viruses, because in that case we don't really know. (There aren't any ribosomes. [OTOH, if there are descendants of another origin, they've massively adapted.])

OTOH, we haven't checked all life on earth. So assertions about universals should be viewed with that in mind.

No. The mapping of nucleotide sequences onto amino acids isn't predetermined. We've built in the labs versions that are different.

OTOH, the argument still isn't good. It could be a low, but not extremely low, probability. In that case the first one to show up could have a VERY strong advantage. And we haven't checked all life on Earth, so the assertion that they are all the same hasn't really been proven, either.

We are pretty certain that the appearance of life involved some very low probability events, but that there were a lot of environments around with lots of different samples for a long period of time, so a "low probability event" should be expected to show up (even if not any particular low probability event).

Different groups of people designate street crossings and manage school buses. Ideally you're right, it should be fixed. Now get two different groups of people with different priorities to agree.

If you don't like the rule, manage it with school bus routing, but prepare to need twice as many route miles along lots of segments.

That's the "routing problem" I mentioned.

Some times there aren't any marked crossings for half a mile. Perhaps this could be seen as a school-bus routing problem, but saying "use the crossing" is only reasonable sometimes.

I could see anti-authoritarianism. Most actual jews that I've met have been nice people. The government of Israel, however, is vile.

OTOH, I don't see any sane way to deal with the situation. The comment "surround the place with hazard tape and stay away" has a lot going for it.