Wow, completely and utterly wrong. Modern GC are faster than any other method for complex data and comparable for simple data. The first claim is well established and easy to prove: given an arbitrary graph of data to manage GC is the only algorithm which can manage it. If the graph is merely acyclic reference counting will do, but modern GC are still faster than any reference counting scheme. In fact a new reference counting scheme with a specialised allocator has just been developed which is almost as fast as GC, and that's considered to be quite a breakthrough. The primary problem with GC systems is that it is hard to make them real time, that is, to spread the load evenly so there's no noticeable jitter. Naturally if you have a simple data structure were the number of references is statically known, then the cost of determining if a block is unreachable can be reduced to zero. However unless you're using a language with a really advanced type system like ATS2 it will be very difficult to be certain your code is correct: the only serious exception to that is a purely stack protocol data structure. Indeed the poster is so completely ignorant e doesn't even realise Lua 5.2 actually uses a garbage collector: http://www.lua.org/manual/5.2/manual.html#2.5

I also live primarily on solar, with a bit of wind thrown in, diesel generator for backup. Grid power isn't available to a yacht on a swing mooring. My home is small not tiny. LED lighting, refrigeration, laptop, no hot water (microwave much coffee though). Sail North in winter for heating (southern hemisphere). Using 10 very expensive (Japanese) panels and 1800 Ah batteries. This is an exercise in political, not electrical power. Although not independent of the land, I can't be held to ransom on a daily basis as can most city dwellers. Amortised capital costs and maintenance exceed the cost of grid electricity: well over $25,000 worth of equipment, probably around $2000 pa to maintain. One thing most people forget when quoting solar is that the panels are only part of the cost: the mounting equipment is a non-trivial part of the cost.

But not quite so much a problem on a boat, where the consequences and risk of explosion are also lower, there's abundant water, available wind energy, and an available storage mechanism: scuba tanks.

Well of course Python is too slow. Guido clearly has no understanding of performance if he thinks you can simply replace tiny hotspots with C code, and no idea about interfacing either, if he thinks that's an effective way for an application programmer to work. If you want most of the convenience of a scripting language and performance like C you should use join the Felix project. It's a scripting language, but it compiles down to machine code, not bytecode. It's statically typed, though most of the time you'd never notice.

Who said humans were the only listeners? There's dolphins and dogs .. and of course, digital editing requires gross oversampling for frequency shifting, shortening or any other resampling technique. The fact is the sample rate is probably too low for that. The assumption of the article is rubbish. It assumes the only processes involved are converting digital data to analogue and then human listening of the analog.

FYI: Judy SL Array (digital tree) has better performance than a balanced tree, never requires rebalancing, and provides ordered access as well. Probably a good alternative to a hash table, especially if the string keys are limited in length to something reasonable.

The biggest cost saving of solar and wind power is not generation but transmission. It's not the cost of coal but installation of wire that matters. Wire is expensive in itself and even more expensive to install. Wind and solar will therefore be most popular where transmission expenses are highest.

The biggest expense of solar and wind is not generation but storage. It's not the cost of the generating device but storing the generated power that matters.

Expect solar to flourish first in niches: outdoor lighting, on boats and farms, battery maintenance on cars. In these places the costs are justified by the reduced transmission costs, and storage is either already present, easily augmented, or only required at a low level. Don't forget, that whilst batteries are cheap they also use up a lot of space and space is worth money.

Oh, and of course I missed one crucial fact: the biggest solar plants have existed for quite some time: hydro-electric power is clearly driven by the sun, and dams provide exceptionally good energy storage whilst having fairly neutral environmental impact (remove some trees, add some fish). As above, hydro is a niche that only works in select places.

Can't produce enough energy for what and whom? I live on a sailboat with solar panels, wind gen, and of course sails. 95% of all my power needs are produced naturally, including long range travel. Yes I have diesel backup generator and always use diesel for close quarters movement., and I have both micro-wave and alcohol cooking. Most of my lighting is LED. It gets a bit hot in summer and a bit cold in winter despite the insulation, but it's worth it for the billionaire views and low rents :)

Now please explain "needs" of land persons, who, in my view, are guilty of gross over-consumption and extreme wastage. In my opinion, the biggest "need" arises from lousy design of dwellings, with blatant disregard for thermal efficiency and utilisation of abundant locally available natural energy sources (including natural temperature differentials generated by day/night cycle).

You clearly don't have a programming background, but rather are an academic. If you understood the fundamentals you'd know that learning a programming language library is the primary impediment.

Because it was designed by a smart politician so you could adopt it, keep all your old code and ideas, and learn to use the new features at your own pace .. aka "upward compatibility" not just of syntax, but object model and thinking. It allows one or more paradigm shifts .. as opposed to a complete break. The software development industry is intrinsically ultra-conservative: if you don't design for that, you're bound to fail. The cost is overwhelming complexity, unreadable code, and mangled up half working concepts. The lesson of C++ is that C was a badly broken language in the first place, teetering on the edge of being operational, with every C++ extension showing up flaws in the core by breaking it.