Singletoned

I've often thought that a simple change would be to require you to prove that it is in the public interest for your patent to be enforced. Patents only exist for public benefit anyway.

I don't think that a patent troll, for example, could prove that the world would be a better place by them enforcing their patents. If they could, then we'd be better off letting them do it (by definition).

It's weird, but only the other day I was saying to my wife: "I wish more applications were written entirely in Javascript".

Or you could get ones that say "It was easy for me, so it should be easy for everyone"

Great article. It puts into words something that I've been feeling for many years, but have been struggling to express.

It's not that frameworks are bad; they quite clearly have their place. It's that they are short term hacks, and as such there is a time and a place for using them, but they aren't a long term solution to a problem.

This sounds almost exactly like eDonkey, which is what we used before BitTorrent. eDonkey used to be much better for rare items, though BitTorrent worked better for popular items. eDonkey used to let you start searches that would run for days, asking neighbour nodes to ask other neighbour nodes, etc.

I miss it and I think there's a lot that can be learned from it.

I use it (full-time for 8 years) because of the syntax and the forced use of white space. The language encourages people to write better and more maintainable code.

Out of interest, what language are you using that you prefer the syntax of?

Python is notoriously similar to pseudocode, and I can't think of a mainstream language (other than Ruby) that even seems to care about syntax.

Why would you want to incubate an inflatable baby?

They are also encouraging people to type their password into random sites, which is IMO the worst aspect of this.

Seeing as no-one else has suggested them yet:

- Move to a country without an extradition treaty with the US.

- Change your identity. I don't imagine they'll put that much effort into hunting you down for just $100k.

- Create a Kickstarter campaign.

- Ebay the next 2 years of life. That way you are only in hock for 2 years, not 5.

- Marry someone and don't tell them about the debt until it's too late.

He's certainly 'notorious' in certain circles. He used to be considered a troll in certain newsgroups, because he's very argumentative.

I think he is in some ways the prototypical hacker. He's very good at what he does, but he struggles to do anything with financial value, and he's got very bad interpersonal skills.

He's done quite a lot of Emacs work, particularly around trying to make it easier to work with. His work was very helpful to me when I was starting out with Emacs, so I've given him some money. His documentation saved me weeks of work over the years, so giving him a days wages is a no-brainer.

I agree. I immediately closed the site down and came and checked the comments as I assumed it some sort of trap.

Really? What did you think was an argument against TDD?

> Test-first units leads to an overly complex web of intermediary objects and indirection in order to avoid doing anything that's "slow".

This is an argument against unit testing (and is a good example of the conflation). Personally I do TDD with slow, system tests, that mainly are testing business requirements.

He makes a couple of points that some TDD people are rabid, but that is just an argument that some people are jerks. It's not an argument against TDD. (And exactly the same is true of Unit Testing).

I think he's conflating the separate concepts of Test Driven Development and Unit Testing. They can be done independently of each other.

I agree that many other people also conflate them, and are zealots for (or against) them together, but they are still separate concepts.

He does make some good arguments against Unit Testing, but he makes none against TDD.

Surely this site has been set up by the NSA to harvest the details of everyone who opposes them...?

> Imagine a programming language in which you can't write your own functions. You wouldn't want to use that, would you?

I think I'm going to be quoting that for quite a while to come. I'm a fellow Emacs user, and I think that perfectly sums up why I use it.

Nothing happens for me using Opera. It just has a small logo in the centre of the page that moves slightly forever.

Newman Online. London, UK.

We are looking for a Python Developer. We allow plenty of home working, but if you do come into the office, you get free tickets to the cinema we work above (and free barista made coffee).

There's a lengthy description at https://jobs.github.com/positions/9f7647ee-3c66-11e2-961a-fb... but in short we want someone with a lot of Python, who isn't scared by legacy code, and who doesn't require managing. We offer a lot of flexibility and freedom for the right candidates.

Development is run by developers, so we use sexy technologies when they are appropriate. We let people choose what they want to work on, but sometimes we all have to chip in on the grotty stuff.

Do checkout the advert or email us at jobs@newmanonline.org.uk with any questions.

In what way is the word 'size' wrong?

This could actually be an attempt to increase their diversity. They could be hoping that all the heterosexual males choose the first option, and that way they will get more women and gay men applying.

I don't think it's going to work though.

(Also I imagine Linus is extra grumpy at 7am).

I somewhat agree. For example why use a term like 'mass', when 'size' or 'weight' would be much simpler.

To be honest, the facts are kind of boring, and the fear-mongering is kind of dramatic.

I can definitely see how, if they didn't care about the abstract concept of truth, people could prefer to pay attention to the fear-mongering.

> somehow my anecdotal experience leads me to believe that [some] people just don't value time efficiency

If you stop an average (and I mean genuinely average) person on the street, they probably won't even understand 'time efficiency' unless you lead them. If you stop an above average person, they will understand the idea, but admit that they don't care about it. What they care about is 'mental efficiency' (ie "I don't mind if takes 3 times as long. I don't want to have to think").

If you encounter a significantly above average person in the work place, and try to point out how they could do something twice as quickly, they will generally respond "Just let me get it done".

(Bear in mind that in terms of computer use, the average person only just owns a computer, and anyone reading this comment is easily in the top 2%).

Wow, there's an Isotype for "hiding your erection with a hat": http://www.gerdarntz.org/node/471