binspace

Patents maybe were effective at encouraging innovation before the information age. Now that innovation happens so rapidly, patents slow things down.

Currently, Patents are all about making certain techniques (business processes, algorithms, etc.) illegal unless licensed.

Who honestly reads patents to learn about technology anymore?

Matz chose underscore_casing in Ruby because non-english speakers have an easier time reading underscore_cased words.

One can also make the argument that code is read more often than written.

I agree with your point.

But often times it is used exclusively (or in majority) on the server-side. If the server side language follows the underscore_case convention. That's where the ambiguity creeps in.

I totally agree, however it's get a bit tricky on the boundaries between an underscore and camelCased language. For example sending json between the client and server.

Should the json keys be camelCased or underscore_cased? It's a bit ambigious.

It's a little more difficult than simply "just copying" the technology. The Fingerworks staff had more expertise on the subject than pretty much anybody in the world.

Patents were put in place to discourage trade secrets. In the technology world, trade secrets are not quite as advantageous as they once were.

Somebody else could have developed the FW technology, at a certain cost and time spent. It still makes the FW technology valuable.

> Indeed, FingerWorks probably would never have been founded if it could not have differentiated itself with patented technology.

So by that argument, why do any software companies exist? Last time I checked, I'm getting paid to write software. You're just trying to spread FUD. Nice try.

> The iphone is just a better market model.

Interesting, but the iphone should have nothing to do with this. This is simply over the multi-touch technology and whether or not other people can independently come up with similar solutions.

> Technology once sold as an expensive niche keyboard is now in the hands of tens of millions of people worldwide. Darn.

Why not have the best of both worlds and open up another market? There's also an opportunity cost, because smaller companies cannot use this technology and innovate. Smaller companies tend to innovate more than bigger ones (yes even Apple). So yes, darn.

> How is that innovative? When products do not differentiate, they compete on price, which drives prices down to levels incapable of sustaining any significant innovation.

Oh, but products do differentiate and technology does improve. For example, software, unencumbered by patents, has been sustaining (and increasing) significant innovation for quite a while. Also, software does not only compete on price.

Also, it's innovative because companies have to push the envelope and cannot rest on their laurels to just use their position to rake in the cash (like Microsoft and IBM did).

It comes down to simple economics. Protectionism hinders innovation.

Interesting you brought up FingerWorks. I really like their keyboard. Unfortunately Apple bought it, discontinued the keyboard, and now nobody can make one because Apple holds the patent. How is that innovative?

Anyways, what's wrong with clones? It's time to market that matters. If somebody clones an ipad, or whatever, then the markets will decide who the winner is.

Unfortunately with the bajillions of already existing patents, it is very difficult and costly to innovate in an incremental manner (incremental improvement tends to be efficient improvement) without infringing on something.

The real losers are the smaller companies that cannot afford to play the game and the consumers. The winners are the legions of lawyers who get paid for all of this litigation nonsense.

I'm not glad that it takes having Apple's money in order to legally defend a product.

All of this suing goes to show how patents harm, rather than help innovation. Let the engineers decide which technology is best, not the lawyers.

Not exactly sure what you are asking. I mainly meant any tool you use will not solve all of your problems. Pretty basic common sense, IMO.

Exactly!! I can take your response as meaning two different things, both of which I agree with.

- My assertion is fundamentally flawed. - Even the line of code metric YOU come up with is fundamentally flawed.

Exactly!! There is no such thing as a cure all. Anybody angry over a technique that does not solve all problems is clearly suffering from the Silver Bullet Syndrome.

Another nice thing is you can read what the edge cases are going to be, rather than having to remember them all of the time.

Any line of code metric is fundamentally flawed.

TDD does not claim to fix all of your bugs. You often do not need to theoretically prove your software is correct, so you don't need to have you unit tests test all possible contexts (e.g. handling disk failure vs. any other error when rendering a web page). That is what abstraction is for.

TDD does force you to think about the interface of your abstraction, however. If it is painful to write (or maintain) the test, then that is a good indication that the abstraction is wrong or not being properly tested. Don't be afraid of deleting tests when they are not useful.

I often find that these unanticipated bugs are often due to incorrect abstractions. To fix it, create the correct abstraction and test it.

It is also simply faster to develop in larger projects than creating the state that would test your unit. For example, you could make a change, manually refresh the page, and debug or write the test and make it pass. You also get the benefit of regression testing.

Note that the narrower your unit, the less likely it will be useful for regression purposes.

I often find that when beginning a project, my units are smaller. As abstractions are built, the nonessential tests are deleted and future tests are built upon abstractions that I care about.

The only thing I miss when using json are the css selectors when trying to find data in a nested structure.

With json I have to resort to imperative means and care about the middle layers. That means refactorings are more likely to break software.

Fundamentally there is no reason why json cannot have it's own selector which traverses the tree. There just isn't one that I know of though.

Oh man, the lobbyists are definitely the superheroes of democracy. 1 lobbyist has the power of something like 1000000 voters.

http://www.google.com is also malware.

His message is actually pretty valid and he has a similar situation to many Americans.

A conflict of some type is necessary to bring in change. The people who benefit from the tax code will fight tooth and nail to keep the status quo. Luke warm sentiment will not change things.

And didn't you say that is not "propaganda"? What is your definition of propaganda? Maybe we can have a rational discussion if you declare what you mean by propaganda.

The true capitalistic thing to do would be to let the companies that took stupid risk go out of business. Instead they want socialism. It must be wonderful to profit from big risks and get bailed out when the risks don't pay out. I would take those "risks" too.

Well, the banks got what they wanted. A big fat payout and subsidies from the tax payers. We hedged their risks. They don't need any propaganda. Now before the decision was made...

Seems like propaganda to me. That is the sound byte I associate with this whole mess. It was repeated quite often.

The public needs an outlet for it's anger. Hopefully some real reform takes place. If not, then let the dissatisfaction grow.

Like "too big to fail"?

It depends on what you want to do. The college CS curriculum typically is good for teaching students to become professors. If that is what you want, stick to CS.

If you want to go more toward the software engineer approach you have a few options. You can stick with CS, but try to work on actual projects. For example, you can contribute to an open source project or start a company. The main thing is to work on projects that aren't cookie-cutter tasks, such as the ones that are common in school.

Switching majors so you can learn something new is also a great option. What are your other interests? If you do go with the school route, you will probably learn more about problem solving by learning a new field. You can still use your programming skills with many majors.

Another option is to get a job. Frankly, I think college is overrated. School is good, but there it is not the only route. You could probably get a good position at a startup, and will probably learn more than in school.

I didn't get interested in programming until I was a sophomore in college. I graduated with a BS in Engineering Physics. I'm glad I didn't major in CS, and I was still able to pursue software development. You will have plenty of opportunities in school to try new things. I have to say that I have learned more about problem solving (at a faster rate) while in the workforce, than in school.

For all of it's issues, Rubymine is my favorite IDE and editor for ruby projects. The Python community is in for a treat.