torial

While I agree in general thrust with your focus on infrastructure -- one may argue that a lot of improvements of ignoring language have occurred. .Net allows for multiple languages on a single infrastructure, I believe Java VM does as well, and there is Parrot too.

I do think that there is a healthy focus on syntax -- at least my own experience bears it out. It was the syntax of doing things the python way that allowed me to grok polymorphism and MVC despite programming in an OO language for .Net for years. I find that if I want to learn a concept, the syntax is extremely helpful. I also find that if I have to program quickly, syntax being close to how I think is also helpful, and will get frustrated having to make yet another translation of my thought into a syntax that wasn't well thought out. I would also bet that a lot of people find a different syntax to intuitive, and others counter-intuitive than I do. And I'm fine w/ that! Just because there is difference doesn't mean there has to be division!

A language I've discovered with delight is Cobra. It is python-like, with built-in unit test support, contract support, and currently on top of the .Net platform (but a backend is flexible enough that some work at targeting Java and Obj-C has been done).

http://cobra-language.com/

Have you worked w/ TDD? I have not, but am considering it or a variant (some gray mushy middle). If you've worked w/ TDD but don't like it, what are your thoughts on this article which dicusses research on TDD:

http://blog.objectmentor.com/articles/2009/10/07/tdd-derange...

We can't borrow from knowledge we'll have tomorrow, any conjecture on what will be found is at best a hypothesis in its own right. Data and verification for relativity is just well established (but arguably more research dollars go into that than evolution).

Viewing the odds of discovering something tomorrow or the next hundred years is very subjective -- case in point, I view the odds of discovering something contradictory to evolution far higher than something contradicting relativity. So we are at an impasse, and I'd suggest we need to go on what we have now, rather than how something might unfold based on our own biases (I am not denying my inclination towards astrophysics!).

If evolution could be harnessed to make verifiable predictions, I think it would be further along in terms of being a grounded and less disputed theory (with the understanding that no matter what, there will be dissenters). Or if alien life was found, I think evolution science would benefit from having a second playing field and might be on a better footing.

"even if it is one of the best supported scientific theories out there."

While it certainly has more evidence than AGW, it doesn't hold a candle to relativity (general or specific) or newtonian physics or a whole slew of chemistry theories.

I do agree w/ the first part of that sentence, that the large time scales are hard for people to wrap their mind around, and thus lends itself to a natural doubt of it.

One of the things I'm looking forward to is the managed wrapper for memory mapped files.

Regarding your #1 element: When I was coding w/ .Net PDC (e.g. pre- 1st beta) I would use the java reference docs to get some idea as to what to do because MS didn't have any real documentation for .Net at that time.

Regarding your #2 element: A perfect example of this is their attempt to take Adobe on with Silverlight (e.g. vs Flash), and also with XPS (e.g. vs PDF/Acrobat).

I'd be curious as to what you (or anyone else) see WPF as copying from as an example for that does not readily come to mind.

Didn't see this category, but for the developers of a startup, an easy to use / free bug tracking system can be found in BugNotes: http://www.bugnotes.com/home.php

Yeah, I like the Axosoft free variant: http://www.transferbigfiles.com/

Just to add to a good list -- Al Gore on the board is catering toward liberals and not conservatives!

To that end, a great free tool that I've been using is called Workrave: http://www.workrave.org/welcome/

Otherwise, I don't get off my butt much -- but this reminds me. And it is highly configurable.

These rules are largely the low hanging fruit for aspiring writers. If an expert in a craft is asked to give advice to an audience of beginners, I'm guessing they'll pick the problems they see the most common, plus perhaps a few salient lessons they've learned recently and make a list.

Also, regarding theory of fiction / narration -- that is a mixed blessing. You see writing software like Dramatica push a particular theory (based on the hero's journey) -- and only if you find the high level of that theory compelling will you find the software to be maximally useful.

Also, I bet the authors managed to avoid a lot of low-tech author / writing community flame wars by avoiding fiction and narration theory ;-)

I have found "The Goal" by Eliyahu Goldratt to be very insightful. It is written in a novel like format, with the purpose of teaching a certain way of attacking problems.

http://www.amazon.com/Goal-Process-Ongoing-Improvement/dp/08...

Personally I found Forbes post re: SSD to be very interesting, and rather than just claim the debate has denigrated past the point of usefulness -- just ignore the rant from the other guy and respond to the substantive comments made by Forbes.

As a person who is investigating NoSQL as viable for a particular task, the substantive posts on either side have been valuable to me.

unless said smart people were in a committee :-)

If memory serves, this was important for cgi scripting -- where a new page hit launched some python code (and hence a new interpreter process).

I remember when FePy was first coming out, and Jim Hugunin was encountering considerable slowness in regard to exceptions, and he conferred with Guido about it because the fail-first idiom is a preferred python strategy. Anyways, Guido was like, you are functionally equivalent so it doesn't matter. (I'm just regurgitating my rough memory of Jim's blog about it.) But that was also the first time I learned how disruptive an exception was to .Net program flow. I've also seen it in general with other .Net languages -- exceptions kill performance, and defensive programming is very worth the extra effort.

Extremely fast string matching -- I've seen a few research papers on the move to this. Which can play into DNA sequence matching, or information retrieval.

GPU is also good for anything that requires extensive parallel number crunching, like password cracking.

If you search for "GPU String Matching" you should find some good results.

It is the hard part. Part of the value of the book is in providing a simple framework for people to understand something a little alien to them. This will increase your chances of understanding. This is not the same as trying put people in a box and limit them, it is more like trying to study what typifies a particular culture and being sensitive to that.

How often is "usually"? Is it 20% of the time? 60%? 80%? 90%?

Did you see this New Yorker article on how the underdog can win? http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/11/090511fa_fact_...

An interesting quote from that article:

What happened, Arreguín-Toft wondered, when the underdogs likewise acknowledged their weakness and chose an unconventional strategy? He went back and re-analyzed his data. In those cases, David’s winning percentage went from 28.5 to 63.6. When underdogs choose not to play by Goliath’s rules, they win, Arreguín-Toft concluded, even when everything we think we know about power says they shouldn’t.

I'm getting a video not found error.

For the most part, our politicians. Notable exceptions being gov of California.

Not sure that we import many weapons, since we make so much at home.

We have lots of corn and pigs.

So what's the point?

What threshold do you need to get that downvote button? I don't see it yet.

I thought the first part was great. Loved "You mock the simplicity of the two-color view, yet you replace it with a one-color view".

Then it tanked. I couldn't help but feel that straw man arguments were used for the examples of those who claim science is a faith. Sigh. Ok, how about a few things that make some scientists and especially the media seem like they belong to a religious or evangelical movement rather than one of discovering the truth: * believing in something no matter what the evidence and coming up with bizarre explanations for things because the evidence contradicts the theory. * saying the science is "settled". Seems like a dogmatic view if I ever saw one. * reluctant to share data to someone who disagree * appeals to experts ("Like most scientists agree") to replace the actual need to show that data fits into a coherent theory

Global Warming scientists seems to fit into this camp more often than others.

But really, you look at different disciplines. In archaeology, some guy was just claiming he might have found the first spot that civilization started, and it was from 12000 years ago (if I remember right). How does he know? Why make claims for that? Why not just stick to "oldest known", rather than sensationalize it?

Why also does every show have to talk about either evolution or global warming? I watched a great Bobby McFarrin special on music, and all these scientists involved kept talking about evolution, and "since we know evolution is true then X" and the hilarious part was that all the scientists came to contradictory conclusions. :-) Why not just leave the whole "evolution is true" part out, and just follow the data where it leads?

Sure there are professional skeptics in any camp, but that doesn't make us all fall into the category. I was a climate skeptic long before a market existed for it.

Ah nothing like a breakfast on fallacies :-)

Let's see: Argumentum ad populum Association fallacy Appeal to authority Appeal to consequences

This list was selected from the red herring section of: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies

I'm sure I missed some, but I'm short on time this morning...

I think for those of us that have a C language family background, parallel examples in both C (or C# or Java or Python) and Haskell would be very beneficial! We have two hurdles to jump: the concept of monad AND the syntax.

I'd say the biggest failure is autoenrolling you, and then setting certain things public. Sure they could see my gtalk status, but I never set anything up to let my Reader be public, but it was by default. If I want people to know what I'm reading, I'll tell them!

I ran into this -- thought I had opted out (turns out only of the tour), then because of this post, I check the Buzz settings. Reader and Gtalk statuses were shared by default. And I was already following others (presumably they were unaware their info was being shared).

Here's the blog: http://shed-skin.blogspot.com/

And the project: http://code.google.com/p/shedskin/

Or at least comparable to what the Cobra language has for contract support: http://cobra-language.com/docs/quality/