jmzachary

I'm aware. I was trying to take a funny jab at Java and it didn't turn out so well.

I'm asking the same question, and you're not close to answering it. My question was "what problems in compiler optimization make it a thousand times more useful than protein folding and associated medical problems?" because you authoritatively stated that protein folding work (implicitly computational protein folding work) was much less important/useful (pick one) than compiler optimization work. You keep talking about protein folding research, but you don't say anything about compiler optimization. Was that comparison just an off-hand or self-deprecating remark about protein folding work? I'm not asking which area is more important. And, I know enough about both fields to not get lost in the technical details of your answers. So, I'll ask it again: what problems in compiler optimization make it a thousand times more useful than protein folding and associated medical problems?

Yeah, closures and anonymous inner classes would really redeem Java in the eyes of the masses.

Java is going, going, ...

I wonder if they submitted this patent application in crayon. The abstract reads like it was written by a third grader.

Who cares?

Thanks for the very detailed answer. Amazingly, I can follow the gist of it after over 10 years.

But, you still don't answer the question. What problems in compiler optimization are more important than problems in protein folding? You seems to indicate that protein folding is a basic science problem and not a "practically useful discipline". In fact, your statement "It would be great if we could predict protein structure accurately, but we can't, and until we can, it's not a practically useful discipline" says that the because the problem isn't solved, it's not important, but it will be important when it's solved. So, trying to solve the problem is important, no?

But, you don't say anything about compiler research, and specifically compiler optimization research and development, which you claimed is much more important. What specific areas in compiler optimization (or just in compiler design) are more important than protein structure prediction and modeling?

Then we are in the same club. I've published research on global optimization algorithms for protein folding. I'm not a biochemist, but I understood that protein folding actually has immediate application in understanding disease and drug design.

As a computer scientist, I also understood that compiler optimization is a mature field with most of the low-hanging fruit already picked. So, I guess I'm confused and will ask respectfully what problems in compiler optimization make it a thousand times more useful than protein folding and associated medical problems?

Except that a biochemist learning Python to solve problems he/she has in protein folding research (or whatever) is a useful skill to get things done in his/her field. A programmer learning about basic lab equipment probably isn't going to help too much in developing software (although it might help him/her get more attractive dates).

And protein folding is much more useful to humanity than compiler optimization. Does anyone even work on compiler optimization anymore?

That would be good advice to your brother. Programming as a career seems like a dead end going forward, for whatever reasons. However, if he is in some other seemingly unrelated occupation (law, medicine, education, etc.), then programming skill could be a competitive advantage.

If you can bring a pretty woman with you, it works even better. My wife and I visited the MIT campus a few years back, and she attracted more attention to us than I would have alone. She knows next to nothing about technology, but it didn't matter. Note, I'm not trying to knock MIT girls, just giving you a tip to get into some labs. Also, MIT folks are very nice and open, not elitist at all, in my experience.

When I read "fundamentally hard", I think NP-hard. What is NP-hard about twitter? Am I missing something or is this a reference to a systems development issue?

That's hard to say. One can make the argument for a price crash as speculators have flooded into the oil and commodities markets and bid up prices. There is a lot of fear of peak <insert finite natural resource>. Once people got tired of it, prices would drop.

On the other hand, oil is a finite natural resource that has been pumped out of the ground for decades at an increasing rate. Only severely retarded politicians don't believe in peak oil or believe that oil is an infinite resource (they also believe in ghosts, so there). Thanks to China, India, and other countries deciding they want some basic level of civilization, the rate of increase in the rate of increase of demand means oil supplies and proven reserves are going down fast. That means there might not be a price crash and in a few years we will look at $6/gallon for gasoline as the good ole days.

Yep, a lot of us would have to adopt the hobo life and cut other people with our hobo knife.

Yeah for Plaxo! Lot's of acquisitions going on.

Interesting. CBIR was my dissertation topic and I haven't thought about it in some time. Brings back fond memories (and some kooky thoughts about what to with it now.) Thanks, nickb.

It's a hard problem (computationally and figuratively) since perfect image search is basically the same problem as computer vision. Most people think of image search like they do textual search: exactness is a requirement. I relaxed that requirement and look at different methods to cull the search space down (throw out images that probably weren't relevant).

Maybe it's just me, but I don't know if I could get serious work done at that Zurich office. I think it would feel more like working at FAO Schwartz.

Microsoft is acting like a desperate & spurned lover, Yahoo like the 30+ year old former HS cheerleader who thinks she still has what the boys want.

No way MSFT offers $33+/share again. Yahoo's pride/arrogance/stupidity cost their shareholders a lot of money.

Yahoo lost a lot of leverage when they flipped the bird at Microsoft. A $33/share offer was gold and they left a lot of money on the table. Yahoo is in a really tight corner now with pissed off shareholders. I wonder how likely a merger with Google is at this point of if that would make any sense for Google.

Does anybody know if there are more details out there for Feynman's buffer analysis using PDEs? Is this an example of probabilistic analysis like bin analysis, birthday paradox, etc.

How much Objective-C software is written at Apple?

That is so freaking cool!

Don't get a PhD. Get a MS from a good school like MIT, Stanford, CMU, etc., if you really want a graduate degree with the most bang for the buck.

A PhD is really only necessary and sufficient for an academic career, which is not the same as a research career.

This definitely puts the spotlight on Yahoo to start performing PDQ. If they are the same track six months from now that they are on today, you can expect some real gnashing of teeth among the shareholders.

On the other hand, Microsoft comes out of this looking pretty good (among the none geek crowds). They tried to buy this poor company at a 60-70% premium.

I wonder if MS has another acquisition target in their sites .

Good one, but don't quit your day job.

I understand that. And it's true that it is best to negotiate the highest starting salary as possible because most people, on average, will get a standard "cost of living" (whatever that means anymore) raise increase on an annual basis. But, I wanted to point out that there is definitely hope for non-namebrand CS program graduates, too.

Todd is right. After a couple of years, your school is much less important than what you've done with it during that time.

That $5-10k delta could be made up within a year or two for a good developer coming from a non-namebrand CS school who puts his/her nose to the grindstone.

No, it doesn't make sense. But it's a cheap way to get karma points.

Give it time (4 or 5 days), and it'll be a blind-swap for porn.