jqm

All languages no doubt have that problem. But I firmly believe some have it worse than others and Perl is at the top of that list in my opinion.

"100 year language..."

God I sure hope not. (Only if it's a lot easier to maintain than Perl 5 maybe...)

I have bad feelings about Perl after having to parse and cleanup a bunch of abominably written multi-thousand line pages full of regular expressions and all manner of cleverness. I mean, I actually hated Perl so badly I believed it was the worst invention ever. Then I saw a well written project and was easily able to understand and felt slightly less negative. So it's not entirely the language, but to this day seeing 'Perl' brings negative emotions to the surface. Something like PTSD I guess. It will probably take 100 years for that to go away and me to willingly look at anything called 'Perl'.

That's but _one_ of the problems....

That seems a little high. In the real world it seems that 4 years of hands on experience is often worth more than 4 years of school. For certain things anyway. I have a degree. I'm not sure the education was really worth the money but it has opened some doors.

Building those facilities would probably be very expensive. Maybe we should start by renting mini storage units:)

I thought the UI was a command prompt. At least it has been for me. Shows you what I know:)

I've been using Transmission on Linux for years. Need another example of an app that's better on Mac (I have no doubt there are plenty:)

chmod 500

Because it's certain he could execute as well....

(In fact, let's make it 510. The group can't read or write but they don't have problem executing either.)

I'm surprised to see the amount of negative comments. Widespread adoption of this kind of technology will likely to be one of the best things to ever happen to the human race.

The author might be off on timeline but I'm pretty sure this will become common practice before very long. Some people won't like it, some people will resist, sure. It won't matter. Eventually they will be like the anti vax crowd. And everyone else will say "look what you are doing to your kids!".... there ought to be a law! And then there probably will be a law. And it will be I'm pretty sure, in the end, a huge gain for the human race.

That's not really "cute" code though. Short list comprehension isn't any less readable (and certainly not less maintainable WTF?) than a multi-line "for" loop. In fact, I find short list comprehension more readable. I don't have to mentally keep track of place in a multistep loop.

The problems with the European Social Democracy model are becoming apparent even as we speak. It works really well with a small, homogenous, educated, basically peaceable population and assumes plentiful resources and that the population reproduces at a reasonable level.

But much of the world does not live under those kind of conditions and national barriers are apparently very much an artificial construct. Would social democracy work in Iraq? In Somalia? But we share the same world as Iraq and Somalia. So what do we do? (real question... I don't know).

Tax land use and tax raw material use. (i.e. aluminum in a can). Eliminate just about all other taxes.

Don't tax "capital" in the form of money, certainly don't tax labor.

Why punish productive effort? Punish use of resources. This will make people strive for efficiency and go a long ways towards eliminating problems like pollution, encourage recycling etc.

That sounds like a form of prostitution.

Roads and bridges are fine. 700 hammers for the military maybe not.

I worked as project manager for a contractor doing public works at one point. The government (at least in the US and probably everywhere) wastes a staggering amount of money.

Not saying the government doesn't need funding. They do. But they could certainly do a lot more with less.

Except...... I'm not a leftist. Not sure how you got that from the post.

I in no way think all affluent people got their money by illegal means nor did I even slightly imply that.

But some affluent people did get their money by illegal means. Fact. Therefore the idea that rich people don't commit crime is false and the idea that they commit less crime is somewhat suspect.

There are all kinds of criminals. Hi IQ adults probably don't (generally) shoplift $3 worth of beauty products nor hold up gas stations for $56.

Bernie Madoff was probably pretty smart though don't you think?

And there are no doubt plenty of others who are too smart to get caught, and if caught not prosecuted, and if prosecuted not convicted. I'm not convinced hi IQ people commit that much less crime. Just that they probably commit less petty crime.

I picked and ate mushrooms as a kid frequently. I had some books and very quickly learned to identify the poisonous and edible kinds. It wasn't that hard and I never got sick. But I was careful and did research first and if there was any doubt I left the mushroom alone. I personally loved picking mushrooms... it was a lot of fun. I don't see it as dumb or risky at all as long as you know what you are doing.

This article may (or may not:) be a little short sighted.

Basically it claims the inventions of what it terms "The third industrial revolution" (computers) affect a much narrower slice of life than the proceeding industrial revolutions. So they won't produce the growth the proceeding revolutions did and the rapid growth is over.

But earlier in the article:

"GORDON: When we had the invention of steam engines, steam ships, locomotives, factories making cotton fabrics, and then the telegraph. All of those things were invented in the century between 1770 and 1870. And they set the stage for the inventions that happened after 1870. "

So there was a lag between the large number of invention and the true realization of potential in subsequent inventions and thus improvements in life.

First of all I don't think digital technology does affect a narrower slice of life when looked at in broader terms. I think it affects an even greater slice of life. True we have a bunch of cat videos and Facebook but that's just the surface.

But the main point, going back to the lag, I believe that is where we are now. We have the technology and are really just getting started with what it can do. Digital technology hasn't really infiltrated everywhere it can and many things are still being done in inefficient ways. When the subsequent set of innovations begin to appear I think we will see an even greater increase in standard of living than the previous industrial revolutions. More efficient distribution mechanisms. Better control over biology (including our own). Automation and robotics. Things like that. Social structures need to catch up though also... likely part of the reason for the lag.

Agreed, but writing tests isn't necessarily the same as TDD.

I still run Slackware on my home/work machines. I find that setting it up once every couple of years and moving my home directory is about all I need.

On the rare occasion software needs to be installed yes, it has to be built from source and it takes a few extra minutes. But you know what? Ubuntu package managers have failed me more than a couple of times. Slackbuilds.org has never once failed to produce a working package for me.

I know people don't want to have to know about every corner of their system. But you don't necessarily need to. Set it up and it works. But if you ever need to you can with Slackware. All the way down without a lot of cruft on top. And that's worth a lot when it's needed.

I guess the point is... I don't spend a lot of time screwing around with my Slackware systems. They are stable, simple and they work. Not dissimilar to the Slackware web site. Lacking over-engineered cruft.

It's Slackware. You have to put systemd in yourself:)

I suppose we should also be appreciative he hasn't instituted gulags... that we know of anyway. But that's really beside the point for this discussion.

I've found 6 hours to be about the right amount day in and day out.

Could be that. Or, it could be that they are flat out cynically lying to the public. Not sure which it is, but too much of it going on lately. If there is really a need, give us more information. Everything doesn't have to be top secret. I simply don't believe that.

how are you so sure that's not the case? :)

And fruit. It leaves fruit also. Fruit is produced to be consumed and doesn't take life in consumption.

At what point does sentience end? Whales? Rats? Birds? Fish? Insects? Plants? Bacteria?

Because something has a higher order nervous system does that mean we have to assign it equal rights? How high an order of system would be required to have equal rights? Why does it really matter how something else feels other than members of our own species?

For the record I generally agree with not keeping killer whales in captivity. I'm just asking the question so we know the position has been well considered.

Perhaps "slavery" is a bit too strong? (And that's without even getting into "you say that like it's a bad thing....").

I don't think that will be a problem. Gorillas probably aren't going to be able to keep a drone fleet running.

I'm sorry, I don't see any denigration. Just an example of human nature being human nature. I'm sure you can think of plenty more if the term "hipster" bothers you.

Ya well... nothing human is perfect. Doesn't mean it can't be better (and it will be). But regulation generally trumps people behaving ethically on their own. Sadly.

Also, couldn't small bribes also be a problem in things like fair trade certification?