G_Morgan's comments

Glad to see this. If Mozilla started chasing corporate then it would be necessary for me to switch browser. I've stuck with them through the misconceptions about memory from people who don't understand how memory management works. I've put up with slightly worse performance and standards support for enabling features I actually use like ad block.

However I would never tolerate kowtowing to the mishmash of nonsense that is corporate IT. I don't use IE for exactly this reason.

The simple truth is that if corporations need consistent behaviour they should not be using web apps to begin with.

That is the other problem. Every database is a mash of semi intentional subtle incompatibility with the standard and a host of non-standard features. When an ORM comes along many try to expose the non-standard features that make sense in some way but end up needing a custom solution for each DB (see how you do an auto sequence ID for an entity bean between Postgres and MSSQL).

So you have a semi portable layer interfacing with a semi portable environment.

The ability to buy non-standard screwdrivers does not justify the use of non-standard screwdrivers where a standard is just as good.

Yeah the fact it forces you to buy their absurdly marked up HDDs is just a convenient side effect.

It is also a little more complicated than that. The corporations are themselves uncooperative. They have broken the system by extending it beyond its basic intent for increased profit. They further seek to use the spectre of piracy to give them greater profit levels. Such as the establishment of taxes on CDRs in some nations which is given to the supposed losers.

Actually we know for a fact such a limit exists. There are physical limits on how much energy can be extracted from a certain mass.

Yeah what this really needs is a bot block filter service where bots that do not conform to expectations can be bulk banned. It is too much effort to do this manually but a larger service can work.

This code should be well tested by now. Amazon is doing you a failure by being rubbish.

MS (and possibly Nokia) probably wanted an early public commitment. People were pronouncing WP7 dead on arrival. The Nokia announcement puts real weight behind the platform.

In short by kicking up a fuss then they have killed the DOA claims. It means more people will have been looking at the platform. If they had delayed until now more mind share would already be locked into Android or iPhone. Unless a major player made a lot of noise about WP7 nobody would bother learning to develop for it.

Everything is an abomination until you learn how to use it.

The difficulty with loop is it takes something trivial and makes it more complex than it needs to be. Simple things are not simple. Complex things are rare and loop doesn't simplify them enough.

Yeah and the major problem with Java generics is they aren't more like C++ templates.

Today it is 100% clear that the naysayers were not only wrong about Java generics. They are wrong about generic programming in general. Unfortunately they managed to cripple Java before this realisation became obvious.

People don't do it because it is counter productive. Respected people have their supporters. Unless you first bury your argument in adequately respectful terms it will get downvoted. Regardless of content.

You cannot say "The Linus rant about C++ is just wrong". You need to first blather on about why Linus is a great guy but has his limited perspective and from that perspective he is correct. However there is a world outside of that perspective where he is wrong.

If I posted the Linus rant on C++ I'd just be called an idiot. Nobody would worry about my perspective because, to my knowledge, I don't have any supporters to appease.

It is just politics. It affects tech communities as much as anywhere else. People get invested in their side. If you challenge their side then you must be sneaky about it.

It isn't about relying on the cloud. It is more about incompetent cloud providers.

Mine is worse. I booked Tues-Thurs off. I only have internet in work at the moment. I'm going to miss reddit now and be without internet until I return to work on the 3rd of May. Stupid Sky and their stupid take forever switch overs.

TBH Amazon is so bad at this point that turning off Reddit is as good as trying to keep it running. Of course then you need to deal with the increased suicide rate.

The bosses instructions and confused and imprecise. The natural language dance in this scenario involves us repeatedly trying and failing and adding more communication until the various terms being used are precisely defined enough so that the software can be written.

This is what Dijkstra was talking about. That without a formal system we end up wasting a lot of time tightening up what we mean.

It may be an interesting field to see if we can make a computer do this dance but it isn't useful.