sharmajai's comments

C, like thousands of other computer science students, was the first language I learnt.

I have always felt that a language is only as popular as the niche it serves. For C that niche started out as OS implementation and expanded into driver programming, UI programming, embedded systems programming, graphics programming, and many many more disciplines.

There was Fortran and PL/1 before C, what made C so popular? I will let dmr's friend Brian Kernighan answer it:

C is perhaps the best balance of expressiveness and efficiency that has ever been seen in programming languages. At the time it was developed, efficiency mattered a great deal: machines were slow and had small memories, so one had to get close to the efficiency of assembler. C did this for system programming tasks--writing compilers, operating systems and tools. It was so close to the machine that you could see what the code would be (and it wasn't hard to write a good compiler), but it still was safely above the instruction level and a good enough match to all machines that one didn't think about specific tricks for specific machines. Once C came along, there no longer was any reason for any normal programmer to use assembly language. It's still my favorite language; if I were marooned on a desert island with only one compiler, it would have to be for C.[1]

If I have to pick one reason for C's popularity, it would be pointers (both function and data) alongwith type casting. IMHO this was the combination that not only gave you full control of the underlying hardware (other languages had done that too) but most importantly it enabled other programming paradigms, (functional, object oriented etc.), while doing that.

Thanks for introducing us to the wonderful world of computer programming. RIP DMR.

1. http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7035

I have heard of many googlers, who use Ubuntu on their macbooks. Besides that is an ability which is not a prerequisite for majority of the computer users. Look I am a Ubuntu (not on a macbook though) user myself, and being a developer love the freedom that it provides, but we have to remember that everybody's requirement of freedom is different, for vast majority of the users freedom means, freedom from spending hours to tinker with something to make it work, things should just work for them, and Steve provided that kind of freedom.

Fuck you RMS. I have been and still am a staunch believer in open source, but when I read comments like this from the person who's motto once was that everybody writing software should contribute the source back to the community, not because it delivers better software (due to the more eyeballs resulting in fewer bugs), but because it results in moving software forward quickly by virtue of helping each other out, I agree with the OP, it's time for a change.

Let me tell you something, free software or not, it was Steve Jobs, who told us what forward direction for software actually means, first by making GUI mainstream, then by making capacitive touch mainstream, and lastly by defining what a tablet form factor should and should not be.

If you think Steve's products hamper your freedom, I can argue the exact opposite, it was Steve who taught us ways to make technology more accessible by making groundbreaking innovations in user interfaces, which enables the non geeks of the world to use computers in the first place, I am pretty sure those users will feel more trapped in the command line interface that you envisioned for them, than they feel by not having access to the source of the painting app they have fun playing with on their ipad.

So if you cannot come out the frog hole that you have created for yourself, and give credit where it's due, then maybe you should shut the fuck up.

I have never met Steve Jobs in person, yet I am deeply saddened by this news, this does not happen very often.

Thank you Steve for being an inspiration in our lives and making the world a better place. You will be missed forever. Rest in peace.

My condoloences to your family.

A very sad day for humanity.

the right development process that allows for rapid development, well rapid development is the reason people write webapps in python/ruby/node and not C++. We have to stop pretending that language choice is immaterial, hadn't it for C we would still be typing in our single and double mouse clicks into an OS written in assembly.

I for one felt this was unnecessary critical for a first iteration. The only major blow is no support for native sdk and hence all the top tier 3d games, and no google maps (is that what was indicated?), since the current map support on the playbook sucks bad.

But on the bright side, pandora, google goggles, and read it later should work.

"My iPad can replace my laptop for basically everything but work" - so I guess my point stands. I was trying to argue against OP's point that all these things "Web browsing, listening/browsing/buying music, twitter et al, emails, games, books, movies/tv shows, etc, etc" can be done on a Playbook too.

Your tablet can never be a replacement for your laptop. Period.

On a related note, does anybody know of a good vps provider for serving sites to India?

That is because playbook requires a swipe up from the bottom bezel to bring up app list where you can close it. This is due to the ingenious functioning bezel it has, which removes the need for that lingering bottom bar as in android.

Then maybe Steve Jobs should use his salary to make his products affordable to third world countries to do some real good than serving the riches of the world, and maybe Larry Ellison should have honored Sun Microsystem's policies of not suing anybody who uses Java APIs.

Laws, being constructed by humans are not infalliable, or otherwise new laws won't replace existing ones. I don't know how willing the google's decision to permit advertising of prescription drugs was, but I am assuming they went with it because there was no precedent for such a thing in the past (the article mentions this as this is the first time a search engine being held responsible). But I hope and am almost certain that google won't do such a thing again. We will see.

Your example of child porn and crack is taking it too far and I am sure no such thing will happen. But if you want google to be enforcing all the laws for you, then maybe it should also detect your location and disallow all merchants catering to gay marriages in the search results, in states where it is prohibited.

Also I don't agree with your generalist approach to corporations that they are all equally evil. I for one would prefer a corporation which makes a bold statement about its policies being non evil and one which is ready to be called upon when it goes astray its path, than one which makes no such claims. To me this is not self righteousness but self discipline.

I think, google is the one protecting the idea of online privacy by not having stupid restrictions on exporting your own social data and by allowing the users to decide what gets shared with whom (circles).

And stupid lawsuits are not irrelevant to the society, they hamper competition which in turn hampers technological progress. If you think Samsung Galaxy Tab and Ipad look similar, just look again at their screens side by side the difference between PLS and IPS is day and night, it is unfortunate that the court does not deem that as differentiating enough.

Google is not law enforcement and thank god for that. Unlike apple which strives to be the moral leader of the world that nobody needs.

What google did here was illegal and it paid the price for it, but I don't see anybody getting directly harmed by google's decision, it was not google selling the drugs themselves or that the drugs were not upto the standards.

Besides by the same reasoning google should block all the illegal torrent sites, or wikileaks for that matter. Always remember your truth is not everybody else's truth, and it is better that the world's leading search engine does not take sides for you.

I am reminded time and time again how much "Don't be evil" mantra still holds for Google whenever other evil corporations do things like suing companies for looks of a product, primarily to hamper competition, and when they take cut out of sale made on their platform without adding any value whatsoever to the payment platform.

When was the last time Google abused its set of patents to screw competition? There are so many ways in which Google can be evil, but it consciously chooses not to be.

Edit: Grammar

I can very well relate to this.

In the past, I could never really understand the affection between a newborn and her parents, till I became a father recently. Having seen my son right from the time of delivery I know it better than the other relatives what works and what doesn't, since I have seen it in person many times.

It is this involvement from the start, the familiarity, and attention to all the small little things, which lead to affection towards the child, or in this case towards the company which literally is the founder's child.

We have to stop pretending degrees are worthless. The way I see it, going to school, expedites your learning process, by exposing you to professors and your peers, it helps you learn best practices, which although generic, saves you a lot of time making same mistakes others (your professors and your peers) have made. Also it gives you the focus and urgency to finish your learning on time.

As an analogy, consider the knowledge accumulated while atending school as open source software, even if your knowledge or the OSS is generic to be fully usable for the task at hand, it almost always gives you a big headstart to get your job done, because it avoids the trivial and non-trivial pitfalls through years of maturity.

I am waiting for Gruber's justification for this. I am sure he will be able to cook something up as he always does.

On the other hand, I think this is one of those things, which have brought down Apple time and time again in the past, from the pinnacles of success to being competitively obsolete, mainly due to its inability to adapt to the changing market dynamics.

Why so critical, even if it is just for offices it makes a huge difference to the ease of taking/offering bribe, simply because of the knowledge that you are being watched. That is why we have surveillance cameras in offices.

Even if it is for the image of the official, it's a good start, if you don't agree at least give another solution, or stop being critical.