dugsnake

• Constanze Roman - Writing documentation for mobile devices

  Nov 18, 2004 at 12:49 PM

  dugsnake wrote:

  Greater Monster wrote: 'Critique of pure reason' (Kant)

  
  Oooohhhh...Kant...I read 'Critique of pure reason' in my Philosophy class at Northwestern.  I'd hate to do this to you but I'll ruin the ending for you (kind of how my nephew ruined 'Sixth Sense' by telling me he was dead all along).  If memory serves me right, this book was very interesting because it's the basis of the saying, "I think; therefore, I am."  He starts off questioning his existence.  How do we know we exist?  How do I know I'm not a dream?  So, he goes through a process or 'pure reason' to prove his existence.  Eventually, he comes to the realization that he must exist because he has the capability to think thoughts, so therefore he must exist.  The spin off of this concept is known as a 'brain in a vat' idea.  How do you know that you are not just a brain in a science project being fed electrical impluses to give you perceptions of site, sound, touch, taste and smell.  This is the idea behind the movie 'Matrix'.  How do we know that we're not people lying in a tube but being fed the illusion of our being via a computer?
  
  I think the earliest movie touching this idea was 'Tron'.  The programs that they wrote were beings inside the company's mainframe.  The quote under my avatar is from this movie.  Flynn said to a program, "Who are you calling program, program?"  This idea is becoming more interesting as we get closer to developing AI.  If  computers are given artificial inteligence, then are they now beings?
  
  Speaking of  Philosophy, I would recommend reading Aristotle's works.  As programmers, you could appreciate Aristotle.  He would have been the ultimate OOP.
  

  
  My deepest apologies.  I wasn't 100% sure that my memory was correct (I must have Rambus), so I did some research.  Kant was not the philosopher who came up with, "I think therefore I am."  It was Rene Descartes.  Kant was famous for his logic using scepticism.  Freshman and Sophomore year were kind of a blur for me.  Too much extra-curricular activities for me.  -_-

• Jason Zander - Tour of the .NET CLR team

  Nov 18, 2004 at 8:59 AM

  My first computing experience was in a managed environment!  Good old C64.
  
  I remember switching to my first PC and typing at the DOS prompt:
  
  10 print "Hello World!"
  Then, getting an error message trying to type run, then list.  After repeated errors, giving up and shutting it off.  This is when I realized not all computers are alike.  Hey, sounds stupid, but I think I was like 11 or 12 years old.
  

• Constanze Roman - Writing documentation for mobile devices

  Nov 18, 2004 at 8:52 AM

  Truthfully, if it weren't for the documentation, I'd be burnt toast.  Cheers to you guys and gals!  It's a thankless job and an afterthought for most people, but you keep doing it (and doing it well).  Without you, all hell would break lose! 
  

• Jason Zander - Tour of the .NET CLR team

  Nov 18, 2004 at 7:49 AM

  Ovidiu.Platon wrote:

  Actually, you talk about automatic memory management and JIT compilation, but the CLR is about much more than that. It has a full-blown security engine (if you RTFM you can write apps that run as administrator and yet have no rights over the system), the loader and the related components are a piece of jewelry because they're one of the most advanced attempts to solve common issues such as versioning vs. ease of deployment vs. serviceability.
  Then the CLR makes it possible for you to write code once and run it anywhere (x86, Itanium, AMD64, mobile devices), just in a different sense than Java. Then you can get native code-like performance with tools such as NGEN (except for the GC overhead, which is not that big actually). And there's much more to it. Great piece of software.

  
  I didn't mean to focus on just a couple of features of the CLR.  I'll let you guys in on a little secret.  If my project is approved, the .NET team will be responsible for a revolution at the Chicago Police Department.
  
  I've already completed one revolution by switching them from Linux/Sendmail to Exchange/OWA.
  
  I'd love to talk to a few of the .NET team members privately to discuss details.  Please email me at:
  patrick.nguyen@chicagopolice.org
  if you'd like to help me with this mighty undertaking.
  

• Jason Zander - Tour of the .NET CLR team

  Nov 18, 2004 at 2:57 AM

  leighsword wrote:

  
  the memory management is a programmer 's job
  

  
  I disagree.  The programmer's job is to accomplish the task the program is supposed to perform.  If I pay a consultant to write me an accounting programming, I don't want 20% of my bill to be memory management coding time.
  

  leighsword wrote:

  
  it also can shows the ablity of  programmer
  

  
  Or lack of ability.  You may be a very good programmer, but I'll tell you there are a lot of bad programmers as well.  Kind of like the saying, "Ugly girls need love too."  Well, "Bad programmers need a job too."    At least as a user, I won't have to worry which type of programmer wrote the program I'm using.  Especially, I'm hoping I won't see the BSoD as much.
  

  leighsword wrote:

  
  Will you spend your money to buy a car that is slower than a bike?
  if answer is yes, then i will buy that bike.
  

  
  I'm not sure I follow that metaphor.  I'm guessing .NET is the car, but what's the bike?  Unmanaged code?
  My answer would be, I'd take the car, drop a 5.7L HEMI V8 340 HP motor in it, put some nice 21" Aluminum Alloy rims, pumpin' radio and safely cruz on by you on your bike, as I watch you dodging other bicyclists on your unmanaged road.
  

• Jason Zander - Tour of the .NET CLR team

  Nov 18, 2004 at 2:22 AM

  leighsword wrote:

  dugsnake wrote: leighsword wrote:the JAVA, i have fotgot to metion it. the MS will lose many C++ programmers,because we(most of c++ programmers) are prepare turn to JAVA ,and learning it NOW. I guess you haven't tried running JAVA apps on top of Windows lately.  When I open up my Oracle utilities, I go for a cup of coffee.

  
  To choice JAVA, absolutly wanna give up the win32 platform,meaning have no choice on win32 platform.
  

  
  Your complaint is you don't like CLR because it's slow, but you'll move to JAVA, even though it's slower?
  
  Isn't this a case of cutting off your nose to spite your face?
  
  Or did I read it wrong?  Are you implying you'll stop using Windows all together?
  

• The 9 Guys - Who We Are

  Nov 18, 2004 at 2:17 AM

  Nice forums.  Nice page.  Is this custom made or is it using Sharepoint?  Is it available for download?  I'm looking for an alternative for phpBB.  I tried Snitz forums, but didn't care for it too much.
  
  Anyways, nice site. 
  
  nm...I should have looked at the bottom.
  
  http://www.communityserver.org/
  

• Jason Zander - Tour of the .NET CLR team

  Nov 18, 2004 at 2:02 AM

  leighsword wrote:

  the JAVA, i have fotgot to metion it.
  the MS will lose many C++ programmers,because we(most of c++ programmers) are prepare turn to JAVA ,and learning it NOW.
  

  
  
  I guess you haven't tried running JAVA apps on top of Windows lately.  When I open up my Oracle utilities, I go for a cup of coffee.
  

• Jason Zander - Tour of the .NET CLR team

  Nov 18, 2004 at 2:00 AM

  I see there is a cultural difference here.  I can see your point.
  
  On one side, yes, managed code running on top of CLR is slower and more restrictive than unmanaged code.  What benefit do I get from using it?  I don't have to worry about memory management.  I know my memory is safe without any leaks.  How do I solve the speed problem?  I go out and buy a faster processor and more memory (obviously a very western philosophy).
  
  On the other hand, running unmanaged code is faster and more flexible than managed code.  What are the problems with unmanaged code?  As a programmer, now I have to spend resources on memory management rather than concentrating on the programs purpose.  As a user, I have to trust the programmer's ability to manage memory.  How do you solve this problem?  Pray that all programmers are good at memory management.  Yes, you tweak out every ounce of performance from your hardware (a very eastern philosophy), but when Dell is selling P4 2.x GHz, 512 MB systems for less than $400.00, why bother?
  
  Do you drive a manual transmission or an automatic? (Please don't say you ride a bike!    )
  

• Jason Zander - Tour of the .NET CLR team

  Nov 18, 2004 at 12:42 AM

  leighsword wrote:

  Slow........
  should fire all members of the CLR team ,
  and replace with the MASM team.
  the garbage always makes a garbage!!!
  

  
  I don't know about you, but I don't mind waiting a week for the garbage men to come by.  It's better than having to drive down to the landfill everytime I want to throw out garbage.  Who knows, sometimes I might get lost and it may end up under my neighbors porch.
  
  Don't fire the garbage men!  Civil servants have their place in society!
  

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