BruceIV

11 ms·

91.
by BruceIV 13y ago
I've spent the last two months wishing I'd written the project I'm working on now in Haskell instead of C++ - the main reason? Lazy evaluation. I'm working on developing a new algorithm, which is most easily defined as a
92.
by BruceIV 13y ago
I played with it some, and besides the fact that only a few geeks were using it, the UI was terribly frustrating: it was slow, and had just enough "desktop app" functionality to put you in that mindset, but not enough to actually
93.
by BruceIV 13y ago
These are exactly the reasons why I run Windows on my home machine (Linux at work though, I do need to get stuff done). That said, I was out to lunch this weekend with a friend, and she was frustrated because her new (Windows 8) laptop woul
94.
by BruceIV 13y ago
There's always the possibility that this is mostly Scott Adams trolling. He does do that sometimes.
95.
by BruceIV 13y ago
Yeah, the one that got me is "branch on variable declaration", which I believe is actually a special case of the fact that assignment is actually an expression which returns the assigned value; `a = b = c = 42;` works for the same
96.
by BruceIV 13y ago
When I was 11 Dad taught me how to use Excel to make a spreadsheet to compare the new minivans he was looking at buying (because I kept stealing his brochures and poring over the feature tables at the end). I later used it to make a chart s
97.
by BruceIV 13y ago
A thousand times this. I never got so far into Linux, but I did run a Linux desktop as my primary system from about 2006-2010, and switched back to Windows because I got sick of fighting with it. I still run Linux on my work boxes because i
98.
by BruceIV 13y ago
Thank you SO much - I've been using fewer and fewer Google services, and the address box already does search so I don't need another bar, so I was really annoyed at these changes. That said, I spent the evening trying to figur
99.
by BruceIV 13y ago
As others have said, CanCon is a quota for "Canadian" content on TV and the radio, which mostly means our radio stations play a lot more Nickelback than anyone wants to listen to.
100.
by BruceIV 13y ago
Imagine how far piracy would drop if Netflix Canada actually had some decent content (there's some good stuff, but if you go looking for anything specific, it's nearly always not there - American Netflix is far superior).
101.
by BruceIV 13y ago
Good compiler support, a wealth of documentation, an active community, and a number of well-maintained libraries are all rational and informed reasons to choose a programming language. Network effects matter.
102.
by BruceIV 13y ago
And my point was that, due to the way C++ is designed (specifically, not having a proper module system and having this massively powerful macro-replacement templating engine), there is no way for the compiler to distinguish between "le
103.
by BruceIV 13y ago
The difference is that you can separately compile your Scala libraries from the code that calls them - if you do that in C++, you give up templates. All those #includes at the top of your C++ code are basically just dumping code into your s
104.
by BruceIV 13y ago
I think the author is saying that for what C++ is used for, its backwards compatibility with C is an anti-feature, because it's too low-level. That doesn't mean C is a bad language if you want or need that low level of control, ju
105.
by BruceIV 13y ago
I think not - C has extremely thin abstractions - it's basically a portable assembler, with all the trade-offs so implied. C++ is a beast of a language that includes everything and the kitchen sink (plus decent backward compatibility w
106.
by BruceIV 13y ago
Only if you like writing all your libraries yourself. To answer a little less flippantly, you'd need to add some sort of "unsafe" construct to the language, because most of the nice, high level abstractions have nasty low-lev
107.
by BruceIV 13y ago
I agree with your logic, Jon. For what it's worth, the base assumption of the (materialist) atheist worldview is that the natural world is a closed system (i.e. no supernatural), from which it follows that science can (at least in theo
108.
by BruceIV 13y ago
By "single pass" I meant simply that you don't need a separate lexing phase (though as some of the other commenters have mentioned, it is possible to do a PEG parser in linear time using memoization or dynamic programming)
109.
by BruceIV 13y ago
It sounds to me like he wants a PEG parser - PEG is a formalization of a recursive descent parsers that operates in a single pass and can quite easily handle the "parse different things in different contexts" problem (like the inl
110.
by BruceIV 13y ago
Minor point: could the prevalence of ad-blocking on Linux be mostly because ad-blocking makes the Web significantly faster because Flash is dog-slow on Linux, rather than any particular philosophical objection to ads?
111.
by BruceIV 13y ago
Exactly. This is an underpowered motorbike with a pedal-powered assist, which, due to some regulatory grey areas is likely legal for use on bike paths. As an actual bicycle commuter I don't approve.
112.
by BruceIV 13y ago
It'd be a pain in the rear to setup and keep synched for my home computer, lab computer, and smartphone. And Horde's not amazing, but it works well enough.
113.
by BruceIV 13y ago
I'm not the parent, but I do run Win 8.1 on my main laptop. I don't use Metro apps (Netflix and a couple games excepted), because there are better apps to do the same thing on the desktop (and before 8.1 not being able to run Metr
114.
by BruceIV 13y ago
I use it on my home machine because I don't want to pay for a Mac or maintain a Linux desktop. Windows 8 was fine, and 8.1 fixes most of the rough spots in the UI.
115.
by BruceIV 13y ago
I nearly did, but Chrome handles my university's webmail client better (and what with the NSA and all, they strongly recommend against mirroring your mail to an American server, which rules out most of the nicer webmail interfaces).
116.
by BruceIV 13y ago
I feel like most people aren't version number junkies, and as long as their phone does all (or most) of the same things that neighbour Jones' Nexus phone does they'll be happy.
117.
Comparing Windows and Linux Stability(johndcook.com)
12 points by BruceIV 13y ago|2 comments
118.
by BruceIV 13y ago
I don't mind them putting the Start button back, but I wish there was an option to remove it again. I much prefer a vertical taskbar, which puts my Start button in a different corner than the Start hot corner (which is just confusing a
119.
by BruceIV 13y ago
It's not that they got rid of the taskbar (it's still there on the Win8 desktop), it's that they took the button for the start menu off of it, and replaced it with a hot corner, and in Windows 8.1 they've put the button
120.
by BruceIV 13y ago
Fair - if I were to write up what I'd want from a new systems language it would be: statically typed with some sort of generics capability, natively compiled, not GC'd (I like the idea of ObjC's ARC, though I can't say I

More ›