kvb

31 ms·

301.
by kvb 14y ago
I agree that using head::tail is usually not more readable, though I think that sometimes it is better to be a bit more descriptive than just x::xs (e.g. key::keys). It really depends on the context as well as the experience level of the p
302.
by kvb 14y ago
I love F# (I'm currently a contractor with the F# team in Microsoft Research), and I'm delighted to see people advocating its use. I prefer F# to C# by a wide margin. But C# is still a really well designed language, which makes it much ha
303.
by kvb 14y ago
The biggest difference is that C#'s design is way better than Java's, so there's not nearly as much motivation to move to another language targeting .NET.
304.
by kvb 14y ago
That's odd; I thought Kinect was widely hailed as a success.
305.
by kvb 14y ago
I'm also curious about this. Promisingly, F# is explicitly mentioned under the "Extensible" heading here: http://xamarin.com/studio .
306.
by kvb 14y ago
I doubt that their amicus briefs are driven by PR considerations as opposed to actual business concerns. How does a court filing that most of the public will never see help them shift public perceptions of Google?
307.
by kvb 14y ago
Actually, I think that there are both benefits and costs to tightly controlled languages, and it's not clear at all that the costs outweigh the benefits. Indeed, arguably C#'s great progress in the last decade compared to Java is due in la
308.
by kvb 14y ago
That's a lot easier when you're not trying to improve edible seeds (soybeans, corn, etc.). Although as I understand it, Monsanto also developed techniques for making the seeds infertile, but got so much pubic backlash that they never deplo
309.
by kvb 14y ago
None of what you wrote is obvious to me. Partly this is because Microsoft is big enough that I find descriptions that treat Microsoft as a monolithic entity unconvincing. After all, they got Kinect to market quickly. SharePoint seemed to
310.
by kvb 14y ago
The fact that there are algebraic numbers inexpressible by roots still bugs me somewhat, but I'm not sure there's a suitably elementary explanation.
311.
by kvb 14y ago
The patent on Roundup (glyphosphate) expired in 2000 [1], so that's probably not a viable strategy. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyphosate
312.
by kvb 14y ago
Note that I was commenting on the article from the parent to my comment, not to the one from the OP (which I found much less persuasive, and where the historical focus does seem like a real weakness). Even if a monopoly is the best way to
313.
by kvb 14y ago
I'm less anti-patent than most people here, but I think that's a very good article. In particular, the treatment of pharmaceuticals is not the absurd "if we just got rid of patents, innovation would continue at the same rate" argument that
314.
by kvb 14y ago
It's not particularly different (though the low switching costs are somewhat unusual). Regardless, there's a network externality that allows Elsevier to capture excess rents. It's not that Elsevier doesn't provide any value, but at the sa
315.
by kvb 14y ago
Elsevier definitely provides a service, and should be remunerated for it. However, arguably most of their income is due to a "coordination game" rather than any value added - see The Parable of the Anarchists Annual Meeting[1]. [1] http://
316.
by kvb 14y ago
What do you mean by "abandoned"? Isn't pretty much everything Microsoft releases supported on its original platform for at least 10 years? With OSS software and OSes, do you get better support guarantees?
317.
by kvb 14y ago
Is placebo design actually complicated? Other posts have indicated that you just have the manufacturer of the drug leave the active ingredient out of the normal formulation (so that all fillers, etc. are identical). If this is an importan
318.
by kvb 14y ago
Yep, and flash fill, too, which if it were introduced by Google instead would probably be hailed as evidence that the strong culture of AI at Google gives them an innovation advantage in the long run.
319.
by kvb 14y ago
If you're not trolling, you may be interested in Jensen Harris's fairly detailed blogs posts on the rationale for the new UI [1], which I found informative. [1] http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jensenh/archive/tags/why+the+new+ui_...
320.
by kvb 14y ago
Is the Surface really a tablet? From the marketing, it seems clear that the presence of a semi-integrated keyboard is considered a selling point, so I'm not sure there's really much of a conflict here. As an owner of both devices, I don't
321.
by kvb 14y ago
Sure, but that's what OneNote is for (and there's a touch-optimized OneNote app). The current weak touch support is still good enough to do basic editing on tablets, and is definitely fine for viewing. Touch-optimized interfaces for all p
322.
by kvb 14y ago
Is the argument that a touch version of Office is more important than a web-friendly version? Moving to a JavaScript-based add-in model and adding native support for SkyDrive seem like fairly big, worthwhile, and forward-looking additions
323.
by kvb 14y ago
The purpose of the FDA is quite different from that of a journal; why would you expect the information needed for each to perform its function to be the same? Among other issues, how much time to you expect a journal reviewer to spend vett
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by kvb 14y ago
Of course it's also possible that height and attractiveness are correlated with competence (e.g. because healthy diets as children influence all three attributes), in which case we'd expect to see more tall/attractive people promoted even i
325.
by kvb 14y ago
But there's going to be publication bias regardless of pharma's incentives, right? If I'm running a medical journal, why would I publish an article that says "this new slightly larger study also found drug x effective"?
326.
by kvb 14y ago
Given how easy it is to fool the FDA, why are only ~35 new compounds submitted for approval each year? And why are only ~25 approved? Note that the fact that trial results aren't released to the public doesn't mean that they aren't disclos
327.
by kvb 14y ago
That's interesting, but doesn't seem directly relevant. Publishing non-peer-reviewed articles is not the same as faking trials or conducting studies and hiding the results.
328.
by kvb 14y ago
I'm surprised that Tomas's idea of generating tooltips in HTML hasn't caught on in other language communities, but perhaps it's just not widely known. Of course, it's especially useful in a language like F#, where type inference means that
329.
Literate programming tools for F#(tomasp.net)
1 points by kvb 14y ago|1 comments
330.
by kvb 14y ago
First of all, forget "not adding value to your competitor's product" - this is about removing value that was already there. Secondly, Google has market power in both the mobile device OS market and the online map market compared to MS, and

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