kvb

16 ms·

121.
by kvb 13y ago
In my opinion, yes, but others are free to disagree (and "inferior" is subjective). In addition to the kinds of applied research that Google also does (machine learning, etc.), MSR also does a lot of fundamental research much fur
122.
by kvb 13y ago
While this is true, I think Microsoft Research is much more akin to Bell Labs than Google (though I'm biased). See e.g. this list of top CS papers [1]. [1] http://jeffhuang.com/best_paper_awards.html
123.
by kvb 13y ago
Particularly when the cheap drug isn't FDA approved for the treatment in question.
124.
by kvb 13y ago
The main focus of the Oracle case was copyright, not patents.
125.
by kvb 13y ago
How much of the stack are you willing to look at when you hit a guard page? The non-tail call might not be right near the top, depending on the structure of the code. I'm not saying it's impossible, but I think the approach of h
126.
by kvb 13y ago
Right, my thought was that doing real tail calls everywhere that's eligible would almost certainly be a performance disaster. I'm not sure that hotspot could help, at least if applied naively, since correctness depends on never
127.
by kvb 13y ago
What do you mean by "The JVM could implement tailcalls via analysis"? Offhand, I can't see a way for this to be practically viable, but I may just be lacking imagination.
128.
by kvb 13y ago
Note that Scala doesn't implement general tail call optimization; it only applies to direct self-recursive calls (as far as I'm aware). By contrast, on .NET F# implements true tail call optimization, including cases where the cal
129.
by kvb 13y ago
As many comments point out, he neglects the .NET approach to generics, which avoids most of the drawbacks of C++'s approach and Java's.
130.
by kvb 13y ago
This is incorrect - see the definition of a text element in the remarks of http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.globalization... .
131.
by kvb 13y ago
But I was wrong and it's actually by grapheme, as danbruc correctly notes.
132.
by kvb 13y ago
Good point - I meant one codepoint at a time.
133.
by kvb 13y ago
.NET uses 16-bit characters, but you can use the System.Globalization.StringInfo class to iterate through a string one Unicode character at a time, index into strings by Unicode character, etc. The API's a bit awkward, but it works.
134.
by kvb 13y ago
Where did the skeleton tracking come from?
135.
by kvb 13y ago
How does open allocation address performance evaluation/compensation? Doesn't Valve have both open allocation and stack ranking?
136.
by kvb 13y ago
What leads you to believe that Microsoft applies the curve at that level?
137.
by kvb 13y ago
I love F#, and greatly prefer it to C# for most tasks, but I think you're overreaching a bit. C#'s dynamic feature is also extensible (via IDynamicMetaObjectProvider) and much more complete than F#'s (e.g. F# probably ought
138.
by kvb 13y ago
On the other hand they ensured that every Windows user had free access to a high quality browser (at least, at the time IE6 came out).
139.
by kvb 13y ago
Of course there's a good reason: copyright exists to motivate the production of creative works, but creators typically are not motivated by the thought of royalties 80 years down the road. Also, real/personal and intellectual prop
140.
by kvb 13y ago
Really? http://www.engadget.com/2013/10/21/microsoft-surface-2-revie...
141.
by kvb 13y ago
No, really you don't need Taylor series at all; see for example Conal Elliott's "Beautiful Differentiation"[1], which shows how to handle arbitrary derivatives of multidimensional functions and never uses Taylor series f
142.
by kvb 13y ago
Why would you need that? The F# compiler's open source and runs just fine in MonoDevelop/Xamarin Studio (or outside of an IDE, for that matter).
143.
by kvb 13y ago
Was OS revenue ever a big source of income for Apple?
144.
by kvb 13y ago
Thankfully the compiler is open source and there's a thriving community outside of Microsoft (see http://fsharp.org ), so this shouldn't be a big worry. And Microsoft hasn't shown a lack of commitment thus far (in
145.
by kvb 13y ago
I like C#, and I think that it's an objectively well-designed language given its designers' priorities. But if you have different priorities, there's plenty to dislike. If you want a scripting language, or a really expressi
146.
by kvb 13y ago
C++ has features like operator overloading that make faking lambdas via Boost feasible. And even Java has anonymous inner classes that allow a rather ugly local transformation somewhat akin to closures. But if you removed that feature, th
147.
by kvb 13y ago
It's hard to do, but it is being done. See e.g. Gonthier's celebrated work formalizing the Feit-Thompson theorem[1]. [1] http://www.msr-inria.fr/news/feit-thomson-proved-in-coq/
148.
by kvb 13y ago
See Felleisen's "On the Expressive Power of Programming Languages"[1] for one formalization that differs from conciseness. Essentially, Turing complete languages can express the same programs at the very coarse "whole p
149.
by kvb 13y ago
Root against Microsoft all you want - I just think that stack ranking is too convenient a scapegoat. Valve and Google stack rank, too, but that doesn't mean they're not great companies. Also, Wikipedia's not necessarily an
150.
by kvb 13y ago
Wasn't stack ranking in use during Gates's tenure as well?

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