mencius

4 ms·

1.
by mencius 19y ago
No, the browser is definitely not just an application in Android. It is WebKit, which is in the framework layer. Android can run any language that can compile to the JVM. On the other hand, compiling to Java bytecode really isn't much dif
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Five problems with Google Android(unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com)
15 points by mencius 19y ago|7 comments
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by mencius 19y ago
Read Michael Hiltzik's "Dealers of Lightning." It's a little more complicated than that.
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by mencius 19y ago
Both these comments are dead on. Never, EVER go to grad school the way I did - just noticing that your four years are up, and seeing where you have to apply next, so you can keep on proving how smart you are. Going to grad school straight o
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by mencius 19y ago
Try submitting this paragraph as your next grant application! It is actually possible to make educated guesses as to what's interesting and what isn't. It is just very hard. The management of the old Xerox PARC, for example, was very good
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by mencius 19y ago
It spoils the others because the relationship between science and personal honesty is extremely close and important. Science has to be utterly intolerant of nonsense. Its spirit is to attack it and take no prisoners. If you have this spi
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by mencius 19y ago
I don't disagree at all, but neither do I repent. I just think the world needs equal and opposite hyperbole. But I also think it needs PL design - in the sense of Guy Steele, Paul Graham, Guido von Rossum, etc, etc, etc. And I do think th
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by mencius 19y ago
I actually agree with all of this - in theory. The problem is that the actual process by which this guesswork is done, actually right now in the real world , is nonsense. It is permeated by intentional distortions of reality. As a resu
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by mencius 19y ago
"If you're so smart, why aren't you rich?"
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by mencius 19y ago
If you can't detect, a priori, which research projects will be successful, why in God's name do we have a grant process? You're making my point for me, which is that the process of allocating research funding is driven by nothing other than
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by mencius 19y ago
In the rare cases that a programmer actually needs (dynamic) function composition, yes. For very understandable reasons, most of the examples you see of higher-order FP languages tend to stress very intricate and elegant algorithms. But wh
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by mencius 19y ago
I wouldn't say it has to be usable by Joe Average Programmer, but if it's not - and it will obviously never be - it should have to explain why. And it shouldn't be described in any context, whether paper, grant proposal, or university pres
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by mencius 19y ago
Also, when you're examining something that dubs itself "science," pointing out a spot of routine dishonesty, however small and irrelevant, is hardly indicating a "strawman." Shades of the [Curate's egg]( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curate
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by mencius 19y ago
I think what you are describing is program verification, not proof-carrying code. In proof-carrying code, of course, the proposition you are proving may not be associated with the source code as an invariant. But if it isn't, why isn't
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by mencius 19y ago
If you don't know the difference between what Guido van Rossum does, and what Andrew Appel, Luca Cardelli, Zhong Shao, etc, etc, do, you are clearly not a PL researcher! I am not a budget analyst. What bothers me is that I think a field I
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by mencius 19y ago
I think this is my favorite response ever to anything I've ever written. I look forward to your rebuttal - if you could post a link to it in the Blogger comments, that would be ideal...