reuven

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511.
by reuven 13y ago
I think that it's everything together. Basically, giving animals antibiotics means that you have more animals (and animal weight) which can be sold at market. If it were more expensive to give antibiotics to the animals, farmers migh
512.
by reuven 13y ago
It drives me totally batty to work on projects in which the designer assumes that their only responsibility is to provide a PSD file, which the developers will then turn into HTML and CSS. I want to work not just with designers, but with W
513.
by reuven 13y ago
Better yet, they could add a microphone to the thermostat and smoke detector, and then the content of your speech for analysis.. to be used in advertisements. Yes, I'm talking about AdWords for conversations! Imagine your thermostat s
514.
Ruby and Python and Felix and Oscar(blog.lerner.co.il)
2 points by reuven 13y ago|0 comments
515.
by reuven 13y ago
> I don't think web development is the hard thing to teach as much as problem solving well. True, but there's a lot to be said for having first-time programmers (and especially college students) do Web development. It's a
516.
by reuven 13y ago
Let's assume that you're right, that the main reason for Python 3 was Unicode. I've dealt with Unicode both with and without language support (in Python and elsewhere), and this is a pretty important feature. I think that t
517.
by reuven 13y ago
The thing with Python is that you don't need to know this stuff to use the language effectively. Yes, after a while, you'll want to dive into the innards -- but they're optional for most people during their initial time le
518.
by reuven 13y ago
My very limited experience working with the Smalltalk language and environment was quite negative, although I hear people sing its praises, so perhaps I just didn't know what I was doing. That said, it seems to me that many Ruby develo
519.
by reuven 13y ago
I'll have to check my terminology to understand this better. But I can assure you that most of the programmers who take my Python classes (who tend to come from Java, C#, and C++) are rather surprised that the constructor modifies an
520.
by reuven 13y ago
Very nice; it does seems far more reasonable to implement this as a decorator than as an explicit function call __init__.
521.
Making Python's __init__ method magical(blog.lerner.co.il)
60 points by reuven 13y ago|40 comments
522.
by reuven 13y ago
Whenever I teach a course in advanced Python, the people asking for the training specifically request/demand that I talk about metaclasses. This is almost certainly because they (1) want an advanced class, and (2) metaclasses are adva
523.
by reuven 13y ago
Er, I sorta knew that I was describing the halting problem, and was wondering if someone would fail to realize my sarcasm...
524.
by reuven 13y ago
The Python interactive shell could check the user's input: If it'll take infinitely long to run (e.g., an infinite generator), then it'll halt. If the code will eventually return, then it'll be run, displaying results t
525.
by reuven 13y ago
I wish it were true that existing online materials are appropriate for both Python 2 and 3. It's true that experienced Python programmers can easily identify the distinctions, and thus translate back and forth in their minds. But for a
526.
by reuven 13y ago
It's way way way higher than 50%, if my sample is accurate. I've been teaching Python in China, Europe, Israel, and the US for years. In the last four years alone, I've taught about 2-3 Python courses (usually intro, but som
527.
Charles Vest, MIT president, dies at 72(nytimes.com)
2 points by reuven 13y ago|0 comments
528.
by reuven 13y ago
This is totally right. My first job out of college involved connecting to various pieces of hospital equipment. The equipment connected to our gateway (the project I was assigned to work on) via RS-232 cables, communicating using a standar
529.
by reuven 13y ago
I'm also surprised that Jeff Bezos, well known for avoiding the press, spotlight, and all interviews, was suddenly being interviewed by a prominent television network. Moreover, Bezos, who almost never talks about products in advance,
530.
by reuven 13y ago
Yup. That's why I remember this conversation as well as I do.
531.
by reuven 13y ago
When I specifically asked him if he had read the bill in question to which he was objecting, which was available on the Web, he said that he had not, because he doesn't surf the Web. He, not I, equated "surfing" with "r
532.
by reuven 13y ago
I completely believe it. First of all, Stallman isn't known for hiding his opinions, or masking his version of the truth. But beyond that, Stallman has often failed or refused to use technologies that the rest of us take for granted.
533.
by reuven 13y ago
I love the Slate Political Gabfest. I attended a live show in Chicago, and it was great fun; I strongly encourage anyone who likes the show (and/or who is interested in politics) to attend. Two other great podcasts, for those interest
534.
by reuven 13y ago
As I wrote elsewhere in this thread, I don't think that people are leaving Ruby in the droves that the author claims. Ruby isn't dying, and Rails isn't dying, at least not right now. However, the author does point to problem
535.
by reuven 13y ago
Yes, exactly. If Ruby is dying, then why are Ruby conferences popping up everywhere? Why are Ruby developers in desperately short supply? I live in Israel, where Ruby has taken a while to make inroads. But we just had a conference last w
536.
by reuven 13y ago
My favorite story of this sort happened a few years ago: The US has never been successful at getting the public to accept dollar coins. As a result, the dollar coins -- some with presidents on them, and some with Sacajawea depicted -- were
537.
by reuven 13y ago
I have been using both "tail -f" and less for years, and never knew about this. Thank you. In three lines of text, you have made my logfile-centric life oh-so-much easier to deal with.
538.
by reuven 13y ago
Really?!? Is this a widespread phenomenon? That seems bizarre and unfair to me.
539.
by reuven 13y ago
I just spent two months living near Chicago, and I have to agree. The fact that taxes (city + state + county) and tips aren't included in prices means that the amount you really spend isn't at all obvious until it comes time to p
540.
by reuven 13y ago
Yes, a good lecturer knows (hopefully) how to realize that you're spending too much time on irrelevant topics, or that you won't get to all of the material you've planned to cover unless you move ahead. But it can sometimes

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