garysweaver
Without the invention of the mouse, we might all still be using trackballs. A mouse to me is not an "A ha!" invention. I remember when I first used one that it seemed silly to move a trackball around upside-down like that.
And without laser printing, we might all still be using ribbon cartridges at work, because of time/cost concerns with inkjet.
Everything that happens can have profound effects on the future. Think of the Challenger and Columbia disasters. While it's true that the American public had somewhat lost interest in the shuttle program prior to the Challenger disaster, they didn't think of it as risky or dangerous. Think of the lives that would have been saved and how much farther along we might be in space exploration had greater precaution been taken.
method_as_fun = o.my-method
which should be:
method_as_fun = o.my_method
and the examples themselves just look a little crazy, imo. Not crazy because of what you are trying to do, but in how you are trying to do it. What was the intent of calling a method that defines an argument without an argument? That's not a problem of the language; that's just an error in coding. There are all kinds of things in Ruby to handle method definition. Arguments can have defaults. You can use splat and unsplat to handle unspecified arguments and composing arguments of various # on the fly. You can pass in blocks specifically (&something) or optionally (yield, etc.). Procs allow argument sillyness and returning the parent method by explicit return in the proc body, lambdas don't, etc. Ruby is a great language, and you should give it a college try for several months to get the hang of it.
By the same token, I have no clue what you are trying to do here:
def f(x); def g(y); x + y; end; g(2); end; f(2) # undefined local variable or method `x'
You can define methods on object instances, if that is what you are getting at (define_method/class_eval/etc.), and getting familiar with blocks, procs/lambdas might help. It isn't JavaScript, but I can't think of that much that I couldn't do in Ruby (barring high performance, compile-time type checking, etc.)
I coded in Java for many years and Ruby for the last several, the lack of explicit type checking in method signatures or via annotations built into Ruby has not gotten in the way enough where I felt I needed to add something to decorate methods to do some generic form of type checking in Ruby. When I really need to check the type of an object sent into a method, it is typically a method that can handle different types, and in that case, I'll use respond_to?(...) to see that an object passed in as an argument responds to a method, use a case statement, is_a?(...), etc. but that is certainly not on every method- probably more like 1 in 20-30 methods.
Also, in the comparison section of the doc, OCaml and Python were represented, but not Ruby. As of late 2013, there are more jobs containing "Ruby" in the job description than "OCaml": http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=ocaml%2C+ruby&l= So, imo it should give Ruby some love with a comparison.
Downtown Raleigh has art festivals, music festivals (Hopscotch, Wide Open Bluegrass), Red Hat amphitheater, and Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts (including Meymandi Concert Hall, Fletcher Opera Theater, Kennedy Theater, Memorial Auditorium), etc. There are a lot of great restaurants within walking distance of some nice/fun bars. You don't even have to walk or ride; they have a Trolley you can ride for free (or rent!), a Trolley Pub (bike bar), rickshaws, etc. There are clubs (various kinds and each age groups), but that's not as much my scene anymore. They are to a saturation point with microbrewing companies in the area, they have so many: http://www.ncbeer.org/brewery-map/ And that's not all of Raleigh, e.g. North Hills has been having great free outdoor concerts with a few great bars (and a great grocery store if you want to be cheap) right next to it, which has been our fav recently. It is basically everything you love about a "small town" (great people, community, lower cost of living) in a well-educated and resourced area (NCSU, UNC-CH, Duke Univ. and too many tech companies to mention) with plenty of great places to eat and things to do.
But, Durham has DPAC, lots of great restaurants, a good startup scene, including areas devoted to startups like the Underground in the American Tobacco District next to DPAC and the Durham Bulls ballpark (where they do concerts, too.), etc.
And for the best hole-in-the-wall places to eat, you just have to ask around enough, like anywhere else. It might be a hot pot Chinese place in some random Morrisville strip mall, etc.
When you wear them are you listening to music, white/pink noise, etc. or just have them on with nothing playing?
What kinds of noises do they cancel best, and what do they have the most trouble cancelling?
Robert Nyman of Mozilla pointed me at this:
https://blog.mozilla.org/ligong/2013/06/03/foxconn-joins-the...
"Foxconn stated that they intend to have FFOS running on all categories of the “8 screen” devices, from smartphone to tablets to laptops to TVs and outdoor signage."
Name me another mobile OS that will be running on laptops or outdoor signage. :) This, I think, is the bigger vision of FF OS that is the reason people should get interested and involved.
You probably think that exercising and eating "better" should be fine, because anything you do for three weeks becomes a habit, right? Well, not exactly. Bad habits can be much harder to break, and you may not have really broken them the way you think you have: http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/form-a-habit.htm
Be really careful before a drastic change to your diet and exercise habits just to lose 10-15 lbs, especially if your doctor and the majority of those close to you don't think you need to lose weight. It can backfire.
However, a gradual change, especially when you can do it in a reasonable, sustainable way, can be a great idea.
And, someone should make marvin_bot (https://twitter.com/marvin_bot) start-up a conversation with @bankofamerica.
Really? How about "adequately understood the function and did not have to reread it". We are humans, not compilers. ;)
"God made natural numbers; all else is the work of man" - Leopold Kronecker. Possibly misquoted by Raymond Ayoub in "Musings of the Masters: An Anthology of Mathematical Reflections".
While I've known that the "phone" has been the primary target so far of FF OS, but still I'm a little sad that I'm reading it.
iOS and Android are built for tablets as well as phones. iOS is going to be expanding by allowing more devices to connect in their next version. When I first heard about FF OS, I thought: "Awesome! Now I can start writing HTML5 apps for my phone, my tablet, my desktop, etc." But, then I found out that the goal was just to be a phone. I not only spend a lot more of my day on a laptop/desktop than a phone, but I'd like to live in a future where the software can be written once for desktop, laptop, tablet, phone, "watch", car, or other device, and new hardware can easily be integrated with it (such as a keyboard, printer, car electronics/computer, stereo, etc.).
I think it is awesome that FF OS apps will be easier to develop, but I wish there was something fun to develop in HTML5 and JS that I couldn't do already in Android or iOS. To do this, FF OS has to stop being afraid to really dig into Gonk and make it as easily extensible on the hardware side as it is to develop and share HTML5 apps in FF OS.
It uses parts of Android in HAL, but Gonk isn't Android.
1. Knowledge resources available to team and experience of the organization in the subject matter far exceed what the WebOS team had.
2. Was free/open and somewhat collaborative almost from the beginning. I say "somewhat collaborative" because the priority of the team was to create an operating system for a phone, with other forms (like a computer connected to other devices) taking a far backseat.
However, I agree in that, despite optimizations, it has a long way to go to compete with Android which almost "owns" the market it is after.
Politically, the timing is fairly good this announcement, though. Right after Google's black eye over privacy concerns, people might be slightly more likely to embrace Mozilla products. But, who knows. Competing in Android's turf is going to be a serious uphill battle.
It will succeed if:
1. They really embrace community input and provide incentives for people to get involved. That is part of being Mozilla. They don't need to be Apple or Google.
2. They need a charismatic leader with the vision of Jobs, someone with the design talent of Jony Ive, and someone that is capable of recruiting and organizing community talent like _______ (a name doesn't come to mind).
The inability to scroll left/right kills it. Also, some of the text from the top bleeds between the pictures at 1366x768.
http://pi.qcontinuum.com/cgi-bin/rrd/rrdgraph.pi.main
Creatives/artistic types enjoy modular, greenfield development or pushing the limits of confinement to produce something of beauty and use. Practical/craftsman/engineer types enjoy using technique to build, design, and maintain large systems because they enjoy process, skill, and established ways of doing things. There is room for both.
It is closer to making furniture than painting or sculpture, as it tends to need to be practical in some way. But if it were furniture making, you'd continually be presented with new designs, new types of wood and other materials, and new tools to make your furniture with, so you'd never know exactly how long it would take to make a couch or a bedroom set.
1. URL to the source code for the tests and instructions to run the tests to produce the same results.
2. The hardware, OS version(s), and browser versions that were tested.
Otherwise, the difference between Chrome and FF performance as listed in the slides is so great that it seems like it would quickly raise criticism, even though I personally like FF.
:) I think we need a new verb here.
> Lately, the term startup has been associated mostly with technological ventures designed for high-growth. Paul Graham, founder of one of the top startup accelerators in the world, defines a startup as: "A startup is a company designed to grow fast. Being newly founded does not in itself make a company a startup. Nor is it necessary for a startup to work on technology, or take venture funding, or have some sort of "exit." The only essential thing is growth. Everything else we associate with startups follows from growth."[2]
copied from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Startup_company
[1] Blank, Steve (March 5, 2012). "Search versus Execute". Retrieved July 22, 2012.
[2] Graham, Paul (September, 2012). "Startup is growth". Retrieved Oct 18, 2012.