Re: Principle of Inclusion
by sub_chick (Hermit) on May 18, 2006 at 18:06 UTC
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C Programmer .. it's a programming language made to be very loose and flexible and therefore very vulnerable.
pot meet kettle ... kettle, pot
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Re: Principle of Inclusion
by BrowserUk (Patriarch) on May 18, 2006 at 20:55 UTC
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Actually . . . there's statistical evidence to suggest that more lax firearms laws lead to reduced violent crime rates
In 2001, the USA suffered 29,573 deaths by gunshot from a total population of 285,317,572.
In 2001, the UK suffered 167 deaths by gunshot from a total population of 58,789,194.
In 2000, 75,685 people were treated for non-fatal gunshot injuries in the USA.
In 2000, 102 people were treated for non-fatal gonshot injuries in the UK (England and Wales).
You might *feel* you are safer due to your right to bear arms, but you aren't.
And your feeling about OSs is equally coloured by what you want to believe, rather than reality.
Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.
Lingua non convalesco, consenesco et abolesco. -- Rule 1 has a caveat! -- Who broke the cabal?
"Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".
In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.
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Do many people care what method/instrument was used to murder them? Wouldn't a better statistic be the overall murder rate?
- United States -- 0.042802 per 1,000 people
- United Kingdom -- 0.0140633 per 1,000 people
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In 2001, the USA suffered 29,573 deaths by gunshot
Can you please provide the source for your data? The FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Program lists 8890 murders by firearms. And it looks like there were 14758 firearm suicides in 2001.
Thanks.
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Gun deaths in USA 2001
Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.
Lingua non convalesco, consenesco et abolesco. -- Rule 1 has a caveat! -- Who broke the cabal?
"Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".
In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.
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Personally, I'm not worried about criminals with guns, I'm worried about idiots with guns.
From your cdc link: "and an estimated 29,721,821 persons with nonfatal injuries...27,551,362 (92.7%) were unintentional"
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Re: Principle of Inclusion
by TedYoung (Deacon) on May 18, 2006 at 17:42 UTC
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Added Note: Sorry, I didn't want to start a debate on gun control and end way OT. I was only making a joke about using a gun for day-to-day things like opening a can of soda. I was just exaggerating and being silly, not expressing any particular oppinion or datum.
Good thoughts! This reminds me of guns. Guns don't kill people, people do. But, there are many people who use guns regularly (i.e. turning the TV on and off without getting up or opening a can of soda) without injuring anyone. Getting rid of the guns might help with the crime rate, but it will make those day-to-day tasks harder.
Seriously though, I remember the day when software came with one to two inch thick manuals. There was an expectation that the user would read it before using the software. Nowadays, people think they should be able to sit down with something they have never used before and be instantly productive. Perl has a really thick manual. Those that choose not to read it, do so at their own risk. Those of us that do, reap the benefits.
Update: fixed some speeling erors.
Ted Young
($$<<$$=>$$<=>$$<=$$>>$$) always returns 1. :-)
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Actually . . . there's statistical evidence to suggest that more lax firearms laws lead to reduced violent crime rates. Check crime rate statistics for Kennesaw, GA when it instituted a local ordinance requiring that every head of household maintain a firearm back in the early '80s, and for the state of Florida when it instituted its "shall issue" policy for concealed carry permits.
Violent offenders tend to be more afraid of private citizens with guns than the police. "Getting rid of guns" doesn't seem to help with the crime rate at all.
As for the rest of your post, I like your observations, and tend to agree. Thanks for the kudos commentary.
edit: Please ignore my bizarre term substitution. I don't know why my fingers decided to type "kudos".
print substr("Just another Perl hacker", 0, -2); |
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- apotheon
CopyWrite Chad Perrin |
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Re: Principle of Inclusion
by Anonymous Monk on May 18, 2006 at 17:57 UTC
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Most of you will have heard Perl called the "Swiss Army Chainsaw" of programming languages, of course: if you're not careful, you could easily saw off your own leg, to say nothing of the fact that it's ugly and noisy and belches noxious fumes while you're using it, but that all provides a great deal of versatility and power that is rare in other languages.
And yet, many professional carpenters prefer tools with guards, guides, cutoff switches, and other niceties over an unguided chainsaw. They prefer CRC milling machines over an expert artisan standing over a dremel tool all day, even though configuring the CRC machine sometimes has a long and painstaking setup and test process. Flexiblity is not the only good; although it is what's good about Perl.
I think Perl is less like a chainsaw than a jigsaw with the ultimate cutting blade; it will cut through just about anything, including chewing up just about any guide you put on it, unless you're painstakingly careful about how you reign it in.
Perl is good for flexible, freehand work. It's not a substitute for a bandsaw, drillpress, or lathe. It's much better tool for artists than for craftsmen.
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Re: Principle of Inclusion
by Anonymous Monk on May 18, 2006 at 22:07 UTC
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if you're not careful, you could easily saw off your own leg, to say nothing of the fact that it's ugly and noisy and belches noxious fumes while you're using it, but that all provides a great deal of versatility and power that is rare in other languages.
Could you clarify what you mean by "versatility and power"? Or maybe quantify what "rare" means. In the following list of languages, which are less versatile and less powerful...
- Python
- Ruby
- Lua
- Smalltalk
- Haskell
- ML
- Common Lisp
- Scheme
- Java
- C++
- C#
- Prolog
- Icon
- Erlang
- Rebol
- PHP
- JavaScript
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Sorry about the tardy reply. I was actually thinking about how to put my thoughts on the matter into words in the intervening period. The intent I tried to convey seemed so obvious from my perspective that I had to reorient a bit to see what needed to be explained. My failing, not yours.
Basically, I'm not saying that languages having versatility and power (like Perl's) is necessarily rare. Rather, I'm saying that the sort of versatility and power you get with Perl (as opposed to types of versatility and power you don't get with Perl, like Ruby's excellent object model and the full range of Lisp macro capability) is generally rare in other languages. Language features like proper lexical closures (my favorite Perl toy these days) are not widely accessible in many other languages.
Besides, there are a few languages out there that I wouldn't really call particularly "versatile" or "powerful" except within very narrow ranges of use, such as PHP, Javascript, and QBASIC.
print substr("Just another Perl hacker", 0, -2); |
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- apotheon
CopyWrite Chad Perrin |
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Re: Principle of Inclusion
by swampyankee (Parson) on May 21, 2006 at 22:53 UTC
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Perl is powerful. So is VB, which is neither here nor there: any significantly useful programming language will give you quite enough rope to accidentally or deliberately hang yourself. Perl probably makes auto-hanging a tad more difficult than does C (or C++); some of the OO languages (Smalltalk, Eiffel) and functional languages (Haskell) probably make it more difficult still. A robust O/S -- and Windows is more robust than some people give it credit for being -- makes it more difficult for a language to hang random people in the neighborhood. Where Windows fails badly in the robustness department is that most users are logged on with administrator privileges; Windows (even XP) seems culturally wedded to the idea of being a single-user O/S. Non-administrative accounts are frequently unable to install software (any software), fonts, burn CD's, etc, which means that non-administrative accounts are too restricted to do much more than run Office and IE. The solution? Give them administrative privileges. Brilliant. It doesn't matter if the walls are reinforced concrete or papier maché when the doors are left open. This is where *ix descendants are clearly superior: Windows seems largely rooted in its past as an isolated, single user system; the *ix descendants evolved from a multi-user system.
emc
"Being forced to write comments actually improves code, because it is easier to fix a crock than to explain it. " —G. Steele
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