I'm torn between "The record for bug-free C or Java code are not exactly inspiring" and "Wait wait wait in a system with Bitcoin and Javascript you think Javascript is the probable source of problems?"
My question implicitly defined the scope of the conversation to be programming languages. I like how you broke out of that, and pointed out that Bitcoin might have bigger problems that need to be tackled first. Every time I try to think about how to solve Bitcoin's problems, I return to the traditional banking paradigm: you pay someone else to take the risks of managing the money, and they will thus reimburse you if something bad happens.
That depends. If the software is fully understood by its creators, and if it has been thoroughly tested, there's no reason to doubt its reliability.
Consider that, in strongly types languages, things go wrong anyway. Once an officer aboard a U.S. Navy capital ship entered a zero into a program, the zero caused a divide-by-zero error, and the error propagated through the ship's network and disabled the entire system. The ship had to be towed back to port. So much for strong typing.
Quote: "On 21 September 1997, while on maneuvers off the coast of Cape Charles, Virginia, a crew member entered a zero into a database field causing an attempted division by zero in the ship's Remote Data Base Manager, resulting in a buffer overflow which brought down all the machines on the network, causing the ship's propulsion system to fail."
> That depends. If the software is fully understood by its creators, and if it has been thoroughly tested, there's no reason to doubt its reliability.
How did you arrive at that conclusion? How, exactly, is it "fully understood by its creators"? How do you know that it's "thoroughly tested"?
Type systems allow one to assert these ideas declaratively and provably, and depending on the type system, more or less of the design can be asserted.
> Consider that, in strongly types languages, things go wrong anyway ...
That's not an argument against strong typing, that's an argument against your understanding of type systems.
On top of which, you've deployed an illogical assertion: that because things anecdotally CAN go wrong with what you presume was a type-safe language, the failure rate is EQUIVALENT to a non-typesafe language.
> How, exactly, is it "fully understood by its creators"? How do you know that it's "thoroughly tested"?
Here's what I said: "If the software is fully understood by its creators, and if it has been thoroughly tested, there's no reason to doubt its reliability."
Read it again. Note the word "if" repeated twice.
> On top of which, you've deployed an illogical assertion: that because things anecdotally CAN go wrong with what you presume was a type-safe language, the failure rate is EQUIVALENT to a non-typesafe language.
As is often the case in Internet debates, you have invented a position I have never taken to argue with (a "straw man"). I don't have to defend a position I've never taken.
> That doesn't make any sense.
So? It's your opinion, not mine. You defend it.
> That's not an argument against strong typing, that's an argument against your understanding of type systems.
"My understanding?" Was I present on the Navy capital ship that lost its way after a zero was entered into a strongly typed software system? Did I write the code? No to both.
I understand typed systems perfectly well, and they're sometimes helpful in avoiding problems. But the reliability difference between typed and untyped schemes is overrated.
Well, she did use the language "fodder for the NYPD." She might not be planning to arm the paid protesters, but she does seem to expect them to at last be on the receiving end of violence.
Through lots of study of psychology and sociology, I've changed from believing in do-what-you-love to believing in doing anything useful for mankind (but which has some interest for you) with people that you love (i.e., role models). Psychological flourishing has so many ties to our feedback from our social capital. The do-what-you-love mantra is too self-focused to really capture our requirements for total happiness. I've witnessed many people pursue their careers surrounded by assholes, living in misery, despite working on what they really like. Girls have it right by avoiding the tech industry (which has few role models for them, even if they like the subject matter).
I've also used Chromium libraries for cross-platform development in the manner you have suggested. What you might want to address is how you handle deficiencies in the base libraries --- how much do you have to rewrite when you see that the base implementations, which are fine for Chromium, don't offer the features that you need in your app? An example: it includes a fs-events system, to monitor for changes in files, but it is crippled to work around a bug in one version of Mac OS X, and so in the end, one probably has to write their own file-monitoring logic for each platform (or copy the Chromium code, and then modify it). Additionally, once you start modifying the base libraries to add the features that you require, how do you merge with the changes that the Chromium team inexorably publishes?
Take, for example, when they intercept shipping deliveries. If a target person, agency or company orders a new computer or related accessories, for example, TAO can divert the shipping delivery to its own secret workshops. The NSA calls this method interdiction. At these so-called "load stations," agents carefully open the package in order to load malware onto the electronics, or even install hardware components that can provide backdoor access for the intelligence agencies. All subsequent steps can then be conducted from the comfort of a remote computer.
Being infantile means that you are an adult that behaves regressively. People with kids, and in their mid-thirties, can be infantile. I think that Aaron knew what he was saying. The problem is how do you judge whether someone is infantile, because you must either judge relative to yourself, or relative to a role model. If we are to believe Aaron, then we must believe that he could distinguish between a mature adult and regressive behavior --- and if we are to believe you, then we must believe the same of you. And if I'm to play the judge, then I need to know this myself, and I've found it to be a complex topic, and since it involves growth, it is a lifelong pursuit. Perhaps the one objective statement we can make is that we eventually must become independent of our parents and the safety of the parental home.
It seems that the Bay area is weaving a story that blames tech for displacing everyone else earning less money, rather than fix the artificial scarcity of housing that drives prices up.
Edit: suggestion for people riding the busses: be prepared with fliers to hand out to the demonstrators, urging them to fight for city growth as a way to combat the high housing costs. This could help turn their energy to positive benefits for everyone. I can already imagine how the news articles would cover the scenario of trapped bus riders handing out fliers.
I'm sure a large fraction of the ‘gentrifiers’ would actually rather not spend a couple hours every day on a bus — they themselves are simply priced out of homes close to work by the entrenched SV residents who vote to prop up their own property values with extremely unbalanced zoning regulations, bringing in ego edifices holding tens of thousands of employees while excluding anywhere for them to live.
This is absolutely not true. It's way more affordable for pretty much every single one of them to all live in the South Bay with a 10-20 minute commute. They live in SF because it's less "boring", as if boredom comes from where you live rather than one's own lack of imagination. I know tons and tons of people who do the SF/SV commute every day, but only one of them lives in the city for any other reason.
"Priced out" is not strictly accurate - San Francisco is still more expensive than the peninsula. But it's only slightly more expensive, so the cost factor doesn't provide much incentive to skip the city. If I'm going to pay through the nose anyway, I might as well live somewhere I'll like.
This is a psychologically perverse view. If you are well versed in psychology, sociology, urban planning, and child cognitive development, then I could consider it. But it is the statement that someone ignorant of those subjects would say as well. Have you read Jane Jacob's "The Death and Life of Great American Cities"? If not, then why should urban planners learn more from tech? Her book makes it clear that what you have said is brutally wrong. From the perspective of child development --- "I personally care not a single more for my own neighbor than for some random individual living in China; in fact, I would probably care more about the Chinese person if he was a "Mozillan" and my neighbor was not." --- is a destructive position.
