Skip to main content

Home/ Advanced Concepts Team/ Group items tagged programming

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Francesco Biscani

STLport: An Interview with A. Stepanov - 2 views

  • Generic programming is a programming method that is based in finding the most abstract representations of efficient algorithms.
  • I spent several months programming in Java.
  • for the first time in my life programming in a new language did not bring me new insights
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • it has no intellectual value whatsoever
  • Java is clearly an example of a money oriented programming (MOP).
  •  
    One of the authors of the STL (C++'s Standard Template Library) explains generic programming and slams Java.
  • ...6 more comments...
  •  
    "Java is clearly an example of a money oriented programming (MOP)." Exactly. And for the industry it's the money that matters. Whatever mathematicians think about it.
  •  
    It is actually a good thing that it is "MOP" (even though I do not agree with this term): that is what makes it inter-operable, light and easy to learn. There is no point in writing fancy codes, if it does not bring anything to the end-user, but only for geeks to discuss incomprehensible things in forums. Anyway, I am pretty sure we can find a Java guy slamming C++ ;)
  •  
    Personally, I never understood what the point of Java is, given that: 1) I do not know of any developer (maybe Marek?) that uses it for intellectual pleasure/curiosity/fun whatever, given the possibility of choice - this to me speaks loudly on the objective qualities of the language more than any industrial-corporate marketing bullshit (for the record, I argue that Python is more interoperable, lighter and easier to learn than Java - which is why, e.g., Google is using it heavily); 2) I have used a software developed in Java maybe a total of 5 times on any computer/laptop I owned over 15 years. I cannot name of one single Java project that I find necessary or even useful; for my usage of computers, Java could disappear overnight without even noticing. Then of course one can argue as much as one wants about the "industry choosing Java", to which I would counterargue with examples of industry doing stupid things and making absurd choices. But I suppose it would be a kind of pointless discussion, so I'll just stop here :)
  •  
    "At Google, python is one of the 3 "official languages" alongside with C++ and Java". Java runs everywhere (the byte code itself) that is I think the only reason it became famous. Python, I guess, is more heavy if it were to run on your web browser! I think every language has its pros and cons, but I agree Java is not the answer to everything... Java is used in MATLAB, some web applications, mobile phones apps, ... I would be a bit in trouble if it were to disappear today :(
  •  
    I personally do not believe in interoperability :)
  •  
    Well, I bet you'd notice an overnight disappearance of java, because half of the internet would vanish... J2EE technologies are just omnipresent there... I'd rather not even *think* about developing a web application/webservice/web-whatever in standard C++... is it actually possible?? Perhaps with some weird Microsoft solutions... I bet your bank online services are written in Java. Certainly not in PHP+MySQL :) Industry has chosen Java not because of industrial-corporate marketing bullshit, but because of economics... it enables you develop robustly, reliably, error-prone, modular, well integrated etc... software. And the costs? Well, using java technologies you can set-up enterprise-quality web application servers, get a fully featured development environment (which is better than ANY C/C++/whatever development environment I've EVER seen) at the cost of exactly 0 (zero!) USD/GBP/EUR... Since many years now, the central issue in software development is not implementing algorithms, it's building applications. And that's where Java outperforms many other technologies. The final remark, because I may be mistakenly taken for an apostle of Java or something... I love the idea of generic programming, C++ is my favourite programming language (and I used to read Stroustroup before sleep), at leisure time I write programs in Python... But if I were to start a software development company, then, apart from some very niche applications like computer games, it most probably would use Java as main technology.
  •  
    "I'd rather not even *think* about developing a web application/webservice/web-whatever in standard C++... is it actually possible?? Perhaps with some weird Microsoft solutions... I bet your bank online services are written in Java. Certainly not in PHP+MySQL :)" Doing in C++ would be awesomely crazy, I agree :) But as I see it there are lots of huge websites that operate on PHP, see for instance Facebook. For the banks and the enterprise market, as a general rule I tend to take with a grain of salt whatever spin comes out from them; in the end behind every corporate IT decision there is a little smurf just trying to survive and have the back covered :) As they used to say in the old times, "No one ever got fired for buying IBM". "Industry has chosen Java not because of industrial-corporate marketing bullshit, but because of economics... it enables you develop robustly, reliably, error-prone, modular, well integrated etc... software. And the costs? Well, using java technologies you can set-up enterprise-quality web application servers, get a fully featured development environment (which is better than ANY C/C++/whatever development environment I've EVER seen) at the cost of exactly 0 (zero!) USD/GBP/EUR... Since many years now, the central issue in software development is not implementing algorithms, it's building applications. And that's where Java outperforms many other technologies." Apart from the IDE considerations (on which I cannot comment, since I'm not a IDE user myself), I do not see how Java beats the competition in this regard (again, Python and the huge software ecosystem surrounding it). My impression is that Java's success is mostly due to Sun pushing it like there is no tomorrow and bundling it with their hardware business.
  •  
    OK, I think there is a bit of everything, wrong and right, but you have to acknowledge that Python is not always the simplest. For info, Facebook uses Java (if you upload picture for instance), and PHP is very limited. So definitely, in company, engineers like you and me select the language, it is not a marketing or political thing. And in the case of fb, they come up with the conclusion that PHP, and Java don't do everything but complement each other. As you say Python as many things around, but it might be too much for simple applications. Otherwise, I would seriously be interested by a study of how to implement a Python-like system on-board spacecrafts and what are the advantages over mixing C, Ada and Java.
LeopoldS

House Approves Flat 2011 Budget for Most Science Agencies - ScienceInsider - 0 views

  •  
    "Some segments of the research community would get their preferences under the House spending bill. For example, it matches the president's request for a 1.5% increase for NASA, to $19 billion, including a 12% increase, to $5 billion, for the space science program. Legislators had already worked out a deal with the White House on the future of the manned space program, and they included funding for an additional shuttle flight in 2011. They even added $35 million to the $20 million increase that the president requested for NASA's education programs, boosting them by a whopping 30% to $180 million. "
  •  
    Some segments of the research community would get their preferences under the House spending bill. For example, it matches the president's request for a 1.5% increase for NASA, to $19 billion, including a 12% increase, to $5 billion, for the space science program. Legislators had already worked out a deal with the White House on the future of the manned space program, and they included funding for an additional shuttle flight in 2011. They even added $35 million to the $20 million increase that the president requested for NASA's education programs, boosting them by a whopping 30% to $180 million.
Luís F. Simões

How copyright enforcement robots killed the Hugo Awards - 1 views

  •  
    We are living in the future when live broadcasts are being censored by AI programs in real-time. I'm sure dictators everywhere are looking forward for these technologies to mature. Having a firewall over reality is so convenient.
  •  
    What this tells is that we should not take AI seriously until smart Luis's (or his son) managed to make something decent out of it ... "This was, of course, absurd. First of all, the clips had been provided by the studios to be shown during the award ceremony. The Hugo Awards had explicit permission to broadcast them. But even if they hadn't, it is absolutely fair use to broadcast clips of copyrighted material during an award ceremony. Unfortunately, the digital restriction management (DRM) robots on Ustream had not been programmed with these basic contours of copyright law. And then, it got worse. Amid more cries of dismay on Twitter, Reddit, and elsewhere, the official Worldcon Twitter announced: Chicon 7@chicon_7 We are sorry to report that #Ustream will not resume the video feed. #chicon7 #hugos #worldcon 3 Sep 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite And with that, the broadcast was officially cut off. Dumb robots, programmed to kill any broadcast containing copyrighted material, had destroyed the only live broadcast of the Hugo Awards. Sure, we could read what was happening on Twitter, or get the official winner announcement on the Hugo website, but that is hardly the same. We wanted to see our heroes and friends on that stage, and share the event with them. In the world of science fiction writing, the Hugo Awards are kind of like the Academy Awards. Careers are made; people get dressed up and give speeches; and celebrities rub shoulders with (admittedly geeky) paparazzi. You want to see and hear it if you can. But Ustream's incorrectly programmed copyright enforcement squad had destroyed our only access. It was like a Cory Doctorow story crossed with RoboCop 2, with DRM robots going crazy and shooting indiscriminately into a crowd of perfectly innocent broadcasts."
Francesco Biscani

The Semicolon Wars » American Scientist - 2 views

  •  
    Pretty interesting piece on computer languages.
  •  
    Yes, very good, but I don't get what all the fuss is about... everyone knows Python is the ultimate programming language! :) Follow up reading: If programming languages were religions... (quite accurate actually) Great quote from the article you linked to: In 1975 Edsger W. Dijkstra, a major figure in the structured-programming movement, wrote a memo titled "How Do We Tell Truths that Might Hurt?" The "truths" were mostly Dijkstra's opinions of programming languages; how he told them was very bluntly. Fortran is "an infantile disorder," PL/I "a fatal disease," APL "a mistake, carried through to perfection." Students exposed to COBOL "are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration," he said. "The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense."
  •  
    Fool! You can pry my templates from my cold dead hands!
Juxi Leitner

Google's Go: A New Programming Language That's Python Meets C++ - 6 views

  •  
    Big news for developers out there: Google has just announced the release of a new, open sourced programming language called Go. The company ...
  • ...2 more comments...
  •  
    Ugh... no operator overloading, no efficient generic programming and no lambda expressions... Only time will tell, but I don't understand who the intended audience is: I think that Python guys won't care about the (supposedly) increased performance (and you can interface C/C++ with Python easily) and that C++ programmers (I mean, the hardcore serious C++ Boost-like programmers, no the Java-like whiners :P) won't have their beloved templates pried from their cold dead hands with ease.
  •  
    yeah though I think especially operator overloading is not going to be a main problem, it is as with the JS library though quite thinkable that lots of users will switch or use it (or being put to use it...) because it is done by Google
  •  
    Having Google backing it will certainly help, even though they are presenting it as a "system level" (i.e., hard-core) language, and in that domain it is much more difficult to bullshit your way to a position of relevance. Look at Java: Sun pushed it like hell and it is certainly widely used in many contexts (corporate, web and embedded markets mostly), yet it completely failed to win the hearts of "open-source" developers (or, more generally, of those developers who are not forced to use it by virtue of some management-driven decision).
  •  
    "or, more generally, of those developers who are not forced to use it by virtue of some management-driven decision" completely agree with that!!
Joris _

American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics - Space and the Biological Economy - 0 views

  • the U.S. space program has a robust life science program that is diligently working to innovate new approaches, research and technologies in the fields of biotechnology and bio-nanotechnology science, which are providing new solutions for old problems – including food security, medical needs and energy needs
  • more money be allocated to develop environmentally sound and energy efficient engine programs for commercial and private aviation
  • waste water program
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • we lack fundamental knowledge about the entire effect of the photosynthesis system on food growth, and that space-based research could provide vital clues to scientists on how to streamline the process to spur more efficient food growth
  • From the start of the space age until 2010 only around 500 people have journeyed into space, but with the advent of private space travel in the next 24 months another 500 people are expected to go into space
  • Wagner indentified prize systems that award monetary prizes to companies or individuals as an effective way to spur innovation and creativity, and urged the Congressional staffers present to consider creating more prize systems to stimulate needed innovation
  •  
    a bunch of ideas, iinitiatives, and good points about upcoming changes in space ...
Francesco Biscani

Pi Computation Record - 4 views

  •  
    For Dario: the PI computation record was established on a single desktop computer using a cache optimized algorithm. Previous record was obtained by a cluster of hundreds of computers. The cache optimized algorithm was 20 times faster.
  • ...6 more comments...
  •  
    Teeeeheeeeheeee... assembler programmers greet Java/Python/Etc. programmers :)
  •  
    And he seems to have done everything in his free time!!! I like the first FAQ.... "why did you do it?"
  •  
    did you read any of the books he recommends? suggest: Modern Computer Arithmetic by Richard Brent and Paul Zimmermann, version 0.4, November 2009, Full text available here. The Art of Computer Programming, volume 2 : Seminumerical Algorithms by Donald E. Knuth, Addison-Wesley, third edition, 1998. More information here.
  •  
    btw: we will very soon have the very same processor in the new iMac .... what record are you going to beat with it?
  •  
    Zimmerman is the same guy behind the MPFR multiprecision floating-point library, if I recall correctly: http://www.mpfr.org/credit.html I've not read the book... Multiprecision arithmetic is a huge topic though, at least from the scientific and number theory point of view if not for its applications to engineering problems. "The art of computer programming" is probably the closest thing to a bible for computer scientists :)
  •  
    "btw: we will very soon have the very same processor in the new iMac .... what record are you going to beat with it?" Fastest Linux install on an iMac :)
  •  
    "Fastest Linux install on an iMac :)" that is going to be a though one but a worthy aim! ""The art of computer programming" is probably the closest thing to a bible for computer scientists :)" yep! Programming is art ;)
ESA ACT

c-jump: computer programming board game - 0 views

  •  
    Discover fundamentals of computer programming by playing a board game!
LeopoldS

The Go Programming Language - 3 views

  •  
    new programming language - hybrid between c and python .... from google .... of any interest for us?
  •  
    See the other post for my comments....
  •  
    sorry - did not see Juxi's entry ....
tvinko

Computational Science - 1 views

  •  
    Stackexchange is a network of collaborative question and answer sites; the most well-known is the stackoverflow site for programming. This site focuses on Computation.
Luís F. Simões

Evolution of AI Interplanetary Trajectories Reaches Human-Competitive Levels - Slashdot - 4 views

  • "It's not the Turing test just yet, but in one more domain, AI is becoming increasingly competitive with humans. This time around, it's in interplanetary trajectory optimization. From the European Space Agency comes the news that researchers from its Advanced Concepts Team have recently won the Gold 'Humies' award for their use of Evolutionary Algorithms to design a spacecraft's trajectory for exploring the Galilean moons of Jupiter (Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto). The problem addressed in the awarded article (PDF) was put forward by NASA/JPL in the latest edition of the Global Trajectory Optimization Competition. The team from ESA was able to automatically evolve a solution that outperforms all the entries submitted to the competition by human experts from across the world. Interestingly, as noted in the presentation to the award's jury (PDF), the team conducted their work on top of open-source tools (PaGMO / PyGMO and PyKEP)."
  •  
    We made it to Slashdot's frontpage !!! :)
  •  
    Congratulations, gentlemen!
Luís F. Simões

Coding for Outer Space - A Programming Contest | Google Lunar X PRIZE - 1 views

  • This weekend, programmers from all over Europe will be gearing up to compete in the 5'th Catalysts Coding Coding Contest (CCC'11). This year, the theme is Astronautics.
  • The competition is also open to online participants.
  • Individuals or teams of up to three people will be given a series of challenging problems that must be solved as quickly as possible.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • As a contestant, you must conceive of a proper solution and produce the correct output in order to advance to the next level. How you get there is completely up to you. You may use any computational means at your disposal.
  • Online contestants will not be eligible for prizes – they compete for glory alone.
  •  
    who is interested in following this a bit closer?
jmlloren

The speed, size and dependability of programming languages - 0 views

  •  
    The definitive comparison. It is clear that Joris is using an inefficient programming language.
  •  
    Thanks Jose, I haven't read a good complete bullshit for a while!
ESA ACT

NASA Innovative Partnerships Program (IPP) - 0 views

shared by ESA ACT on 24 Apr 09 - Cached
  •  
    NASA Innovative Partnerships Program homepage. To cover areas of relevance identified as critical technology needs.
ESA ACT

EsCo (Esoteric Combine) - 0 views

  •  
    Interpreter of esoteric programming languages. Check the whitespace language, it's hilarious.
Dario Izzo

Norris Numbers - 5 views

  •  
    A nice programming guide explaining thoughts I often try to pass on
  •  
    The fact that this article is written in two languages, one is english and the other one is russian...? I get the impression that russians are among the first to hit upon such barriers before the rest of us do, from scaling their programming to bumping upon theory of chaos etc etc Imho.
Lionel Jacques

NASA investigates sending CubeSats to Phobos and back - 3 views

  •  
    NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts Program provides funding to study a small number of highly advanced spaceflight concepts, with the goal of understanding the technological possibilities which will guide the development of future space missions. Under this program, a JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) researcher has proposed the use of a pair of CubeSats for an autonomous mission to retrieve samples from Phobos, Mars' larger moon.
LeopoldS

MIT App Inventor - 2 views

shared by LeopoldS on 05 Mar 12 - No Cached
  •  
    Create an app without knowing how to program ...
1 - 20 of 138 Next › Last »
Showing 20 items per page