On 8/5/2011 5:42, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> A precondition is a Bool expression which must be true when a code bloc
k is
> entered. If it isn't true, the code block is allowed to malfunction
> arbitrarily badly. But if it /is/ true, then when the code block exits,
 the
> postcondition is required to be true.

Yeah. They're a lot less useful when you're talking about functional 
languages, because they're really just redefining the function.

> I don't see anything in the above that requires the code blocks to be c
lass
> methods, or even to be proper named constructs. If you were operating i
n
> BASIC, it might just be "when line 1580 is reached, X must contain a
> positive integer", and then "when line 1615 is reached, X must contain 
a new
> positive integer larger than the one that was there before".

That would be preconditions and postconditions. It wouldn't be DbC, I don
't 
think.

> An invariant looks like it should apply to any data structure of a give
n
> type (e.g., every tree node must contain a value lower than the one in 
its
> parent node), or perhaps to a given set of global variables (the nextID

> variable must always be positive and nonzero). Again, I don't see any
> especial reason why it has to apply only in an OO setting.

The invariant only holds while you're not manipulating the data. E.g., wh
ile 
you're rebalancing the tree, the invariant needn't hold. Now if you start
 
cutting global variables up into collections and corresponding blocks of 

code that manipulate them, or talking about "the set of all data structur
es 
that are manipulated by this particular set of code", I'd say you have so
me 
OO design going on there. :-)

> Let me put it this way: It looks a crapload better than Word, Excel,
> PowerPoint, OpenOffice, or the HTML rendering of any browser I've tried
.

That isn't what TeX was written to compete against.

> Whether it looks better than a £20,000 piece of professional publi
shing
> software, I couldn't say. But given that I'm never going to own £2
0,000,
> it's kind of irrelevant.

All you need is something designed by an actual typesetting company, like
 
Adobe. The very fact that you're looking at TeX output that has been run 

thru a PDF is already telling.

>> But it's quite as much there as the
>> jaggies on a 300DPI print-out compared to a 1200DPI print-out.
>
> Then why don't you just, um, increase the resolution? That's the entire

> /point/ of Metafont, after all. Its fonts are completely scaleable.

It was an analogy. Most people wouldn't believe their 300DPI laser printe
r 
prints jaggies on their text, until you set it down next to a 1200DPI las
er 
printer.

> Has there ever /been/ a Unix that isn't distributed in source form?

Of course.

> In reality, I'm not actually going to change such things, on either sys
tem.
> It would be far too hard. But in principle, it's possible with Linux. (
And
> probably OpenBSD and a few others.) It's not possible with Windows. At
> least, not without paying real money.

It's certainly possible with Windows. You just need to get the source cod
e.

> Of course, "Windows" is a single monolithic piece of software, whereas
> "Linux" (the OS) is a vast array of independently replaceable bits.

Because Powershell is monolithic, and printer drivers are monolithic, and
 
file systems are monolithic in Windows, and ... wait, what?

What part of Windows do you think is monolithic and can't be fairly easil
y 
replaced that *can* be replaced in Linux?

> Well, yeah. Not as random as, say, Shift+Alt+- (I'm looking at you, Ema
cs).
> But it's not the sort of thing you'd try just on the off-chance that ma
ybe
> it does something.

You know, you should google "Windows keyboard shortcuts" and see the doze
ns 
and dozens of standard shortcuts. It'll probably make your life easier. I
 
mean, control-right has worked that way since like Win3.

>> Where I would want to search in a text file to find a word?
>
> Where you'd want a special key to move to the next word on the line. Bu
t
> sure, if you wanna do search instead...

If I'm writing code and I want to move three tokens to the right, you thi
nk 
it won't be faster with the shift key?

> The output is 4000 lines line? In what universe...?? O_O

That was the small one. You don't think compiling a Linux distro generate
s 
tens of thousands of lines of output?

>> Heck, I have all the names and addresses in a text file. I want to loo
k
>> up my brother's fax number.
>
> See, I would probably use a real database for that.

I used to.

>>> These are all pretty rare, really.
>>
>> I think it depends on what you do with an editor. :-) They're all pret
ty
>> common for me.
>
> What, are you writing C or something?

I write lots of stuff. But yes, C also. Not sure why that matters.

>> The code for emacs doesn't get invoked thru the keyboard mappings, any

>> more than the code for COM does.
>
> And you add some package that makes Alt+R do the same thing as Ctrl+R b
ut
> slightly differently. Oh, I'm sorry, you changed Ctrl+R to be Ctrl+Z? O
h,
> well, nevermind... ;-)

You don't write a package where Alt+R does the same thing as Ctrl+R. You 

write a package where Alt+R invokes the same underlying function that Ctr
l+R 
does.

> No, the last time I ran Vi was on an early version of RedHat. Apparentl
y Vi
> was the only text editor installed, and I was desperately trying to fin
d
> something to edit the X configuration file so that I could make it star
t up.

You know what? That's *exactly* why you should learn vim. :-)

vi runs in 32K. emacs won't link on a machine with a megabyte address spa
ce.

>>> Being able to invoke all your tools from within your editor and edit
>>> their output is again quite a powerful idea.
>>
>> vi had that too, except it was *all* your tools, with no need to write

>> macros to handle it.
>
> I should have forceen a Holy War. ;-)

No, I'm just saying, normally in vi you highlight some text and run it th
ru 
an external script. If you want to indent the next paragraph, it's }!form
at 
and if you want to sort it it's }!sort

(Or something like that.)

emacs stuff I've seen is usually implemented in elisp, which means if you
 
want to reindent your code, you have to fire up the entire emacs 
infrastructure to do so.

>>> Not unless you hire a vast
>>> army of C++ programmers to write the necessary hooks and DLLs and God

>>> only knows what else to add the support to VS.
>>
>> Uh, one Bulgarian intern, on the weekends.
>
> Did I mention the part about how it never really worked to everyone's
> satisfaction and was eventually abandoned?

Yeah, I saw that. That's how I know it was a Bulgarian intern on weekends
 
who decided to abandon it because it wasn't working well.

The point is not "here's a useful plug-in for Haskell", but to show you a
 
counter-example to your assertion that VS doesn't support third-party lan
guages.

>> That's exactly why Microsoft invented COM, IBM invented REXX, standard
s
>> bodies invented COBRA, etc etc etc.
>
> Accessing COM is nowhere near as easy as throwing together a few lines 
of
> elisp. (As far as I can tell.)

You're doing it wrong. See the Tcl example, for example. You keep claimin
g 
it didn't work, but since I don't know what you were trying to do or how,
 
I'm not sure why it didn't work. And of course it's possible it's just 
bitrot there too.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   How come I never get only one kudo?

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