4/29    Why were C and Java designed to require "break;" statements for a
        "case" section to terminate rather than falling-through to the next
        section?  99% of the time poeple want a "case" section to terminate.
        In fact some compilers issue warning if there is no "break;" statement
        in a "case" section.  Why not just design the languages to have
        termination as the default behavior, and provide a "fallthru;"
	...

3/5     Three emergency Java updates in a month. Why do I have a feeling
        that the third one won't be the last one?
        \_ Bingo!
	...

12/18   Happy 25th birthday Perl, and FUCK YOU Larry Wall for fucking up
        the computer science formalism that sets back compilers development
        back for at least a decade:
        http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/18/print-happy-25th-birthday-perl
        \_ I tried to learn Perl but was scared away by it.  Maybe scripting
           lanauages have to be like that in order to work well?
	...

8/29    There was once a CSUA web page which runs an SSH client for logging
        on to soda.  Does that page still exist?  Can someone remind me of the
        URL please?  Thx.
        \_ what do you mean? instruction on how to ssh into soda?
           \_ No I think he means the ssh applet, which, iirc, was an applet
              that implemented an ssh v1 client.  I think this page went away
	...

12/8    Java code much worse IRL than pretty much everything else:
        http://preview.tinyurl.com/d5e46cq [ars technica]
	...

4/16    Whoa, I just heard that MIT discontinued 6.001 (classic scheme)
        to 6.01. In fact, 6.00, 6.01 and 6.02 all use Python. What the
        hell? What has the world become? It's a sad sad day. SICP forever!
        \_ old story, they've ditched that shitty book and lang for a while.
        \_ I used to think scheme was cool, then I saw Ka Ping Yee's
           "Beautiful Code" class aka 61a in python, and converted.
	...

2/24    Go Programming Language.  Anyone here use it?  It kind of
        reminds me of java-meets python, and well, that is fitting given it's
        a GOOG product.  What is so special about it?
        \_ as I understand it, it's a suitable OOP-y systems language with more
           structure than C, less complexity than C++, and less overhead than
           Java/Python.
	...

8/8     Trying to make a list of interesting features languages have
        touted as this whole PL field comes around, trying to see if they
        have basis in the culture of the time: feel free to add some/dispute
        1970 C, "portability"
        1980 C++, classes, oop, iterators, streams, functors, templates
             expert systems
	...

12/4    what do people have their JAVA_HOME's set to on soda?
        \_ don't. are you trying to get sun java? It is installed, but not
           the default.  check dpkg -l and dpkg -L
           \_ I'm trying to run maven to get scala/lift.net working
              properly and it's complaining that JAVA_HOME is not set.
              \_ you probably want one of the directories in /usr/lib/jvm,
	...

9/28    http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html
        Java is #1!!! Followed by C, PHP, C++, Visual Basic, Perl,
        C#, Python, Javascript, then finally Ruby. The good news is
        Pascal is going waaaay back up!
        \_ C is still more popular than C++?  I feel much better about myself
           now.
	...

8/6     In C one can do "typedef int my_index_t;".  What's the equivalent in
        C#?  Thanks.
        \_ C#? Are you serious? Is this what the class of 2009 learn?
           \_ No.  I have to learn .NET code at work.  I am Class of '93.
           \_ python is what 2009 learns, see the motd thread about recent
              cal courses and languages
	...

7/20    For those who care btw, it looks like eclipse is now A Standard Tool
        at UCB ugrad cs, probably replaced emacs.  Furthermore, people get
        angry at seeing Makefiles, (since eclispe takes care of that).  I
        guess it's just a sign of the times.
        \_ The more people at my work use eclipse the less the code is
           managable in emacs.  I'm not sure which application's fault
	...

8/1     Where's the place people go for free webspace these days?  Helping
        my sis's  kid learn how to set up html/php/some minor javascript.
        \_ not geocities:
           http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/geocities/close/close-07.html
        \_ why are there 2987394872 places offering free blog space but
           not alot offering free webspace like before.
	...

6/30    Javascript, I love you:
        var b = new Boolean(false);
        b;        // false
        !b;       // ALSO false
        !b == b;  // But this is true!
        !!b == !b // Negate both sides and it's false again. FUCK.
	...

9/22    Gmail's "conversation feature" drives me nuts! Is there a way to
        disable that and make Gmail act like every other e-mail client on the
        planet? WTF thought this was a nice thing to have on by default?
        \_ Umm, why don't you just use another email service then...
           \_ Umm, I do, which is how I have something to compare to. I get
              mail in at least 4 places only one of which is Gmail. I
	...

6/16    Firefox 3 coming out tomorrow.
        http://news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20080612/bs_nf/60269
        Memory usage - Firefox 3 Beta vs. Firefox 2 vs. IE 7:
        http://blog.pavlov.net/2008/03/11/firefox-3-memory-usage
        \_ There's a rule that says NEVER BE THE FIRST TO TRY IT.
           I'm going to let Firefox3 version 1 hammer out bugs first.
	...

3/4     Hi, what's the best free anti-virus software for XP?  What about
        anti-spyware?  Currently I'm using Active Virus Shield and Spybot.
        Thanks.
        \_ I've used: avg, spybot s&d, adaware, trend micro's housecall.
           \_ Does Spybot S&D protect Firefox?  It soulds like the injection
              feature only supports IE.
	...

3/5     How does Google Map widget work? Is it a flash program or a
        pure Javascript program? When you include a Google Map on your
        home page, how does it talk to the <DEAD>maps.google.com<DEAD> server?
        I thought cross domain is not possible.
        \_ Pure JavaScript.  It uses an <iframe> to avoid cross-domain issues.
           \_ You mean the thing that scrolls/moves around is an
	...

2/7     Hi I'd like to learn Flash. I have no UI experience but I just want to
        learn for the sake for curiosity. I just want to create something that
        is interactive and fun, and don't care about scalability/extensibility/
        reliability/efficiency/blah-blah. What language is Flash most similar
        to and how easy/difficult is it to get started (e.g. "hello world")?
        -kchang
	...