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;"
	...

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?
	...

3/7     I have a C question.  I have the following source code in two identical
        files t.c and t.cpp:
                #include <stdlib.h>
                int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
                  const char * const * p1;
                  const char * * p2;
	...

1/19    Perl god, please go to http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html
        Go to "Quantifiers" and the greedy operator, such as
        +?, *?, ??, {n,}?, {n,m}?
        So I understand the greedy operator that does matching
        based on having different choices (instead of the default
        maximal munch). What about "{n}?" ?  What are some
	...

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
	...

3/7     My sister is graduating soon with a decree in information management.
        She was orignally CS, but couldn't cut the math, so her GPA sucks.
        However, she has had a couple of internships and did fine.  She did
        desktop support at RockYou and is currently doing web programming
        at UC Santa Cruz, but they can't keep her on after graduation.
        Anyone got any jobs?  She wanted to be a network admin, but right 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
	...

6/2     http://gmarceau.qc.ca/blog/2009/05/speed-size-and-dependability-of.html
        Ruby sucks.
        \_ Looks no different than python/perl/etc.  It's a scripting language
           that needs a virtual machine if it is ever going to be fast.  The
           scary thing is how much modern computing doesn't need stuff to
           be fast, especially when dealing with web applications.  There's
	...

4/30    Sorting question!  I have n sorted arrays of doubles.  What's the
        fastest way to sort them into 1 big sorted array?
        \_ as mentioned below: you are describing one half of mergesort
        \_ You really have to ask this question?
           \_ You don't know either, huh?
        \_ If three are n sorted arrays of m doubles each, I think the fastest
	...

4/5     Tuesday at 10:00PM I will be taking down Soda temporarily to migrate
        disk arrays.  This is an expected part of our move to the new server.
        The downtime should be minimal - I'll be remounting /home read-only
        for an hour or so while I run a final mirror over to the new array
        and then will reboot Soda onto the new array. The final migration
        will come at a slightly later time - this is in preparation for
	...

1/22    Google, again:
        http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2013/01/google_people_operations_the_secrets_of_the_world_s_most_scientific_human.single.html
	...

12/10   Biggest Google outage ever?
        http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2012/12/why-gmail-chrome-and-drive-went-down-today/59822
	...

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
	...

8/16    Why does my Y! mail account always full of unfiltered spam
        mails (and they're obviously spams)? Why can't they do
        a better job like Google mail? Why does Y! mail charge
        for exporting email? Google mail doesn't do that.
	...