Recent submissions

Comment · 13 years ago
That's true, but you can write C code in D as well, so switching to D won't make people write idiomatic code either. If they won't learn how to use one correctly then they won't care enough to use another correctly.

And if your company won't let you upgrade compilers, then it certainly won't let you switch languages altogether.

Comment · 13 years ago
Same here; I used to be a huge fan of D but then C++11 came along and solved most of my problems (and some that I didn't know D had).
Comment · 13 years ago
Then say "better than hand-written C++", not "better than C++". It's like saying "C++ performs better than assembly". No it doesn't. It may perform better than hand-written assembly, and that's completely different.

It's just annoying when people will do anything to get on the "faster than C++" wagon.

Comment · 13 years ago
> compiles down to C++. Execution speed is comparable to C++, mostly better.

Uh, what. Can you clarify?

Comment · 13 years ago
Well according to Wikipedia (yeah I know, but I don't feel like searching elsewhere) it may or may not be taken with the meaning "center of the world." And even if it is, it's more of an observation than a boast, since from their perspective they were in the middle of a bunch of other countries like you said. And hey, they call America "beautiful country" so they're not being stingy.
Comment · 13 years ago
May be worth noting that the Chinese didn't name their country China, they named it Zhong guo.
Comment · 13 years ago
Ouch, camouflage on a tank is a good analogy. Nice response post.

In addition to, as the author encourages, being "weary of the 'by obscurity'" argument (as I'm sure we all already are), I would also advocate being wary of it :)

Comment · 13 years ago
I was replying to the part where "even if the files are local" i.e. not on the net.
Comment · 13 years ago
I was thinking about this the other day and I came to think that Wikipedia's rule about citations is this: Wikipedia does not want to be a source of information. It wants to be a collection/aggregation of other sources of information, and those other sources have to be accessible to others for all time (i.e. not a human being but a book written by a human being).

What I mean to say is that Wikipedia's system is one that does not/will not give article editors credit for original content; it treats them as just collectors and explainers of original content. When the explainers start writing stuff that has no source, they then disappear and leave Wikipedia holding the content which is now unverifiable. And that's just not how Jimmy wanted it to work I guess.

When I look at it that way, the policy doesn't seem that ridiculous. It may be inconvenient, but that's like saying a stack data structure is inconvenient because you can't remove things from the bottom. It's just the way it is; it has advantages and disadvantages.

Comment · 13 years ago
If they opened it in notepad they'd see a one-line URL, which is pretty obviously not the 5-page paper they typed. But I suppose many people wouldn't ever open it in anything other than the Drive interface, and I continue to agree it's not obvious enough for certain types of people.
Comment · 13 years ago
Only that's impossible as it is now (and will be for the forseeable future) because it wouldn't be very wise to give browser apps write access to the local filesystem.
Comment · 13 years ago
Yeah, like I mentioned, "There were cues which the author missed, but they were obviously not prominent enough which is a (the) design flaw." I focused more on the lessons to be learned but the situation is absolutely very sad for anyone who goes through something like this.

Glad you read the article though, now you're not going to fall for this flaw in the future.

Comment · 13 years ago
While I sympathize with the author (it must have hurt pretty bad if it made him go create an entire website dedicated to "google drive sucks") I thought it was quite obvious that files created on Google Drive with their document editor were not actually copied to your computer with the Google Drive program. It's easy to see when you try to open the file with Notepad or a similar local text editor. Additionally you get a warning when you move a file out of the Drive folder which you should always heed.

Not only that, but if it were the actual file on your local drive and not a link, there wouldn't be an option to "make this file available offline". There were cues which the author missed, but they were obviously not prominent enough which is a (the) design flaw.

Let this be a lesson that you should have multiple backups for anything important. I personally have 2 online backup systems and 3 local ones, the worth of which practice I learned the hard way like this author.

Also think twice before you empty the trash - you're manually making these files unrecoverable from the internet, and if your machine went up in smoke after you hit the button, you'd be screwed. That alone warrants serious consideration.

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