Is C++ a boondoggle?

[theget]

[snipage]

On May 21, 7:46 pm, (e-mail address removed) wrote:
Where health care is concerned, the U.S. is
closer to the third world than it is to western Europe.
There's room for improvement. I live in Minnesota and a
lot of people from all over the world still travel to
the Mayo Clinic for treatment.
Quality treatment certainly exists, for those rich enough to
pay for it.
Some of the rich don't deserve quality treatment though,
right?
Everyone deserves it.

Really? Why is that?

Because it is one of the basic human rights, guaranteed by the
Univeral Declaration of Rights:

Because of that? Suppose I have a document that contradicts that one.
A vote you say? Argument from majority?

Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate
for the health and well-being of himself and of his
family, including food, clothing, housing and medical
care and necessary social services, and the right to
security in the event of unemployment, sickness,
disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of
livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

Rights have to be enforced and provided for.

Anyway, this discussion is completely off topic, and has
really gone on too long. (An occasional off topic post
isn't the end of the world, but an exhaustive thread is
pushing it.)

I agree. You may have the last word if you want it.

Theget

 

[theget]

[snipage]
On May 23, 10:30 am, James Kanze <[email protected]> wrote:

No. The current passport system was introduced during WWI, to keep
enemy spies out and keep potential soldiers in.

Before that, you could travel all over Europe without any documents.
Trains travelled fast, carried a lot of people, and crossed lots of
borders. Who could keep track of all that? And why?

An interesting claim. It's not clear to me that it's true in a
different time frame. For example during parts of the middle ages
people could not simply move to wherever they wanted. In later years,
say early and late Renaissance I've heard that the Roma weren't
allowed to go whereever they wanted. And there's more. Mankind has a
very xenophobic, for lack of a better word, history. It may be that if
you pick a different time frame, you'll find that changing your
residence or mere travel wasn't as easy as you think.

I think James Kanze is correct and this thread is OT, so you may have
the last word if you want it.

Theget

 

[Phlip]

Rights have to be enforced and provided for.

Even if I did not care about anyone else's pain, paying a small tithe of my
income to keep them all healthy is in my own best interest. The healthier the
population around me, the more their productivity supports me.

These threads are a product of the "authoritarian personalities" out there -
people with a disorder that makes them _want_ the poor and helpless to suffer,
even at great cost to themselves...

 

[Chris M. Thomasson]

[snipage]
On May 21, 7:46 pm, (e-mail address removed) wrote:
Where health care is concerned, the U.S. is
closer to the third world than it is to western Europe.
There's room for improvement. I live in Minnesota and a
lot of people from all over the world still travel to
the Mayo Clinic for treatment.
Quality treatment certainly exists, for those rich enough to
pay for it.
Some of the rich don't deserve quality treatment though,
right?
Everyone deserves it.
Really? Why is that?

Because it is one of the basic human rights, guaranteed by the
Univeral Declaration of Rights:

Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate
for the health and well-being of himself and of his
family, including food, clothing, housing and medical
care and necessary social services, and the right to
security in the event of unemployment, sickness,
disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of
livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

I dont think that takes into consideration, "If a man
will not work, let him not eat." 2nd Thessalonians 3:10

I am sure that James Kanze will not care if his taxes get raised by, say
35%, to pay for all of our needs. Thanks James! BTW, should I quit my job
today or tomorrow? Well, write me a check to cover my next 500 meals. I
expect it sometime very soon. You would not want me to starve right? If you
don't give me money after I cannot work, or choose to quit, your a heartless
piece of fuc%ing shi%. Give me YOUR $$$! Spread the wealth! Weeeeeeee!


BTW James, how much money does a person have to make per-year to qualify as
"rich"?

 

[Chris M. Thomasson]

On May 24, 12:44 am, (e-mail address removed) wrote:

[snipage]
On May 21, 7:46 pm, (e-mail address removed) wrote:
Where health care is concerned, the U.S. is
closer to the third world than it is to western Europe.
There's room for improvement. I live in Minnesota and a
lot of people from all over the world still travel to
the Mayo Clinic for treatment.
Quality treatment certainly exists, for those rich enough to
pay for it.
Some of the rich don't deserve quality treatment though,
right?
Everyone deserves it.
Really? Why is that?

Because it is one of the basic human rights, guaranteed by the
Univeral Declaration of Rights:

Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate
for the health and well-being of himself and of his
family, including food, clothing, housing and medical
care and necessary social services, and the right to
security in the event of unemployment, sickness,
disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of
livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

I dont think that takes into consideration, "If a man
will not work, let him not eat." 2nd Thessalonians 3:10

I am sure that James Kanze will not care if his taxes get raised by, say
35%, to pay for all of our needs. Thanks James! BTW, should I quit my job
today or tomorrow? Well, write me a check to cover my next 500 meals. I
expect it sometime very soon. You would not want me to starve right? If
you don't give me money after I cannot work, or choose to quit, your a
heartless piece of fuc%ing shi%. Give me YOUR $$$! Spread the wealth!
Weeeeeeee!


BTW James, how much money does a person have to make per-year to qualify
as "rich"?

Sorry about that... But seriously:


If I choose not to work, are you seriously saying that I simply DESERVE free
healthcare, housing, meals, clothing...?


;^/

 

[Chris M. Thomasson]

Even if I did not care about anyone else's pain, paying a small tithe of
my income to keep them all healthy is in my own best interest.

I demand 75% of your income. Tithe away.

 

[Phlip]

I demand 75% of your income. Tithe away.

You have some Googling to do first.

 

[Noah Roberts]

Nothing could be farther from the truth in the US. They work,

Good for them!

get tax

free income,

So does anyone else making < 10k a year.

and flood emergency rooms on the taxpayers' dime for

their health care,

What ratio in comparison with legals and/or citizens constitutes a "flood"?

enjoy all the benefits of police protection, fire

fighting, public utilities, etc.
Bah!


I believe the number of undocumented aliens in the US is around 12
million, which is part of that "47 million without health insurance"
number bandied about.

You count them?


There are also millions more that make between

$50-$75K a year and choose not to buy health insurance,

As one who's had to deal with the alternative ("free" medicine) I can
tell you with absolute certainty that anyone that has any alternative to
THAT source of health care takes it. In other words, I call bullshit.

millions more

eligible for existing programs like Medicare that do not sign up,
millions more who are without insurance for only a few months between
jobs, etc. The number of chronically uninsured is far, far less, and
naturally far, far less of a news story.

Again, bullshit. You obviously have no knowledge in this area at all
except what you get from the talking heads.

 

[Noah Roberts]

I dont think that takes into consideration, "If a man
will not work, let him not eat." 2nd Thessalonians 3:10

Sorry, but FAIL! Quoting scripture without any rational reason in an
apparently "rational" conversation clues everyone in on your moronity.
It's only an authority for those who believe in fairy tales and refuse
to think for themselves.

Thanks for exposing exactly where you're coming from though. For those
outside the US and not paying attention to our problems, people like
this are like an epidemic eating away at the social fabric of America.
Anti everything that isn't "biblical", including science, knowledge and
basic human freedoms.

 

[Noah Roberts]

[snipage]

And refusal should be motivated. (I have no problems with
refusing immigration to drug dealers and the like. On the other
hand, just limiting the number is really just an arbitrary
restriction on freedom of movement.)

Aribtrary? That's arbitrary. So what? What does arbitrary have to
do with it or not. Just as you can limit how many visitors your
home has at one time, so can a government limit the number of
people it wants to have enter its country.

The definition of a country itself is pretty arbitrary, and most often
the result of the latest war in the region.

Well, here's something to think about: if the cost of living without
borders has, in the past, resulted in wars to create them...we might
want to think twice about taking them for granted.

 

[coal]

Sorry, but FAIL!  Quoting scripture without any rational reason in an
apparently "rational" conversation clues everyone in on your moronity.
It's only an authority for those who believe in fairy tales and refuse
to think for themselves.

Thanks for exposing exactly where you're coming from though.
Sure.

For those
outside the US and not paying attention to our problems, people like
this are like an epidemic eating away at the social fabric of America.
Anti everything that isn't "biblical", including science, knowledge and
basic human freedoms.

I'm sorry you feel that way. Perhaps we could agree that on line,
efficient software is important?
http://webEbenezer.net/comparison.html


Brian Wood
Ebenezer Enterprises
www.webEbenezer.net

 

[Bo Persson]

[snipage]

And refusal should be motivated. (I have no problems with
refusing immigration to drug dealers and the like. On the other
hand, just limiting the number is really just an arbitrary
restriction on freedom of movement.)
Aribtrary? That's arbitrary. So what? What does arbitrary have
to do with it or not. Just as you can limit how many visitors
your home has at one time, so can a government limit the number of
people it wants to have enter its country.

The definition of a country itself is pretty arbitrary, and most
often the result of the latest war in the region.

Well, here's something to think about: if the cost of living without
borders has, in the past, resulted in wars to create them...we might
want to think twice about taking them for granted.

An interesting thing is that those wars were fought to conquer more
land and more people, not to keep people out.


Why is it that the US has somehow peeked its wealth at 300 million
people? Will a few more people make it less rich, or will it add even
more? How do we know?


Bo Persson

 

[Tony]

I've never worked on a project where SAP was used, so I couldn't
say. (I wasn't even aware that it was a project managment
tool.) But the points in the list seem a mixed bag, and at
least partially blaming the tool because management didn't know
how to use it. (Clearcase is far and away the best source code
control system I've used---it's the only one I've used which has
been more or less transparent for the developer.)

SAP provides enterprise planning, operations and management software
solutions and associated services via large consultant partners like
Accenture for large verticals. It's an alternative to building things like
ERP and CRM and supply chain management software in-house from the ground up
or with disjoint packages and integration technologies. (Instead of building
software tailored to your business, you tailor your business to SAP
solutions which supposedly have all the industry best-practices "already in
the box"). Surely they have implementation project processes for their
products, and have project methods for introducing or reengineering their
clients' business processes to fit their solution paradigm, but I don't
believe they offer anything in the PM space in general.

While SAP is the "buy" rather than "build" solution, it's not like
installing a shrinkwrap product but rather an alternative highly complex
thing to do rather than software development with C++ and MQ Series etc, but
it may not seem that way to the decision makers especially after having
experienced a failed C++ project or two, or three. I think that is the
perspective that the OP was referring to with the "...make everything more
efficient..." statement. SAP clients are really buying the "best practices"
and processes and "growing up" their business instead of going through a
long evolution over generations (or at least that is the plan anyway). A
business without the requisite operational or planning or management
knowledge of the industry they are in (maybe they have a great product
flying off store shelves everywhere but lack world-class business knowledge)
can hire a billion C++ coders, but they'd have nothing to code! SAP to the
rescue.

 

[Michael Doubez]

It sounds like you are looking to make your life simpler at the expense
of your customers. That is selfish, my friend. Developing commercial
applications should not be about making life easier for the developer.
It's about developing the best application to be delivered to customers.
Period. By moving away from C/C++, you may very well be making your life
asa developer a little easier, maybe. But if there is any certainty
here, it's that the performance of your application will suffer as a
result of your selfish choice of programming languages, be it Java or
C#. Need proof:

http://www.cherrystonesoftware.com/doc/AlgorithmicPerformance.pdf

Have a good day.

Have you really looked at the implementation of the various tests ?
And what is tested ?

Just one more worthless benchmark in the sea of prog-language-X-is-the-
best FUD.

 

[Lew]

What an amazing coincidence that the email address of the sender matches that
of the document source!

Have you really looked at the implementation of the various tests ?
And what is tested ?

Just one more worthless benchmark in the sea of prog-language-X-is-the-
best FUD.

First thing that strikes my eye is that the "Optimization flag" for Java is
"-O". WTF? That's an option for neither the compiler nor the JVM, much less
an "optimization flag".

Furthermore, since most compilation of Java happens to the bytecode and not
the source, what about GC options, "-server", "-XX:+AggressiveOpts" and the
like? Hm?

Did they discount the startup time? The warmup time? The document doesn't say.

I'm not surprised that Java tested slower on these benchmarks, but I would be
curious to see what the comparison would be in a fair test. Even then, you're
only getting a comparison of how the languages compare in a microbenchmark.

The strengths of Java tend to come forth in realistic code, where things like
correctness and maintainability and concurrency are relevant and carry risk.
Even so, I'd expect performance to converge much more closely with C++ given
proper parameters to the engine. Assuming you can even believe the document
at all, given their claim to have used a non-existent "flag" for Java and the
misspellings in the document ("Flaoting Point"). Oh, yeah, these guys were
thorough and careful. Tchyah.

<http://java.sun.com/javase/technologies/hotspot/vmoptions.jsp>
<http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/technotes/tools/solaris/java.html#options>
<http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/technotes/tools/solaris/javac.html#options>

 

[Michael Tsang]

Have you really looked at the implementation of the various tests ?
And what is tested ?

Just one more worthless benchmark in the sea of prog-language-X-is-the-
best FUD.

Don't you know that these benchmarks are simply of academic interest? The
most important thing in a piece of commercial software is stability and
reliability, *not* performance. Performance is important *only* in
programming contests.

 

[Miles Bader]

Just one more worthless benchmark in the sea of prog-language-X-is-the-
best FUD.

The crosspost list make it pretty obvious it's a (clumsy) troll.

-miles

 

[Lew]

Lew, thanks for your input. We'll be updating the document real soon.
However, the with Java 6, optimizations such as -XX:+AggressiveOpts are
now the default. So basically, this was done. We did discount the
startup times in that we didn't start the timings until just before the
loop to call the functions and then took the time when the loop exited.

Well, "-O" is still no Java option. You will want to use at least "-server".
(Depending on the platform configuration that could be the default, but
don't count on it.) Java doesn't fully speed up code until it's run a number
of times, then it compiles it to native platform code on the fly, so to get
maximum speed you should run the loop several thousand times before starting
timing.