This.

HUGE fan of Objective-C, back from the NeXT days. Been writing iOS apps since ARC was optional and I never used it, because *I* knew how to alloc and free memory. Yeah, that meant it was a pain in the ass when Apple made ARC a requirement.

I miss introspection, sure. But optionals, tuples, native unicode support, default parameters, conditional generics, and a consistent calling syntax just makes my life easier. Add to that first-class immutable structs, better functional programming support, and stronger exception handling, and I just enjoy programming Swift more than Objective-C.

It's not like dynamic dispatch went away -- it just got shuffled to object extensions.

That said, there are some things I don't like about Swift: lack of introspection (as I admitted), and especially still using ARC for memory management. While it may be fast, resolving retention cycles can be difficult, especially if one half of the retention is in some Cocoa library.

Swift doesn't lock you into Apple products. It's an open-source language, for cryin' out loud. What locks you into Apple products are the libraries you use to target a specific platform. Just like MFC locks you into Microsoft products.

I can see why some people might prefer Objective-C. I still look on it fondly as the best of the C-based OO languages. Hell, I still love programming in straight-up C.

I'm just glad I made the jump to Swift.

Oh, I'm also moving to Kotlin for my Android projects for many of the same reasons.

What do you mean? Corporate America isn't generally run by the best and the brightest. But in spite of that, considering that Microsoft was once so dominant there was no second place, I think Microsoft is imploding. It certainly hasn't done anything terribly innovative in a long time, and all it's done lately is to hand over the mobile market to Apple and Android, and manage to piss off the one set of insanely loyal customers it has left -- XBox fans.

So, yeah. I think the man is about as dumb as /. thinks he is.

His entire rant is a string of strawmen, ad hominems, non sequiturs, and question-begging. The problems he mentioned are all either social or political in nature. Otherwise, he's piling a lot of abuse and loaded words on people doing what they want to do: write programs.

The weird thing is, he identified the sources of the problems right in his rant. Single mothers living at or below the poverty line? The jobs they have don't pay well, are inflexible, and provide no relief for raising kids while trying to earn a living. Veterans waiting 8 months for medical attention? A processing system that is out-of-date and understaffed, and a health care system that has been gutted of funding.

What bright ideas are young software entrepreneurs are going to solve this? The software exist to make the VA more efficient, and it's not like you can just write a new piece of software and expect the government to make use of it (just like you can't do that for a big company).

These Big Problems don't have a software solution. He certainly didn't provide any ideas on how software might solve these Big Problems -- he just insisted on judging the career decisions of a group of people based on his preferences.

Fuck. That.

An old 16k Apple ][ in 1979, in a logging camp in Southeast Alaska. First integer BASIC, then Applesoft BASIC, then assembly via the Sweet16 mini-assembler. Then Pascal. Then I graduated and went to college and learned how to program.

And I wrote my "One Time, at computer camp...." a long time ago.

The official launch name will be Windows Apology.

I don't know about that. Everyone on /. seems to be a fuckin' critic, yet critics still have jobs.

Exactly. Epigenetics means the offspring inherits the factory as well as the blueprints. (Okay, DNA isn't really a blueprint per se, but it's not nearly as pithy to say "as well as the DNA templates which create RNA templates which are used to construct specific proteins.")

Fortunately, science works by correlating the predictions of hypotheses with observed reality. Also fortunately, the theory of evolution via natural selection doesn't predict evolving an intelligent life-form in a lab. It predicts many, many things that correlate strongly with observed reality, but that is not one of them.

If I'd said something as monumentally ignorant as your post, I'd be red in the face too.

I think you are confusing "is" with "ought."

Nice slut-shaming.

It doesn't matter if the plaintiff enjoys sex, or is flirty with some people, or anything else. If she was sexually harassed at work, she has a case. Her dress, her sexual conduct outside the office, and her general attitudes make no difference to the question of sexual harassment.

Nate Silver's use of statistics is geeky. Really. That's about all he talks about -- not politics, but statistics. (Well, and sports, but even there, he's all about the statistics.)

Bwah? 97.7%? I'm only seeing an 86.3% chance.

Or is the "Chance of winning" sidebar item incorrect?

Ah, yes. Argument by dictionary. That's an excellent strategy: it allows you to avoid the substance of an argument by focusing instead on specific word-use.

Let's try this instead: no religion has been shown to be true. In fact, no religion has demonstrated a basis by which its truth-claims can be evaluated. Religion has no epistemic footing.

You indicate this yourself when you mentioned, "There are over 4,200 religions in the world." (This ignores the various nuanced schisms that exist in many of those 4,200 religions, but we'll let that slide for the moment.) This number indicates there is no real epistemic foundation on which to build a reliable religion. Basically, it's all just gut-feeling, social mechanisms for control, pareidolia, and a desire to know things that are effectively unknowable (or, without answer because the question is bad, such as, "Why are we here?")

So, yes, I think I can say that all religions are wrong, even if they are right in some details. It'd be like the claim, "The earth is warming." That is a correct statement of fact. However, one can be wrong in stating it: "The earth is warming because Hell is getting closer," would simply be wrong.

Religious statements are effectively without basis. Every religious statement that is not grounded in observation and logic (basically, science) can be summed up thusly: "I believe this thing, but I have no basis to assume this thing is true." Asserting a thing as true without a solid basis in observable reality is worse than being wrong. At best it is misleading. At worst, it papers over ignorance, effectively vetoing reason and inquiry.

This would put patent renewal in the hands of the wealthiest, further tipping the balance in the favor of the rich.

Wow. That's some mighty fine straw you used to build that strawman.

Do you want to come back to the real discussion, or are you gonna play outside and joust at it some more?