The Insider News

Re: How the slowest computer programs illuminate math’s fundamental limits

10-Dec-20 10:01

Quanta magazine[^]:
he goal of the “busy beaver” game is to find the longest-running computer program. Its pursuit has surprising connections to some of the most profound questions and concepts in mathematics.

So that explains Windows' search program

Nelek10-Dec-20 10:23

Re: How the slowest computer programs illuminate math’s fundamental limits

10-Dec-20 10:23

Kent Sharkey wrote:
So that explains Windows' search program

If I had been drunking coffee, I would be foced to clean my screen.

Thumbs Up | :thumbsup:

M.D.V.

If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.

Greg Utas10-Dec-20 10:24

Greg Utas

10-Dec-20 10:24

I've created infinite loops many times, and a former manager created an infinite messaging loop between two entities, which was discovered in the field for a high availability product. Laugh | :laugh:

I could also comment on the term busy beaver but will exercise restraint. $Shucks | :-\$

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The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.

Google and Amazon fined €135M over misuse of cookies by French data watchdog

Kent Sharkey10-Dec-20 9:16

Re: Google and Amazon fined €135M over misuse of cookies by French data watchdog

10-Dec-20 9:16

The Verge[^]:
The regulator criticised the firms for not getting consent before placing the trackers

Anyone misusing cookies deserves to have the book thrown at them

A cookbook, of course.

Nelek10-Dec-20 10:21

Should you learn Assembly to become a better programmer?

10-Dec-20 10:21

There were night clubs in Spain braking some laws and everytime the police came and sued them, they laughed their asses off, because the fine was not even a 10% of what they additionally earned in one night not following the rules...

In other words:
€135M ??? That's peanuts to them...
They should get 50% of a month revenue, then... it might even call their attention.

M.D.V.

Kent Sharkey10-Dec-20 9:16

Re: Should you learn Assembly to become a better programmer?

10-Dec-20 9:16

Hackernoon[^]:
Are you going to be writing code anytime soon in assembly? Maybe not, as it has very niche use cases.

Because you never know when you might have to debug the machine code for a website

Nelek10-Dec-20 10:35

Re: Should you learn Assembly to become a better programmer?

10-Dec-20 10:35

I wouldn't say it should be a must, but I do think it would help a bit.

I have been many years programming PLCs in something similar to assembly and the PLCs did have limited resources (current ones not that limited though). My senior says, I again and again blown his mind off because I find simpler ways to do things he would have never thought of.

M.D.V.

Rick York10-Dec-20 12:58

Rick York

10-Dec-20 12:58

Me too. My first job out of school was programming PLCs and I couldn't stand it so I branched out. Back then, PLCs didn't have descriptive tags and labels for registers. Everything was a number so you had to keep a notebook of what all your registers did. It was a serious PITA.

I school I had a few courses that used microcontrollers in the labs so we worked with their assemblers. 8051s and 8048s and a few others. Intel was close by so we had bunch of their development equipment. Fun stuff.

"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"

Re: Should you learn Assembly to become a better programmer?

Nelek11-Dec-20 8:39

Re: Should you learn Assembly to become a better programmer?

11-Dec-20 8:39

Rick York wrote:
Back then, PLCs didn't have descriptive tags and labels for registers.

My first one was Siemens S5, in the fist versions it was like you tell, but when I started we could at least use 8 bytes naming without symbols or spaces.

The new TIA Portal is way bigger and you can do a lot, but it is done a bit too much idiot-proof. You can't do many of the things I was used too and the intellisense is way too intrusive.

In my opinion the best siemens PLC were the late Step 7. I have had a lot of fun with them (and a lot of Mad | :mad:

too) and they have teached me a way of doing things that is not that usual in "pure" high level language programmers.

M.D.V.

Rick York11-Dec-20 10:53

Rick York

11-Dec-20 10:53

I started working on Allen Bradley 2/30 and Modicon 584s. Later, when I was writing comm drivers to talk with PLCs, Siemens PLCs became my second least favorites to deal with. Allen Bradleys are my least favorite now. I like PLCs with very simple protocols like GE, Omron, and Modbus.

Here's something kind of funny. At my previous company we worked on systems that weren't very fast and we could get by with fairly slow scan times so we removed nearly all logic from the PLC and did it in the computer. The PLC became a smart I/O device. This allowed us to have portable control logic that could work with any I/O. We ended up doing retrofits on systems with a bunch of different types of PLCs and I wrote the drivers for almost all of them - we found some freeware for a Step-7 driver.

"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"

Re: Should you learn Assembly to become a better programmer?

Nelek11-Dec-20 13:36

Re: Should you learn Assembly to become a better programmer?

11-Dec-20 13:36

Interesting Smile | :)

In my case it was more like...
Phase 1: C++, Borland C++ Builder, VC++ 6,
Phase 2: Step 5, Protool, iFIX (SCADA), Step 7, Win CC Flex, Kawasaki Robots, Reis Robotics, Kuka, Allen Bradley...
Phase 3: BuR, TIA Portal, C#, Back to C++ ...

Biggest was Phase 2 up to now. Interactions with PC in several ways, all kind of peripherical systems... Most of the times my sps was the master and did / coordinated everything.

M.D.V.

modified 11-Dec-20 19:43pm.

Rick York11-Dec-20 15:09

Rick York

11-Dec-20 15:09

I have worked with many robots too but I never actually programmed one. I have always done the communication part or interfaces and often the coordination. Fun stuff. For a while I worked at a company that made robots - Intelledex.

"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"

Re: Should you learn Assembly to become a better programmer?

Nelek11-Dec-20 23:41

No. 1 Visual Studio IDE feature request: Linux

11-Dec-20 23:41

Rick York wrote:
I have worked with many robots too but I never actually programmed one. I have always done the communication part or interfaces and often the coordination. Fun stuff.

Using them could be interesting and big fun too, but one must be very careful, once they "go", they can be pretty dangerous, so if the programmer is not experienced, better take cover when testing starts.

Trying to optimize the paths to win some milliseconds (or even seconds) per cycle was really challenging in some of the projects I worked.

When time is not that important, then it might very comfortable and one can concentrate in doing parametrizable programs to reduce complexity and improve maintenace comfort.

Rick York wrote:
For a while I worked at a company that made robots - Intelledex.

Never seen them. I didn't even knew that name.

M.D.V.

Kent Sharkey10-Dec-20 8:31

10-Dec-20 8:31

Visual Studio magazine[^]:
With the year's Visual Studio release train coming to an end with the new VS 2019 v16.9 Preview 2, I took a look at Microsoft's Developer Community site to see what top feature requests have been filed to perhaps peek at what's in store for next year.

I thought they were all still stuck in vi?

Or maybe that's the problem - they can't get out, so they need VS to edit their files?

Joe Woodbury10-Dec-20 8:52

Joe Woodbury

10-Dec-20 8:52

CLion is pretty good.

That said, Visual Studio is amazing and has a kick ass debugger.

Greg Utas10-Dec-20 10:28

Greg Utas

10-Dec-20 10:28

vi. It's remarkable what people put up with.

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The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.

Kent Sharkey10-Dec-20 10:36

10-Dec-20 10:36

Suffering leads to purity (or something - I never understood the attachment myself)

TTFN - Kent

David O'Neil10-Dec-20 11:44

David O'Neil

10-Dec-20 11:44

Kent Sharkey wrote:
Suffering leads to purity

I believe it was 'salvation.' But in the case of vi, suffering leads to pleas of 'Save Me!' (At least for those who aren't masochists.) Poke tongue | ;-P

“If we get $100,000, we will go to Potato blockchain.”

Enable the dream!

Nemanja Trifunovic11-Dec-20 7:38

Nemanja Trifunovic

11-Dec-20 7:38

That's why I switched to vim years ago Poke tongue | ;-P

utf8-cpp

Greg Utas11-Dec-20 7:42

Greg Utas

11-Dec-20 7:42

I must keep it in mind if I start using Linux. I had to look it up, and it looks good. Originally developed on an Amiga, no less! I had one and still remember it fondly.

Robust Services Core | Software Techniques for Lemmings | Articles
The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.

What’s new in Windows Forms runtime in .NET 5.0

#realJSOP11-Dec-20 0:01

#realJSOP

11-Dec-20 0:01

Visual Studio will never run on Linux unless they port WPF over to Linux, which will never happen (at least, not from Microsoft).

Look at WINE. VS used to run in Wine, until they moved to WPF (2010), and then it went to hell in a handbasket. WPF uses DirectX, and that doesn't live on Linux.

".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013

Kent Sharkey10-Dec-20 7:46

Re: What’s new in Windows Forms runtime in .NET 5.0

10-Dec-20 7:46

.NET blog[^]:
Since Windows Forms was open sourced in late 2018, and ported to .NET Core, both the team and our external contributors have been busy fixing old bugs and adding new features.

Because WPF is so 2006

#realJSOP11-Dec-20 0:03

#realJSOP

11-Dec-20 0:03

It doesn't matter. writing a WinForms or WPF app with .Net core just causes the binary footprint to be bigger, and does not add any real benefit (because you can't run those apps on Linux).

I didn't bust my ass for the last 30 years learning how to nuance a GUI, only to be told I have to start writing command line apps again.

Re: What’s new in Windows Forms runtime in .NET 5.0

markrlondon11-Dec-20 16:58

markrlondon

11-Dec-20 16:58

It's nice to see WinForms getting some feature love again, though.

Google, Intel, Dell, collaboration giants like Zoom, Slack form Modern Computing Alliance

Kent Sharkey10-Dec-20 7:15