Archive: April 18, 2002
Via Slashdot, DevX has an interview with Herb Sutter: "What's next for Visual C++? In this interview, C++ luminary Herb Sutter tells DevX where C++ is headed in the future and what he'll be concentrating on in his new role as Microsoft's official liaison to the C++ developer community." (damn, no "printer friendly" format)
Also check out his "hit list" of things to be added in the next version of C++. On the hit list are "hash-based containers", new kinds of smart pointers, some stuff from the C99 standard such as specified sized integers (like int32_t or int_least32_t), and threading. Also, "type traits", which I initially skimmed over because I didn't immediately recognize what it was by name. What it's calling type traits are basically what higher-level languages have that let you query the type of a variable at run time. Actually, come to think of it, the proposed C++ facility probably isn't a run-time check, and I'm not sure I understand fully why this is necessary in a staticly typed language.
I suppose I have to quote this funny description of auto_ptr's:
If you know nothing else about Boost, know about shared_ptr. It's especially valuable if you ever want to have a container of pointers, because you just can't put auto_ptrs into containers (doing that shouldn't and had better not compile, by design, and if it does compile you're left walking naked in a minefield whether you know it or not).
And darn, it looks like I'll have to shelve my proposal for converting an integer to base 42 modulo the current phase of the moon... ah well.
EiffelStudio gets a good review in Software Development magazine.
Adam explains something I've been too dense to fully understand until now. "Here's the situation, if you care. (If you do interactive DB sites, you might care.)" I do, and I do.
In fact, the way he recommends doing redirects to avoid "the scary browser warning about reposting form data" is exactly the same way I've been doing the programming for the site I'm developing. The thing is that I didn't put two and two together to realize exactly why it was working the way it was. I mean, I suppose I understood it, but I didn't actually think about it, systematize it, and put it in a pithy formulation like "GET after POST". You da man, Adam.
When I've developed stuff for myself I've tended to just stick everything in one (physical) page if it's not inappropriate (since who cares? it's just for me), and I was careful to not resubmit after getting the scary browser warnings. However, this isn't acceptable for developing public sites, which is what I've been working on. It's even more important when you're dealing with money: "In general you don't want to repost form data, because you'll end up submitting another order for a set of books."
The only thing I'm still wondering is exactly what happens when you hit back in your browser after being redirected. Does the browser refetch the page that redirected you from the server, or does it just pull it from its cache? I suppose that depends on your HTTP caching settings you send to the browser? And can you still use the same technique if you redirect to the current page?
Finally, I share Adam's complaints: "In fact, most books and references on web programming tend to have awful advice when it comes to using GET and POST. Lots of sites use POST for search boxes. This means that you can't bookmark or link to a search." I've always been pissed at Webster's site for this very reason. In fact, I think at least part of the reason everyone uses dictionary.com to link to definitions is because they use GET while m-w.com uses POST. In fact, Webster even allows you to use GET (I found that through my own experimentation), but in their wisdom they use POST for their form.
There are signs that Hillary Clinton is going to run for president in 2004. Please God, no! She may have a decent chance, even though she's evil. She'll probably get a big chunk of the female vote, simply because she's a woman... plus minorities, just because she's a democrat... plus people who liked Clinton. Oh, the horror!
One of the reasons I've been so mad at the administration for getting involved in the conflict in the middle east is because Israel is doing what it has to do. That's why it was such an insult for Bush to demand that Sharon cease Israel's military defensive. Not to mention that it's an insult to Israel's sovereignty. Bush, Powell, and the rest of them know that they're not doing any good, and the point is that Israel is making progress ( thanks ) through its actions. I wish our administration would return to the principles of the "Bush doctrine", and, if we won't keep to ourselves and let Israel alone, we should help them "root out" terrorists wherever they can be found.
Also from LGF, a bunch of links about the UN, and how it's been collectively biased towards the Palistinians.
The United Nations has been pissing me off lately. I've heard on the radio that Clinton had signed a resolution that would establish an "international court", relinquishing our sovereignty in matters of international crimes. All of this goes into why I was a disappointed when Switzerland (narrowly) voted to join the UN.
Via LGF, 'A superior blog [by a superior] individual', The NY Post: The massacre that Wasn't.
For days, Palestinian, U.N. and aid-group officials declared flatly that Israeli troops had perpetrated a horrendous massacre of innocent civilians at the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank.
I guess this is what my brother was talking about when he mentioned Israelis killing civillians. Well, it's not true, and on the contrary, I've heard many reports that Palistinians hide behind children when fighting, in case you had any doubt about Israel's moral high ground.
But, Newsday's Edward Gargan wrote, "There is little evidence to suggest that Israeli troops conducted a massacre of the dimensions alleged by Palestinian officials." Said The Washington Post's Molly Moore: "No evidence has yet surfaced to support allegations by Palestinian groups and aid organizations of large-scale massacres or executions."
About 40 bodies were discovered, all but three of them men - ammunition belts strapped to their bodies - who quite clearly were engaged in armed combat with the Israelis.
Indeed, it was precisely because Israel refused to conduct indiscriminate bombing attacks - preferring the more dangerous course of house-to-house searches - that 13 of its troops were killed at a booby-trapped house.
As the Israeli corps commander noted, "I could have finished it all with a whistle. Full-corps fire on the center of the camp and the whole thing would have been over. But we behave differently."
Also see the National Review: Jenin: The Big Lie.
Palestinian mouthpieces claim that the Israeli military killed as many as 500 civilians in Jenin, a stronghold of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. When the Israelis cleared the booby traps and allowed Western media into the city on Monday, the reality turned to be completely different: difficult door-to-door infantry fight; 23 Israeli soldiers fallen in battle; dozens of terrorists killed. No massacre.
If this action had taken place in Afghanistan, U.S. troops would have called in the "vitamin B": B-1, B-2 and B-52 bombers. If it had happened in Chechnya, the Russian generals would have called in artillery and flattened Jenin, just as they did Grozny. Israeli tanks were there, and they could have shot straight into town and the refugee camp. Instead, Israelis fought on foot, placing themselves at risk while trying to protect Palestinian lives. One of the fighters, reportedly a young boy, detonated a booby trap in a building already taken by the Israeli reservists, and 13 were killed on the spot.
The Jenin "massacre" that never was is yet another Big Lie in the Palestinian PR campaign, a campaign that for its persistence and audacity would have made Joseph Goebbels, Adolph Hitler's propaganda chief, proud.
One of Goebbels's contributions to the world of "black" PR was the concept of the Big Lie -- repeating something so loudly and persistently that people begin to believe it. Yasser Arafat is fond of blaming Israelis for using "uranium" shells against Palestinians, implying radioactive damage. The Egyptian propaganda machine made up the "immoral" Israeli chewing gum, purported to drive up the libidos of Egyptian women. President Bashar Assad of Syria accused Israel at the recent Arab League Summit of killing "thousands of Palestinians a day." His long-time defense minister, Mustafa Tlas is getting into show business: He wrote a book called The Matsa of Zion, and is now producing a movie in Egypt that accuses Jews of using the blood of a Christian priest for baking Passover matzah breads. The Saudi government-owned newspaper recently also ran a story alleging that Jews use baby blood for another traditional food, the triangular cookies known as Hamentashen, baked for the holiday of Purim. It is no surprise, therefore, that Hitler's Mein Kampf is selling briskly on the Palestinian street.
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Thursday, April 18, 2002
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I hate ASP... I was doing wonderswith PHP, then suddenly one of myclients...
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