Re: math symbols in unicode (grouped by purpose)
On 8/13/2010 5:18 PM, Xah Lee wrote: some collection of math symbols in unicode. • Math Symbols in Unicode http://xahlee.org/comp/unicode_math_operators.html I am surprised you do not include the numeric character codes. kt • Arrows in Unicode http://xahlee.org/comp/unicode_arrows.html • Matching Brackets in Unicode http://xahlee.org/comp/unicode_matching_brackets.html these are grouped by the symbol's purpose as much as possible. i made them because i can't find unicode symbols grouped by purpose elsewhere. The unicode “plane - block” structure does not group symbols well, because the chars are added throughout the decades. Some symbols get added in one block, but later on related symbols get added elsewhere. For example, binary relational symbols are scattered in different unicode blocks. Same for binary operators, or all symbols used for set theory, etc. Sometimes a symbol has multiple uses in different math fields, so which block it gets added into unicode is not well defined. hope it's useful to some one. Xah ∑ http://xahlee.org/ ☄ -- http://www.stuckonalgebra.com The best Algebra tutorial program I have seen... in a class by itself. Macworld -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Fascinating interview by Richard Stallman at KTH on emacs history and internals
Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote: In message bd2d1d84-6090-4898-b7c2-59167fc8e...@c10g2000yqi.googlegroups.com, Nick Keighley wrote: On 16 July, 09:24, Mark Tarver dr.mtar...@ukonline.co.uk wrote: On 15 July, 23:21, bolega gnuist...@gmail.com wrote: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/stallman-kth.html RMS lecture at KTH (Sweden), 30 October 1986 did you really have to post all of this... snip read more »... ...oh sorry only about a third of it... Still totally unnecessary, though. Perhaps as an antidote http://danweinreb.org/blog/rebuttal-to-stallmans-story-about-the-formation-of-symbolics-and-lmi In other words, software that was developed at Symbolics was not given way for free to LMI. Is that so surprising? Which is conceding Stallman’s point. Anyway, that wasn’t Symbolics’s “plan”; it was part of the MIT licensing agreement, the very same one that LMI signed. LMI’s changes were all proprietary to LMI, too. I don’t understand this bit. The only “MIT licensing agreement” I’m aware off _allows_ you to redistribute your copies without the source, but doesn’t _require_ it. Right, and this fascinating and amazing and awesome post needs only one rejoinder: twenty-four years later all we have is free as in beer software being milked by proprietary enterprises. Sadly, they would be more effective and more profitable if RMS had never existed, because then they would be paying fair market price for significantly better proprietary tools driven by the demands of a price/value competitive market. What we do not have is any interesting amount of free as in speech software, because no one uses the GPL. The LGPL is Stallman's way of saying, OK, I was wrong. kt -- http://www.stuckonalgebra.com The best Algebra tutorial program I have seen... in a class by itself. Macworld -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: death of newsgroups (Microsoft closing their newsgroups)
Steven D'Aprano wrote: On Tue, 13 Jul 2010 23:24:12 -0400, Kenneth Tilton wrote: The moral? If you look for the spam, you'll find it. And if you *don't* look for spam, you can be sure that some goose will reply to it and get it past your filters. Thanks for that Kenneth, if that is your name and you're not a Xah Lee sock-puppet. Let me see if I have this right. Your technique for reducing unwanted traffic is to openly insult one of the participants? That is how you clean things up? Because most people on Usenet respond well to personal insults and hush up? I have so much to learn! Or was it this? Followups set to a black hole. That works? Amazing. Here, I'll show you what spam looks like: my steadily-improving revolution in learning Algebra: http://teamalgebra.com/ kt -- http://www.stuckonalgebra.com The best Algebra tutorial program I have seen... in a class by itself. Macworld -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: death of newsgroups (Microsoft closing their newsgroups)
Xah Lee wrote: • Death of Newsgroups http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ2/death_of_newsgroups.html plain text version follows. -- Death of Newsgroups Xah Lee, 2010-07-13 Microsoft is closing down their newsgroups. See: microsoft.public.windows.powershell. I use comp.lang.lisp, comp.emacs since about 1999. Have been using them pretty much on a weekly basis in the past 10 years. Starting about 2007, the traffic has been increasingly filled with spam, and the posters are always just the 20 or 30 known faces. I think perhaps maybe no more than 100 different posters a year. Since this year or last year, they are some 95% spam. Forest. Trees. Please note order. Case in point: twelve weeks ago His Timness mentioned this on comp.lang.lisp; http://www.math.union.edu/~dpvc/jsMath/ Now we have this, a port of a desktop app to the web: http://teamalgebra.com/ It happened fast because http://qooxdoo.org/lets me program the Web without bothering with HTML and CSS and browser variation as if I were using a framework like GTk. I learned about qooxdoo... on comp.lang.lisp. The moral? If you look for the spam, you'll find it. kt -- http://www.teamalgebra.com The best Algebra tutorial program I have seen... in a class by itself. Macworld -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Which is the best implementation of LISP family of languages for real world programming ?
bolega wrote: Which is the best implementation of LISP family of languages for real world programming ? http://wiki.alu.org/Implementation Kindly pick one from commercial and one from open-source . ACL and SBCL The criteria is : libraries, gui interface and builder, libraries for TCP, and evolving needs. Please compare LISP and its virtues with other languages such as javascript, python etc. It's better. kt I put javascript in the context that it is very similar in its architecture (homoiconic ie same representation for data-structures and operations, ie hierarchical, which means nested-lists = n-ary tree = binary tree = linked-list = dictionary = task-subtask, and implicitly based on what C calls pointers, and at machine level the indirect addressing of memory) to lisp family. I put python in the context that it has the most extensive libraries and shares the build-fix virtue of lisp highlighted by Paul Graham in his books. Python is touted for its rapid prototyping of guis. It syntax enforces stable format which guards against programmer malice or sloppiness - so that there is a certain level of legacy code readability. Both have eval but not clear what is the implementation efficiency to justify the habit of excessively using it. Certainly, lisp/scheme are excellent for learning the concepts of programming languages due to its multi-paradigm nature and readily available code of the elementary interpreter. Is there an IDE for these lispish-scheming languages ? Is there quality implementation for Eclipse ? Emacs pre-supposes some knowledge of these so that newbie can get stuck. Also, emacs help is not very good. Is there a project whereby the internal help of emacs (analogous to its man pages) are being continuously being updated AND shared ? I have never seen updates to the help. Perhaps, the commercial people are doing it, even from the posts of the newsgroups, but the public distros or these newsgroups have NEVER made such an announcement. Explanations integrated into the help are more important than the books - its like the wikipedia incorporated into emacs. Is there support for the color highlighting of the code by hovering as on this page ? http://community.schemewiki.org/?lexical-scope Which book/paper has the briefest minimal example of gui design along XML nested/hiearchical elements with event-listeners for lisp/scheme ? Thanks -- http://www.stuckonalgebra.com The best Algebra tutorial program I have seen... in a class by itself. Macworld -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Haskell's new logo, and the idiocy of tech geekers
Xah Lee wrote: Haskell has a new logo. A fantastic one. Beautiful. For creator, context, detail, see bottom of: • A Lambda Logo Tour http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/lambda_logo.html Cool survey, and yes, that is a nice new one for Haskell. I saw beauty the other day changing an application to talk to RDF for what it used to get from CLOS and seeing it Just Work after a couple of hours of poking around. Connecting those two paragraphs left as an exercise. kt -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Haskell's new logo, and the idiocy of tech geekers
Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote: Kenneth Tilton kentil...@gmail.com writes: Xah Lee wrote: Haskell has a new logo. A fantastic one. Beautiful. For creator, context, detail, see bottom of: • A Lambda Logo Tour http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/lambda_logo.html Don't do that! If you want to watch the logo, just google for haskell logo. There's no need to go thru xahlee.org. Hunh? He has done a nice job of collecting different logos and putting them all in one place where one can see them all just by scrolling. ie, it's a cool web page with added value available nowhere else. kt -- http://thelaughingstockatpngs.com/ http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Laughingstock/115923141782?ref=nf -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: OT: unix to Windows technology
Xah Lee wrote: Dear unixers lispers, i've been using Mac for the past 19 years, and been a professional sys admin or web app developers on the unix platform, since 1998 (maily Solaris, Apache, Perl, Java, SQL, PHP). In june, i bought a PC (not for the first time though), and made a switch to Windows, for the first time, in the sense as a developer instead of just a casual PC user i've been. In the past month, i've spend about 5 hours a day digging into MS Windows tech, in particluar, read over 200 Wikipedia articles in detail related to Windows technology. (192 of them linked) Here's a write up of the whole story, my experiences, including some tech introduction to MS Windows from a sys admin or programer point of view. • Switching from Mac/Unix To PC/Windows http://xahlee.org/mswin/switch_to_windows.html Some slightly noteworthy subsections are: • Removing HP/Compaq Software http://xahlee.org/mswin/hp_bundled_apps.html • Installing Cygwin Tutorial http://xahlee.org/mswin/installing_cygwin.html • Mac and Windows File Conversion http://xahlee.org/mswin/mac_windows_file_conv.html • Unix And Windows File Permission Systems http://xahlee.org/mswin/file_perm_systems.html • Introduction to Windows Scripting http://xahlee.org/mswin/windows_scripting.html Some articles (not shown above) are still work in progress, such as VBScript tutorial and PowerShell tutorial. Hoping to complete in the coming months or years. comment feedback welcome, esp if you are a Windows expert and answer some of my unanswered questions on the page. Xah ∑ http://xahlee.org/ ☄ You just discovered PCs are cheaper? The funny thing is that that is Microsoft's answer to the Apple Mac-PC ads, they show people shopping for computers and just comparing hardware and price as if this is some kind of breakthrough. But I understand: they have no answer to Windows being such a nightmare and the Mac being such a joy. kt -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: The Complexity And Tedium of Software Engineering
verec wrote: On 2009-06-05 21:03:33 +0100, Kenneth Tilton kentil...@gmail.com said: When progress stops we will have time to polish our systems, not before. Is that an endorsement of mediocrity? No, of General Patton. hth, kt -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: The Complexity And Tedium of Software Engineering
Xah Lee wrote: On Jun 3, 11:50 pm, Xah Lee xah...@gmail.com wrote: Of interest: • The Complexity And Tedium of Software Engineering http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/programer_frustration.html Addendum: The point in these short examples is not about software bugs or problems. It illustrates, how seemingly trivial problems, such as networking, transferring files, running a app on Mac or Windwos, upgrading a app, often involves a lot subtle complexities. For mom and pop users, it simply stop them dead. For a senior industrial programer, it means some conceptually 10-minutes task often ends up in hours of tedium. Quibble: those are not /tedious/. Those are as fascinating as an episode of House, trying not only to get new information but how to get it and how to figure out when some information already in hand is actually misinformation, a classic solution to hard problems. Also figuring out coincidences mistaken for cause and effect. But that is just a quibble, ie, I think you need a different word, and it is OK if it still conveys some form of unleasantness. Hair-pulling? Head-banging? In some “theoretical” sense, all these problems are non-problems. But in practice, these are real, non-trivial problems. These are complexities that forms a major, multi-discipline, almost unexplored area of software research. I'm trying to think of a name that categorize this issue. I think it is a mix of software interface, version control, release control, formal software specification, automated upgrade system, etc. The ultimate scenario is that, if one needs to transfer files from one machine to another, one really should just press a button and expect everything to work. Software upgrade should be all automatic behind the scenes, to the degree that users really don't need fucking to know what so-called “version” of software he is using. I think you are looking for an immaculate road system on a volcanic island still growing ten feet a day. Today, with so-called “exponential” scientific progress, and software has progress tremendously too. In our context, that means there are a huge proliferation of protocols and standards. For example, unicode, gazillion networking related protocols, version control systems, automatic update technologies, all comes into play here. However, in terms of the above visionary ideal, these are only the beginning. There needs to be more protocols, standards, specifications, and more strict ones, and unified ones, for the ideal scenario to take place. But when would we write the software? Even with all the head-banging, look what we have been able to do with computers, leaving aside for the moment the flight control algorithms of the Airbus? When progress stops we will have time to polish our systems, not before. But then you will be able to use the word tedium. kt -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Ban Xah Lee
Craig Allen wrote: There you go: a 30-second psychological diagnosis by an electrical engineer based entirely on Usenet postings. It doesn't get much more worthless than that... -- Grant rolf but interesting post nonetheless. I have been really somewhat fascinated by AS since I heard of it about a decade ago. There are many among us, with interesting ideas, occasionally savant level insight into certain abstractions, which often they can not communicate but which lie there for those that can communicate or come to understand nonetheless. having said that, none of this forgives rudeness or implies people have to tolarate it due to a person's condition, or even due to trying to help them achieve their potential (and thus get something productive out of it ourselves as well)... that is, if you have these communications problems you have to realize it, thank god you are functional, and just that alone will help you communicate. eeep! kt ps. when the hell do I get an eponymous banning thread?! I have been flaming this damn group for 13 years and no recognition!! k -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Ban Xah Lee
Roedy Green wrote: On Sat, 7 Mar 2009 14:52:02 -0800 (PST), Xah Lee xah...@gmail.com wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone who said : I consider this post relevant because i've been perennially gossiped about in comp.lang.* groups today and in the past 5 or 10 years, many of the threads mentioning my name are not started by me nor did i ever participate. The reason you are unpopular has nothing to with what you say. It is that you don't participate in discussions. You just pontificate from on high. It implies a sort of haughty superciliousness that people are reacting to. Buddha taught that the universe is ineluctably a single interconnected web of cause and effect, which is my haughty preamble to this observation: it depends on the newsgroup. comp.lang.lisp is cool so here Xah participates as a normal contributor. kt ps. The Failed Attempt At Witty Comeback lines are now open. Plz dial carefully. k -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Ban Xah Lee
Dirk Bruere at NeoPax wrote: Larry Gates wrote: On Sun, 08 Mar 2009 04:09:52 +, Dirk Bruere at NeoPax wrote: Dirk Bruere at NeoPax wrote: Well, don't worry - nobody is going to ban you from Usenet (except possibly the Chinese govt). OTOH, nobody here much cares. So, rant on - it's what Usenet is for. ☄ --- what is that char? http://lomas-assault.net/usenet/z12.jpg I don't know how to answer the question. Is the zeroeth character also null? Almost had me cleaning the screen. I confess. I moved the window to be sure. But I have an excuse: more than once I have tried to delete a bit of dried... well, never mind. hth, kt -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Why not Ruby?
s...@netherlands.com wrote: On Wed, 31 Dec 2008 23:16:41 -0500, Kenneth Tilton kentil...@gmail.com wrote: Xah Lee wrote: Just spent 3 hours looking into Ruby today. Here's my short impression for those interested. * Why Not Ruby? http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/why_not_Ruby.html plain text version follows: -- Why Not Ruby? Xah Lee, 2008-12-31 Spent about 3 hours looking into Ruby language today. The articles i read in detail are: * Wikipedia: Ruby (programming language)¨J. Gives general overview. * Brief tutorial: Ruby in Twenty Minutes http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/documentation/quickstart/ * Personal blog by Stevey Yegge, published in 2004-10. http://steve.yegge.googlepages.com/ruby-tour The Wikipedia gives the best intro and overview in proper context. The Ruby in Twenty Minutes is just 4 pages. It give you a very concrete intro to Ruby's syntax and semantics. Stevey Yegge's blog doesn't teach much and rambles, but provide a little personal view. I read it because his opinions i respect. Q: Will you learn Ruby? No. For practical application, the lang is some 100 times less useful than each of Perl, Python, PHP, Javascript. For academic study, functional langs like Mathematica, Haskell, OCaml, erlang, Qz, are far more interesting and powerful in almost all aspects. Further, there's also Perl6, NewLisp, Clojure, Scala... With respect to elegance or power, these modern lang of the past 5 years matches or exceed Ruby. Q: Do you think Ruby lang is elegant? Yes. In my opinion, better than Perl, Python, PHP. As a high level lang, it's far better than Java, C, C++ type of shit. However, i don't think it is any better than emacs lisp, Scheme lisp, javascript, Mathematica. Note that Ruby doesn't have a spec, and nor a formal spec. Javascript has. Ruby's syntax isn't that regular, nor is it based on a system. Mathemtica's is. Ruby's power is probably less than Scheme, and probably same as Javascript. I also didn't like the fact that ruby uses keyword end to indicate code block much as Pascal and Visual Basic, Logo, do. I don't like that. Q: Won't Ruby be a interesting learning experience? No. As far as semantics goes, Ruby is basically identical to Perl, Python, PHP. I am a expert in Perl and PHP, and have working knowledge of Python. I already regretted having spent significant amount of time (roughly over a year) on Python. In retrospect, i didn't consider the time invested in Python worthwhile. (as it turns out, i don't like Python and Guido cult, as the lang is going the ways of OOP mumbo- jumbo with its Python 3 brand new future.) There is absolutely nothing new in Ruby, as compared to Perl, Python, PHP, or Emacs lisp, Scheme lisp. Q: Do you recommend new programers to learn Ruby then? Not particularly. As i mentioned, if you are interested in practical utility, there's already Perl, PHP, Python, Javascript, which are all heavily used in the computing industry. If you are interested as a academic exercise, there's Scheme lisp, and much of functional langs such as OCaml, Haskell, Mathematica, which will teach you a whole lot more about computer science, features of language semantics, etc. Q: Do you condemn Ruby? No. I think it's reasonably elegant, but today there are too many languages, so Ruby don't particularly standout for me. Many of them, are arguably quite more elegant and powerful than Ruby. See: Proliferation of Computing Languages. Kenny Tilton, 2008-12-31 Q: Why not Xah's review of Ruby? Spent about 3 hours looking into Ruby language today. A. Three hours? I've had belches that lasted longer than that. Of course, a true master can tell a lot in just a few hours of coding with a new language... The articles i read in detail are: Q: Read?! A: That's what he said. hth,kzo Be carefull what you say. If they pay me I would rip your and Xah's guts out in a second. Sorry, my new President has banned drama so I will only be responding pleasantly to civil comments. (This has been a non-responding response.) Peace,k -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Why not Ruby?
Richard Riley wrote: Jason Rumney jasonrum...@gmail.com writes: On Jan 1, 3:12 pm, r rt8...@gmail.com wrote: The man lives in a world driven by common sense Common sense suggests that his views are shared among the general populace. I don't see much evidence of that in the sometimes never- ending threads that frequently follow his postings. But it is good to start debates about making changes to the status quo, often the debates will result in worthwhile changes, even if those changes are not what he proposed. I just wish he would choose his venue a little more carefully sometimes. I find that with Xah's posts people argue the man and not his points. Precisely, and thus they are the trolls: few of them trim followups, and all of them try to sound funny or clever in their attacks. Xah has something to say about technology, like what he says or not. His attackers just see an open mike and want to hear the sound of their own voice, which I certainly understand. And before anyone goes for that old argument from self-reference, the madding crowd succeeded once in their harrassment of The Xah so remaining silent is no option. p,k -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Why not Ruby?
Xah Lee wrote: Just spent 3 hours looking into Ruby today. Here's my short impression for those interested. * Why Not Ruby? http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/why_not_Ruby.html plain text version follows: -- Why Not Ruby? Xah Lee, 2008-12-31 Spent about 3 hours looking into Ruby language today. The articles i read in detail are: * Wikipedia: Ruby (programming language)�J. Gives general overview. * Brief tutorial: Ruby in Twenty Minutes http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/documentation/quickstart/ * Personal blog by Stevey Yegge, published in 2004-10. http://steve.yegge.googlepages.com/ruby-tour The Wikipedia gives the best intro and overview in proper context. The Ruby in Twenty Minutes is just 4 pages. It give you a very concrete intro to Ruby's syntax and semantics. Stevey Yegge's blog doesn't teach much and rambles, but provide a little personal view. I read it because his opinions i respect. Q: Will you learn Ruby? No. For practical application, the lang is some 100 times less useful than each of Perl, Python, PHP, Javascript. For academic study, functional langs like Mathematica, Haskell, OCaml, erlang, Qz, are far more interesting and powerful in almost all aspects. Further, there's also Perl6, NewLisp, Clojure, Scala... With respect to elegance or power, these modern lang of the past 5 years matches or exceed Ruby. Q: Do you think Ruby lang is elegant? Yes. In my opinion, better than Perl, Python, PHP. As a high level lang, it's far better than Java, C, C++ type of shit. However, i don't think it is any better than emacs lisp, Scheme lisp, javascript, Mathematica. Note that Ruby doesn't have a spec, and nor a formal spec. Javascript has. Ruby's syntax isn't that regular, nor is it based on a system. Mathemtica's is. Ruby's power is probably less than Scheme, and probably same as Javascript. I also didn't like the fact that ruby uses keyword end to indicate code block much as Pascal and Visual Basic, Logo, do. I don't like that. Q: Won't Ruby be a interesting learning experience? No. As far as semantics goes, Ruby is basically identical to Perl, Python, PHP. I am a expert in Perl and PHP, and have working knowledge of Python. I already regretted having spent significant amount of time (roughly over a year) on Python. In retrospect, i didn't consider the time invested in Python worthwhile. (as it turns out, i don't like Python and Guido cult, as the lang is going the ways of OOP mumbo- jumbo with its Python 3 brand new future.) There is absolutely nothing new in Ruby, as compared to Perl, Python, PHP, or Emacs lisp, Scheme lisp. Q: Do you recommend new programers to learn Ruby then? Not particularly. As i mentioned, if you are interested in practical utility, there's already Perl, PHP, Python, Javascript, which are all heavily used in the computing industry. If you are interested as a academic exercise, there's Scheme lisp, and much of functional langs such as OCaml, Haskell, Mathematica, which will teach you a whole lot more about computer science, features of language semantics, etc. Q: Do you condemn Ruby? No. I think it's reasonably elegant, but today there are too many languages, so Ruby don't particularly standout for me. Many of them, are arguably quite more elegant and powerful than Ruby. See: Proliferation of Computing Languages. Kenny Tilton, 2008-12-31 Q: Why not Xah's review of Ruby? Spent about 3 hours looking into Ruby language today. A. Three hours? I've had belches that lasted longer than that. Of course, a true master can tell a lot in just a few hours of coding with a new language... The articles i read in detail are: Q: Read?! A: That's what he said. hth,kzo -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
