Cory Doctorow: "Hardware ebook readers are a dead end"

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Quoth

The clay tablets are very durable. Makes them more robust if the library is burnt down.

I'm ready for the papyrus versus vellum throw down.

Hitch

[crudites enjoyer]

the only thing vinyl is good for is hot pants imo

[Apache]

Originally Posted by Quoth

The clay tablets are very durable. Makes them more robust if the library is burnt down.

Except they would probably dissolve when the fire suppression system activates.
Apache

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Apache

Except they would probably dissolve when the fire suppression system activates.
Apache

An interesting thought. We could get up a pool on whether the fire bakes them fast enough they will survive the water, the water reaches them before the fire bakes them enough or the water causes a temperature change that shatters them plus any other combinations that come to mind.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Hitch

I'm ready for the papyrus versus vellum throw down.

Hitch

Everything is better than papyrus. Parchment (the real one, not paper called parchment) AKA vellum beats paper or papyrus, but must be the most awkward and expensive to make.
Vellum can be a synonym for parchment, or mean calf skin. Goat and sheep was was popular for making parchment.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Everything is better than papyrus. Parchment (the real one, not paper called parchment) AKA vellum beats paper or papyrus, but must be the most awkward and expensive to make.
Vellum can be a synonym for parchment, or mean calf skin. Goat and sheep was was popular for making parchment.

Not sure you're gettin' into the spirit of the thing here, Quoth!

⋆ᗰદ૨૨ʏ⋆ᐠ₍⁽˚⑅̆˚⁾₎ᐟ ⋆ᘓમ૨ıડτന੨ડ⋆

Hitch

[Quoth]

Really?

Beer ration docket.

There is always vi vs emacs or C vs C++ vs Pascal vs Modula-2 vs Ada vs Turbo Pascal vs VB6
(There is no Vb.net, that's a wrapper on c#)

My family Viber channel ix arguing about quality street vs roses vs heroes vs celebrations

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Quoth

There is always vi vs emacs or C vs C++ vs Pascal vs Modula-2 vs Ada vs Turbo Pascal vs VB6
(There is no Vb.net, that's a wrapper on c#)

My family Viber channel ix arguing about quality street vs roses vs heroes vs celebrations

What, no love for APL?

Your family argues about brands of chocolates/confections?

[jbjb]

Originally Posted by Quoth

There is always vi vs emacs or C vs C++ vs Pascal vs Modula-2 vs Ada vs Turbo Pascal vs VB6

Must ... resist ....

No, I can't resist.

vi vs emacs

Easy - vi. (Or, more specifically, Vim, these days.)

C vs C++ vs Pascal vs Modula-2 vs Ada vs Turbo Pascal vs VB6

C++ (though strictly the correct answer here is 'it depends').

(There is no Vb.net, that's a wrapper on c#)

Not sure I agree with that - while VB.NET and C# are functionally almost identical, they're syntactically very different. Yes, they both compile to the same Common Intermediate Language, for running on the same Common Language Runtime, but that doesn't make either a wrapper of the other. Would you describe all the languages that can be compiled to Java bytecode (e.g. Kotlin, Scala) as just wrappers around Java?

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Quoth

C vs C++ vs Pascal vs Modula-2 vs Ada vs Turbo Pascal vs VB6

Python!

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Python!

Perl!

[DNSB]

LISP rules!

[Quoth]

CHILL
Forth
Occam
JAL
And real ForTran programmers can write Fortran in any language.

I've used all those

[DNSB]

Hmmm. Writing a Fortran program in SAM-76 might be fun. Though the last time I wrote anything in Fortran was in the WatFiv variant. I still think it should have been called WhyNot as the successor to WatFor

[jbjb]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Python!

I have a love/hate relationship with Python.

I love its expressiveness, and the ease of getting things done quickly (in terms of development time), but I hate the inefficiency (in both speed of execution and memory usage) of the implementation and the styles of programming it encourages.

I'd say it makes a great first language for learning, and at the other end of the scale it can be used effectively and well by experienced programmers who know how to write their code to get around the worst of the efficiency issues, but too many use Python all the way through, and don't learn enough about other paradigms, how the underlying machine works etc.

I've seen more programmers irretrievably damaged by too much early exposure to Python than probably any other language.