Have you ever seen a programmer who really understands C going to stackoverflow every time they have to use an fopen()? Memorization is part of understanding. You cannot understand something without it being readily available in your head
Right, and a lot of them probably got that understanding by going to stackoverflow every time they needed to use fopen() until they eventually didn’t need to anymore.
In the book days, I sometimes got to where I knew exactly where on a page I would find my answer without remembering what that answer was. Nowadays I remember the search query I used to find an answer without remembering what that answer was.
I wrote a long answer, but I realised that even advanced C users are unlikely to have memorised every possible value of errno and what they all mean when fopen errors. There's just no point as you can easily look it up. You can understand that there is a maximum allowable number of opened files without remembering what exact value errno will have in this case.
Yes, I have. I do it too, even some basic functions, I would look up on SO.
You really just need to know that there's a way to open files in C.
I don't think you can reach any sort of scale of breadth or depth if you try to memorize things. Programmers have to glue together a million things, it's just not realistic for them to know all the details of all of them.
It's unfortunate for the guy who has memorized all of K&R, but we have tools now to bring us these details based on some keywords, and we should use them.
but the internet is for talking to people across the globe. and the app presents itself as an alternative for internet based apps. the reality is however that in any place where i can't use the internet, this app does not really solve that problem. it is only useful in situations where in most cases the alternative is talking face to face. it's not any situation where the internet can't be used, but just some of them. there certainly are good use cases for local communication, cases where face to face is just out of reach and many of these use cases are currently served with internet based apps too. but it's not an alternative to internet based apps per se.
The Internet is _not_ for talking to people across the globe. The Internet allows that, but not only that - one can have a Whatsapp chat with someone in the same bus, this is both legal and technically possible.
The bitchat app serves the niche where talking face to face is not an option and talking across the globe is not needed. And the app explicitly states "infrastructure independence" as one of its design goals: "the network remains functional during internet outages", which cannot be served by internet-based apps by design.
The Internet is _not_ for talking to people across the globe. The Internet allows that, but not only that - one can have a Whatsapp chat with someone in the same bus, this is both legal and technically possible.
technically possible but rather redundant and in most cases pointless. (yes, there are exceptions)
so i rather strongly disagree. 99% of my use of the internet is to talk to people across the globe. it's its primary use case. the example you mention is a fringe application, useful to a tiny minority.
"the network remains functional during internet outages"
that strongly implies that i can use this app to replace other apps that use the internet. but i can't, because it does not allow long distance communication the way internet based apps do.
so for 99% of my needs this app is not helping me. it does not make me independent of the internet. i have been in places where the internet was cut off due to political turmoil. and i have friends who have that happen to them. in all cases the main challenge was the lack of long distance communication. local communication was barely affected.
sms and phone still worked, and in fact the app that would have helped is one that can route data connections via sms and phone calls. like old acoustic modems.
infrastructure independence at a local level is nice, but much less serious or critical than independence for long distance communication. and long distance already starts at a few km.
I believe bitchat can also use the wider internet to exchange messages. So it is an app that can use either the internet or various other more local options. That seems like a desirable improvement to me.
A government agency in Italy which is known nation-wide to complain and fine other institutions for the stupidest and pettiest reasons, fined another institution for a stupid and petty reason. But of course, ignorant people just see this single occurrence and make up conspiracy theories about it. (Really, if you looked at some examples of previous fines and complaints by AGCOM you would laugh your ass off independently of your political stance)
He contradicts himself in the span of a single sentence. How is it possible that this was done solely by Italy (with concerns from the rest of the EU) and yet this is the work of a cabal of European media elites? If this were true, why isn't the entire EU involved?
That's not really a self-contradiction; if we pretend the USA's copyright lobby had made California pass a similar law… well, that might not work, I have no idea if that would be unconstitutional inter-state trade restriction or something in the USA, but for the sake of showing why it's not a self-contradiction can we pretend?
If the US media elites had convinced California to do that, they'd be a "shadowy cabal of [US] media elites", even if there was opposition from the rest of the USA.
Again, don't read too much into if this would actually work in the USA, the EU is not the USA, this isn't that kind of comment.
US media elites got DMCA and YouTubes copyright strike introduced, I suppose they were powerful enough to sidestep the states and go after Congress instead.
I mean, suppose a CD player only used proprietary CDs. If the company dropped support and opened it to every other CD brand, would you complain that you can't load cassettes? Or burn ISOs with it?
Firstly, the source code is probably being used on newer devices, so Bose would not like sharing their proprietary solutions which might contain thirds party code they cannot share.
Secondly, these devices are basically one step above embedded. It's highly unlikely you can load and run anything custom on them.
Since they are opening up the API, you can keep using them for what they were made for, which is at least a solid basic liberty
If social media required ID, you could maintain the freedom of being able to use these tools for anything legal, while swiftly detecting and punishing illegal usage. IMHO, you can't have your cake and eat it too: either you want privacy and freedom but you accept people will use these things unlawfully and never get caught, or you accept being identified and having perpetrators swiftly dealt with
Same is true outside of the Internet. With cameras and face recognition everywhere, criminals can be swiftly dealt with. At least that's what people tend to believe.
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