> The problem with traditional operator overloading is that you have to
> memorize which symbol corresponds to which magic method name.
That's not even in the top 5 problems with operator overloading.
> How many years or decades will those "formalities" take? Java language
> enhancements have a history of taking much longer than originally claimed.
Almost certainly a shorter amount of time than it would take to migrate our
codebase away from Java. Oracle has actually been moving pretty fast with Java
recently, for better or worse.
> [XML is...] Already moved into an optional library, being dropped entirely in
> the next version.
And this illustrates another problem: Scala is constantly breaking backwards
compatibility. Which is a real-world problem, unlike "I want the latest
gee-whiz language feature."
> Put that together and you get a language where you never need the magical
> frameworks that (real-world) Java needs.
Scala has plenty of "magical frameworks": scalaz, akka, shapeless, the list
goes on.
Newer Java libraries like Jackson don't need a type registry (or at least, not
one that have to manually set up.)
I won't try to defend J2EE or Hibernate, but also, I don't use them.
Java has been gradually eating all the good parts of Scala. So far, it's eaten lambdas, map / reduce / fold functions, option types, raw string literals, the concept of a built-in REPL, type inference for local variables, and default methods in interfaces (which is kind of like mixins). Pattern matching and type classes are on the menu, but not yet formally merged into Java.
So what does Scala have left? Operator overloading, which tends to lead to unclear code. "Implicit," which should give any former C++ programmer PTSD flashbacks. A compiler which is pretty slow. The ability to embed XML into code (why?). A collections library which is nightmarishly complex. (See https://yz.mit.edu/wp/true-scala-complexity/ )
> There are model airplane pilots, they have FAA regulations, they have a community that is very serious about education, training, mentor-peer relationships and self monitoring and reporting.
Right. And that community, the Academy of Model Aeronautics (AMA) is probably doomed if these new rules pass. A lot of their models can go faster than 100 MPH and higher than 400 feet. A lot of their fields are in controlled airspace where they won't be allowed to fly.
Wow. I don't even know where to start on this one.
My experience with academia is that everyone is scrambling to get grants and get published. Nobody ever asked questions about where the grants came from. A lot (probably even the majority at the time) was from the department of defense, and explicitly targetted to create weapons.
Professors spent a huge amount of their time writing grant proposals. It's like pitching to a bunch of VCs, only you do it every month, and the amounts of money are much smaller.
And this is the reward for a lifetime of achievement. If you're starting at the bottom today, conditions are positively Dickensian. The average (not the maximum, the average!) PhD in CS took 6 years. During that time you'll be paid almost nothing, no matter what the cost of living is around you. And you are essentially an indentured servant of the professor. If he wants you to do a routine task that has nothing to do with your research, you have to do it. Cumulatively these tasks could add up to years of delays. After you graduate, you'll probably have to take multiple postdoc jobs, often at very low salaries, in hopes of getting a faculty position. Sometimes the hopes come true, but very often not.
And from what I understand, CS is actually one of the "good" subjects to go to graduate school for. Things are much, much worse in the humanities.
It's truly incredible that anyone would hold this up as a better system than how industry works. Hmm, let's see... a two week interview process, after which the company will tell the applicant whether they're hired. Or, a two year postdoc after which the university may choose to throw them away like garbage. Spending half your time writing grants, versus spending a few minutes a week writing a status report. Come on.
Also, the section about how "the students will suffer" from industry partnerships reads like a bad joke. Students suffer because the most universities hire faculty purely based on research, and not at all based on teaching. Full stop. The top research schools have contempt for teaching undergrads; that's why they hire adjuncts to do it at minimum wage. (Well, they also dump some of the burden on graduate students, too.)
Yahoo hasn't had its own search engine for years. In 2010, they became essentially a frontend for Bing. In a later 2015 deal they switched the backend to using Google.
Duckduckgo is a metasearch engine, technically, but mostly it delegates to Bing.
As far as I can tell, there are only two and a half real search engines that still exist: Bing, Google, and Wolfram Alpha. (I count Alpha as a half because it's not really what most people are looking for.) I'm curious if anyone else knows of other real search engines still in existence.
I don't think "an entirely different ethical framework" should apply when you're "treating someone versus learning to treat them." First of all, "learning to treat someone" is not clearly separable from treating them. That's the whole point of medical residency-- you spend a bunch of time watching and helping doctors treat people, so that you can become one yourself. Ethical standards don't radically shift the moment a resident enters the room.
The concept is absurd. "Whoa guys! A resident just entered the room! Now we have to fill out all our forms in pen rather than pencil because the ethical standards just radically shifted! Now we're learning how to treat rather than treating!"
I think you are also missing one of the big points here, which is that the study protocol was exactly the same as what the doctors were doing anyway. So philosophical tangents like whether risks should be minimized more in research or treatment are irrelevant in this particular case. The risks are the same because the protocol is the same.
Scott's complaint is basically that the IRB regulations don't match the regulations that apply to standard psychiatric treatment.
For example, the department had a huge amount of patient information stored in their regular computer system. But the IRB demands an archaic pen and paper system for storing patient records, rather than using the computer system that exists. You could argue that maybe the department computer system was bad, but in that case it should be fixed, rather than creating a parallel system.
Similarly with the issue of consent. The doctors were already giving questionnaires to the patients and already using them to determine what the treatment should be (counselling, medication, etc.) Why do the consent requirements suddenly become completely different when it's part of a study? Should the doctors be asking patients to fill out a consent form each time they give a questionnaire? Should the forms be in pen, even though mental patients can use pends to hurt themselves? I don't know, but I do know that having bizarrely different criteria for a study versus normal medical practice seems unwise.
I agree that it would be good to have better-defined criteria for stopping the study. It sounds like Scott had an informal goal of 100 data points, but didn't manage to hit this goal.
I'm sure IRBs do some good. But it's really hard to take the IRB's side in this particular case. They weren't even following their own rules (the person asking him to take ethics training hadn't taken the training herself-- which would have probably torpedoed his study even if he had done everything else right.)
If only AMP would do the same.