Browser Poll

[Hauldren Collider]

Magic compilers have a tendency to be too clever for your own good. It can lead to (even more) inconsistent implementations, which would be absolutely terrifying with Javascript. But the fact that you are giving it props and have more experience than me with web design leads me to believe google has managed to not **** up on this

gcc
I hate how it tries to be clever to the point where I'm not sure I'm even writing C anymore, but I don't really have any alternatives. I noticed this when I started writing CUDA. nvcc is quite a bit fussier, to its credit in my opinion.

[Asher]

gcc isn't even that clever. The IBM C/C++ compiler smokes the **** out of gcc in terms of performance. It's not even close. Unfortunately it's PowerPC only. But they do insane amounts of research and innovation in compiler design & optimization. Intel's C/C++ compiler is by far the best for x86...I think Visual Studio is 2nd, then gcc.

gcc is awful because it's lenient with the standards. Though they're trying, slowly, to tighten up. I can't remember all the devs I had *****ing at me thinking the compiler was broken -- "But this C++ code works with gcc!", and they never took the answer "gcc shouldn't. Your code is not standards compliant" very well. *******s.

[Hauldren Collider]

agreed 100%

gcc is like the internet explorer 6 of code compilers.

[Wezil]

Firefox but thinking of switching to Chrome.

[duke o' york]

Does anyone use Bing?

[Asher]

I actually had a mini argument with the dude interviewing me today for a (mostly) C++ position. It was about the use of virtual destructors (which is asked in every ****ing C++ interview EVER...if you interview for a C++ job and you didn't prepare for this question or know it intuitively, you deserve to not get the job).

I told them the reason why you should have virtual destructors for any class with any virtual members is because if it's not virtual, it's undefined behaviour to the C++ runtime how to proceed with destructing any derived class if it is deleted via a base class object.

He tried to "correct" me that it will simply always leak memory by never calling the destructors of any derived class, if you delete it via a pointer to its base class. I spent a good two minutes arguing this was incorrect (very politely), and in fact it is an undefined behaviour that is simply inconsistent from compiler/runtime to compiler/runtime. But that for all intents and purposes one should assume it would leak memory, and simply always use virtual destructors for any classes with virtual members.

About 30 minutes after the call, I got an email from the guy telling me I was right.

[Fve Crathva]

I use Chrome, but it's slow as hell with my usage patterns and I'm going to switch back to Firefox at some point.

SP

[Ben Kenobi]

Why did Ben vote for IE6-8? He really uses all three of them? I'm surprised they don't upgrade when you install IE8.

They do upgrade. My laptop is IE 8, but the other computers like this backup box is still IE 6.

[Hauldren Collider]

I actually had a mini argument with the dude interviewing me today for a (mostly) C++ position. It was about the use of virtual destructors (which is asked in every ****ing C++ interview EVER...if you interview for a C++ job and you didn't prepare for this question or know it intuitively, you deserve to not get the job).

I told them the reason why you should have virtual destructors for any class with any virtual members is because if it's not virtual, it's undefined behaviour to the C++ runtime how to proceed with destructing any derived class if it is deleted via a base class object.

He tried to "correct" me that it will simply always leak memory by never calling the destructors of any derived class, if you delete it via a pointer to its base class. I spent a good two minutes arguing this was incorrect (very politely), and in fact it is an undefined behaviour that is simply inconsistent from compiler/runtime to compiler/runtime. But that for all intents and purposes one should assume it would leak memory, and simply always use virtual destructors for any classes with virtual members.

About 30 minutes after the call, I got an email from the guy telling me I was right.

Python and Java

[duke o' york]

Note to self: Never argue with Asher about browser technology, and never employ him either.

[Asher]

Python and Java

I'm probably the only CS geek on the planet who can't ****ing stand Python.

[Asher]

Note to self: Never argue with Asher about browser technology, and never employ him either.

[Ben Kenobi]

IE9 will be a respectable browser, I think. They're trying really, really hard to catch up speed-wise and seem to have done so from the preview builds. They're also slowly catching up to the support for web standards all of the other browsers have.

IE 8 is a big improvement over IE 6. Also, the switch over to 8 was difficult before they patched it up. So if you downloaded the very first version, it was extremely buggy and crash prone. But after about a week or so, they tightened it up and it worked fine.

it's still the most likely program to crash out, on my vista machine. I can't recall the last time I had to reboot on the laptop because of a crash or a hang. Things have really come far in the last couple years or so.

[Hauldren Collider]

I'm probably the only CS geek on the planet who can't ****ing stand Python.

I have to admit, it is INCREDIBLY slow with objects (probably because it type checks CONSTANTLY), mixing tabs and spaces is clinically proven to cause people to GO POSTAL, and it is extremely difficult to test all of your code and edge cases can be a huge ****ing ***** but oh my god it's so simple!

[Fve Crathva]

Python is fantastic for prototyping C code. I wouldn't normally write a program with it though.

Java is a stain on history and should never be used by anyone.

SP