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As a everyday example of this, counting numbers (1, 2, 3, ...) are incomplete for the subtraction operator. Try to represent 1 - 2 as a counting number.

Some of the questions in the mailing list were around what arithmetic properties a enum has: for example, are they ordered (ie, red < green). Since maths doesn't care for enums much (and so doesn't define them with rigor), the real question was what properties should a enum have to be useful for programming. For example, it was widely felt that (red + green) should not evaluate as it indicates a programming error.

Enums might be implemented using integers. But one can say the same for sets. The whole point of a programming language is to develop useful abstractions to simplify the programming task, otherwise it may as well be assembler.

tarball was always the same, md5 didn't change (some tools like gitweb regenerate tarballs on the fly, so each time different tarball is provided with md5) which was important since tools here store md5 to be able to verify things.

tarballs (that don't change) from tags would be actually be enough for my needs but that's not provided by google code.

I don't see much problems with multithreading, though memory model formalization should be quite interesting.

Garbage collector of some sort seems inevitable in any case. Perhaps with some kind of region inference to help with short-lived allocations. In some limited cases it may be possible to use static proofs of correctness.

There are no dependent types for allowing the removal of bounds checks in array updates. Instead magic array macros must be used. (Not supporting general memory accesses is a signification failure in adding types to assembly language).

There is no support for multiprocessing.

There is no support for support for manual memory management. Talx86 requires a garbage collector.

Which means a large number of common kernel constructs can not be encoded in this assembler. We are unfortunately quite a ways from safe languages that can be used for kernel programming.

We probably always needed something like this, but few would have actually used it. Especially back in the days of Bush, the Patriot Act and whining about the evil government coming after your library records... lots of talk but nobody actually believed it would happen. Well now it happened and lookie who it was that went and done invoked the Espionage more in four years than in the decades it was on the books before.

https://github.com/blog/1302-goodbye-uploads

I thought they used to allow downloading tarballs too, but I can't find that now.

>Windows is much better now because, as a Microsoft employee admitted, "We [Microsoft] started caring about security because pre-SP3 Windows XP was an existential threat to the business."
This is not about the security from kernel exploits, it's more about protecting users from themselves, which is much more important in reality.

Microsoft also fixed lots of insecure defaults (like allowing ActiveX) in applications but it has nothing to do with OS itself.

there are lots of other legitimate uses for this. it effectively means google code by itself can't be used for making your releases.

greetings, eMBee.

Wait... so enums are not integers, yet it's difficult not to give them each a number!? I must have missed something.

From the first para:

"With trolls filing thousands of lawsuits every year and blanketing the country in threat letters, states are looking for ways to protect victims—especially small entities that lack the resources to defend against a patent suit."

So it seems to be a move in the direction to protect everyone.

However I have now tried to read the PDF of the Bill and found myself in pretty hot water - IANAL, let alone a US one (I'm from GB/en)

As a bemused bystander I can only wonder what on earth the redacted (?) bits relating to propane actually mean and why they are all rolled up in there in the first place. I suppose that is the Executive in action doing their stuff providing clear direction to the Legislature.

Anyway, read the linked PDF from the bottom of page 20 onwards - it looks to me like a pretty good direction to the local legislature to try and destroy litigation attempts from orgs. that exist purely to generate revenue from purchased patents (trolls).

I presume that as it is on the local books then it is applicable to all - big and small. It would seem to provide an appropriate defense to any firm on the wrong end of troll's aim and to limit damages and also make trolling somewhat expensive ($250K bond).

Read it.

If there are any lawyers hanging around here - is it any good?

Cheers
Jon

Or am I missing something?

The perceived insecurity was caused by users running untrusted software, and the classic 'desktop' Linux is not any better in this regard.

This XKCD explains it perfectly: https://xkcd.com/1200/