If the law changes, then we had it wrong to begin with, and thus it is only our understanding of the law that changes. If it is not the same everywhere, regardless of space or time then its not an absolute law. The whole point of a having a law of physics is for the purpose you mentioned, it is the same everywhere, regardless of time or space, and it does not change, ever. if this can not hold true then there are simply no laws! (this is not equivalent to anarchy though) It is our understanding that changes, not the truth itself. That being said our documented understanding is not correct, take the 2nd law of thermo dynamics, the first qualifing phrases "in a closed system" and "in equilibrium" these are 2 conditions that have never been proven to exist so whats the point? you cannot achieve equilibrium, because you can not close any system from the rest of the universe, just as you cannot reach absolute zero. only a perfect vacuum at absolute zero would satisfy these conditions and no such thing has ever been observed, nor has anyone thought that we could observe such a thing. The statements above: 1) The laws of physics are the same, everywhere in the universe 2) The laws of physics do not change are actually definitions of the term 'law of physics' and it is true because we say it is, that is what a 'definition' is. But what we say the actual laws are, well thats just clever guess work.

Basic arithmetic, number theory, boolean algebra, and matrix transforms are really all that is absolutely required for programming. Unless you are writing an application that needs to perform calculus, its not that essential. I have programmed for over 25 years, and rarely have I needed to utilize true calculus. Remember at the microcode level a computer can not do anything other than descrete operations. Granted that when you actually do need to perform true calculus, you do need to understand it fully, because a computer does not have that capability, you have to program it, but really it is mostly translating to decrete math, which is not that difficult if you understand it. The name 'calculus' I think intimidates most of them, once you explain how to break it down to descrete math, they would not be so intimidated by it. Unfortunately, most math and statistics classes are not taught from a computer programming perspective at all and so they only think it is over their head, because no one actually breaks it down to the descrete operations. I developed my understanding of math from the computer operation perspective which helped me immensely overcome any fear of high level math. Start teaching 'Computer Math' and tell them only afterwards which parts are actually calculus, you might see your enrollment go back up. chash360

This was not a subject to promote H1-B's and L1's, or are you just a troller?

I began with my first computer when I was 9 years old. A Radio Shack MC-10 8 bit computer with a whopping 16K of memory. All you could do is program a flavor of BASIC that only vaguely resembles what it has evolved to today. It had no non-volitile memory, if you shut it off, or had a bug that required a reset, you had to write it all over again. At the time I loved it, and I learned how to memorize lots of code, by the simple idea that form follows function. If I know what it needs to do, I can write it, and memorize it, regardless of how long it is. I have since self taught my self over a dozen languages, learned how computers work down to the electronics, I have worked in a wafer fab and know how every part of how a computer is designed and produced. In High School I could teach the the teachers, how to do things and gave them tips on how I developed my understanding. One of my favorites was the analogy between a checking books out at a Public Library, and the idea of a Semaphore. In college, again there was little real programming being taught, I truly believe that if you do not understand a computer at the assembly language level you can not fully realize your programming potential. Unfortunately in todays world, it seems true knowledge of programming is almost lost. With the knowledge of almost every Language, Platform, and OS, capable of the english character set (I am sure there are some Russian and Chinese systems I don't know), I have only been able to keep myself gainfully employed by avoiding the IT field. If you get into IT, you get outsourced almost as quickly. By keeping myself tightly coupled with hardware and other engineering disiplines, I have found my programming skills to be incredibly useful, even outside the relm of actual programming. Project planning and execution have so many parallels to programming, it should be required for project managers. I have watched the Internet from its infancy (Pre M$) to the present get completely corrupted. There is no excuse for the proloferation of malware, had some of these software vendors stuck with basic security priciples that were established for the Internet. The first principle is DO NOT EXECUTE ARBITRARY CODE FROM A REMOTE SOURCE EVER! Of course that was completely violated by M$ and the like with client side scripting, ActiveX, DCOM, etc. I do know the answer to the problem, but much like the Auto industry, a car that never needs maintenance will never be produced even if they could because that does not make them enough money. Software has n

If you want real speed, step back in time, to straight HTML, and perl scripting. Do not use style sheets, or ActiveX, or IIS, or any other M$ tech, and program your site exactly for what it is supposed to do and nothing more. Its not glamorous, and pretty, but it beats the pants off glamorous, glitzy websites written in anything else, as far as speed goes. As a bonus it will be hard to be hacked, not utilizing ActiveX, and other arbitrary coding schemes that can expose your file system and process space to arbitrary code. If you want pretty things with lots of advertising, expect to be slow, or need lots of hardware to compensate. Experienced programmer's know how to write optimized code, and organize through convention and dicipline, what ASP/.Net/FrontPage/IIS and the like try to enforce through language syntax, object models, templates, stylesheets, and wizards. To truly answer the question, we would need to produce a controlled experiement, developeing the same web app/site in each language, running on equivalent hardware. The code for both should be reviewed by many that it is the most efficient it can be, for the functions involved, and then start hitting it. The basic functions of this site should included all of the neccessary functions for measuring and tracking its performance, which could really be the primary function: measureing, recording, tracking, and reporting all aspects of the site performance for all users.

I suspect in many cases there is a round trip to Redmond and back, perhaps with DCOM..... Until they comply with the EU court order, no one will know for sure....