+1

Steve Yegge agrees with you.[^]

"Superman Returns" is up there as perhaps the worst superhero movie I've ever seen. - Absolutely everyone is miscast, with the possible exception of Jimmy Olsen. - 98% of the humor in the previous movies is gone. - It needed to be edited down to 90 minutes or so. Superman doesn't even show up for the first 40 minutes. I think we understand the origin story by this point. Krypton is gone. We get it. - At least 10 minutes of the movie is devoted to the wreck of a giant train set. Don't ask. - By all rights, Lois should have saved the planet instead of Superman since she is more indestructible. During the course of the movie, she gets tossed around inside a plane like a pinball without a scratch, her leg gets broken by a bad guy then spontaneously regenerated, and then she's hit on the head by a giant steel door with full force and only knocked out briefly (again, no blood). - The much-touted "human side" of the script seems to be nothing but a recycling of tired lines & props from the first movie. - Finally, Superman has learned the accumulated knowledge of 20 galaxies but somehow missed the part in superhero school where you don't try to save a falling plane by holding onto its wingtip. Gosh this movie is dumb. Go away Brian Singer.

Developer's Workshop to COM and ATL 3.0 by Andrew Troelsen[^] Best all-around COM/ATL/ActiveX book. Brandon

Try BlogBridge if you have Java on your system. The interface is a little different than the normal RSS reader (which I like), and best of all, it has a recommendation mechanism to search feeds for other blogs/articles which interest you. It is also especially good if you have a restrictive IT department. Since it's a Java Web Start app, it doesn't require Admin priviledges to install on your system. Brandon

Have you seen this article? Definitely along the same lines as what you're talking about.

I think their web page said that it was mixed mode (managed and unmanaged) so I'm not surprised. Rewriting the whole thing in managed code would be a huge undertaking. I'm not sure what they're trying to prove either. :confused:

My two primary languages are C++ and Python. At home it's all Python. Once you learn Python, C#/Java is a joke. Brandon

http://www.sysprog.net/quotjava.html Enjoy Brandon

Agreed. Far and away the best book on COM. Brandon

Python, in fact, does have a "sandbox" security mode built into its standard library. I don't know about Perl tho. Brandon

Tim Smith wrote: IMHO, C/C++ has really come to the end of their extensible lifetime. It really needs to be rebuilt from the ground up and not have new features just hacked onto it. Hear, hear. Brandon

I would guess that Stroustrup is upset by the same thing I am ... more non-standard extensions to the language that are being introduced in droves, while the original Standard is still not being complied with. (Yes, yes, I know ... MS is supposed to be releasing a SP ... blah blah ... the point at which I believe MS is interested in the Standard is when I see a Standard-compliant VC++.) All in all, this is a legitimate complaint to me. Brandon

1. "is rumored" ... MS has already quietly missed the deadline for VC++ 7.1 (summer). Again, from past history and current statements, I have to believe that MS is more interested in making MC++ the Standard rather than complying with the existing one. We'll see. The proof is in the pudding. 2) "maybe be standardized by ISO" ... Again, why are we talking about standardizing the next version of ISO (not ECMA) C++ on a platform that 1) hasn't been standardized by the ISO yet and 2) isn't widely available? Even MS is having a hard time getting the CLI available because it's rolled up in a 20MB .NET framework download. I think that you and I have a VERY different outlook on what C++ should evolve into.

They could 1) match the Standard in VC++ (i.e. bring the product up to where it can compile 3rd party libraries like Boost), and then 2) contribute to Standard C++ in an open fashion. What I mean by #2 is that MS right now has the .NET VM, which includes GC and other features. Theoretically, this could be ported to other platforms, but right now, it only exists on Windows. Once -- or if ever -- .NET or other truly portable VMs exist for lots of other operating systems, then it makes sense to say, OK, let's add VM and GC support to the Standard. Brandon

William E. Kempf wrote: 2) Garbage collection was actually proposed for the last standard, though it got little attention AFAIK, because of scope and time constraints. But the language was specifically defined to allow for GC from day one, and most members have had some interest in a standardized GC addition to the language. Once you get over the (vague and basically unwarranted) fears about GC, there's no logical reason not to add this one. Except unlike threading or networking support (which occurs across many different platforms), GC and VM support doesn't. These requirements are not coming out of the blue, or postponed from a prior meeting -- Herb makes it pretty clear in his article MS is interested in making C++ target .NET. This is FUD?? As you mentioned in your point #1, MS has shown zero interest in the past in the Standard. Essentially, they sat on their hands for 6 years or so while we had a crap version of STL and no worthwhile template support. Now they have a new version of C++ that is rooted in .NET with GC & VM support, but still will not compile many third-party libraries according to the current Standard. Again, it's pretty clear that MS is attempting to change the Standard to match MC++, while the current Standard hasn't even been complied with! Who are they kidding? I'm not scared by the addition of GC & VM features to the Standard*. I am scared by the presence of a 900-pound gorilla on the Committee who will attempt to bully a Standard through that suits them and no one else. Brandon * Although I do think the Standard is already weighed down by its own complexity. I think more attention should be given toward simplification of existing features rather than new libraries.

George wrote: I am not sure what are you trying to say here. But I find latest Herb's comments that MC++ and C++ Standard have the same goals very fit to my theory. ... Boy, isn't that the truth. MS's sudden presence on the C++ Standard committee along with their interest in adding garbage collection and virtual machine support (what in the world?) to C++ is just scary. Essentially they are trying to make sure C++ runs on .NET and nowhere else. In case no one has seen the CUJ article George is talking about, look here. Brandon

Chris Hambleton wrote: Is there a built-in function that would allow me to do this without having to create a new map and do this through a loop? Nope. A map is normally a red-black tree implementation, so by swapping a key-value pair, you've essentially invalidated the location of that node in the tree. You can always remove the key-value pair first and then add the swapped values back in the tree. (More overhead, less memory usage of course.) Brandon

StageCast Creator is a great gaming/simulation program written in Java. OilEd and Protege are two excellent Semantic Web applications written in Java as well. Both are written for client/desktop usage and run just fine. Yes, I've java'd recently. ;) Brandon

C++ and Python. I want to like Scheme/Lisp/other variants, but the syntax just kills me. Python is close enough in power to Lisp but retains a more normal syntax so that I can use it. Brandon