Just for you: module main { import std (range); import std.io (printf, IO); /* print the Fahrenheit-Celcius table for fahr = 0, 20, ..., 300 */ function main(mutable IO io) { Int lower = 0; // lower bound Int upper = 300; // upper bound Int step = 20; // step for (Int fahr in range(lower, upper, step)) { Double celcius = 5 * (fahr - 32) / 9; std.io.printf(io, "%3d\t%6.1f\n", fahr, celcius); } } } It does not really look like it, but this language is purely functional. It represents side effects using unique types. If you declare a mutable parameter, you basically declare a unique input parameter and a unique output parameter. ... Read more 》

I have just released version 0.2 RC1 of my hardlink program. Compared to the 0.1.X series, the program has been rewritten in C, as Python was to memory-hungry for people with millions of files. The new program uses almost the same algorithm and has almost completely the same bugs as the old version. The code should be portable to all UNIX-like platforms supporting nftw(). I have tested the code on Debian, FreeBSD 9, and Minix 3.2. For storing path names, it uses a flexible array member on C99 compilers, a zero-length-array on GNU compilers, and a array of length 1 on all other compilers (which should work everywhere as far as I heard). ... Read more 》

Over the last years, I have developed a variety of metapackages for managing the package selections of the systems I administrate. The meta packages are organized like this: jak-standard Standard packages for all systems jak-desktop Standard packages for all desktop systems (GNOME 3 if possible, otherwise GNOME 2) jak-printing Print support jak-devel Development packages jak-machine-<X> The meta package defining the computer X Each computer has a jak-machine-X package installed. This package is marked as manually installed, all other packages are marked as automatically installed. ... Read more 》

Just because Julien did it, I moved my website to almost the same design now. Still using ikiwiki, of course. I’m still missing a few things, such as marking the currently active page in the menu, but I hope to get that done as well soon. Go to http://jak-linux.org/ to see it.

Common licenses for software include the term “worldwide”. Now, what does worldwide mean? The problem with the term worldwide is that it is ambigous and depending on it’s interpretation, violates against DFSG 6 which states: “No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor”. The reason: Space travel. If we take the term worldwide to mean “everywhere on earth”, the license becomes non-free, as it prohibits the use outside of this planet. Affected by this problem are the patent section of GPL-3, the Apache 2.0 license, the CC licenses, the GFDL, and probably also others. ... Read more 》

Yesterday was my 21st birthday, and I received all “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” novels, the five ones in one book, and the sixth one written by Eoin Colfer in another book. Needless to say, the first book weights more than an N900. I did not read them yet, so now is the perfect chance to do so. Yes, I did not know that 25th is towel day, sorry for that. ... Read more 》

As everyone should know, underscores in C are not cool, as they cause undefined behavior per 7.1.3: Yet, they are widely used everywhere. Here are some examples: * inclusion guards in GLib: ` __G_VARIANT_H__` * internal Python functions: `_PyUnicode_AsString` * various macros in APT: `__deprecated`, `__hot` All of this triggers undefined behavior and is thus uncool. Of course in APT, it’s most stupid, as we do not have any namespace and could thus end up redefining things we should not much more likely then the other two. ... Read more 》

The following program, compiled with clang 1.1, runs 500 times faster than the gcc4.5-compiled code (in both cases with -O2): <span style="color:#008200;">#include <stdio.h></span> <span style="color:#008200;">#define len 1000000000L</span> <span style="color:#830000;">unsigned long</span> <span style="color:#010181;">f</span><span style="color:#000000;">(</span><span style="color:#830000;">unsigned long</span> a<span style="color:#000000;">,</span> <span style="color:#830000;">unsigned long</span> b<span style="color:#000000;">)</span> <span style="color:#010181;">__attribute__</span><span style="color:#000000;">((</span>noinline<span style="color:#000000;">));</span> <span style="color:#830000;">int</span> <span style="color:#010181;">main</span><span style="color:#000000;">()</span> <span style="color:#000000;">{</span> <span style="color:#010181;">printf</span><span style="color:#000000;">(</span><span style="color:#ff0000;">"%lu</span><span style="color:#ff00ff;">\n</span><span style="color:#ff0000;">"</span><span style="color:#000000;">,</span> <span style="color:#010181;">f</span><span style="color:#000000;">(</span><span style="color:#2928ff;">0</span><span style="color:#000000;">,</span> <span style="color:#2928ff;">2</span><span style="color:#000000;">*</span>len<span style="color:#000000;">));</span> <span style="color:#000000;font-weight:bold;">return</span> <span style="color:#2928ff;">0</span><span style="color:#000000;">;</span> <span style="color:#000000;">}</span> <span style="color:#830000;">unsigned long</span> <span style="color:#010181;">f</span><span style="color:#000000;">(</span><span style="color:#830000;">unsigned long</span> a<span style="color:#000000;">,</span> <span style="color:#830000;">unsigned long</span> b<span style="color:#000000;">)</span> <span style="color:#000000;">{</span> <span style="color:#830000;">unsigned long</span> sum <span style="color:#000000;">=</span> <span style="color:#2928ff;">0</span><span style="color:#000000;">;</span> <span style="color:#000000;font-weight:bold;">for</span> <span style="color:#000000;">(;</span> a <span style="color:#000000;"><</span> b<span style="color:#000000;">;</span> a<span style="color:#000000;">++)</span> sum <span style="color:#000000;">+=</span> a<span style="color:#000000;">;</span> <span style="color:#000000;font-weight:bold;">return</span> sum<span style="color:#000000;">;</span> <span style="color:#000000;">}</span> Now, I would be interested to see what’s happening here. I took a look at the assembler code both compilers create, but the only thing I found out so far is that gcc’s assembly is easier to understand - 50 lines (gcc) vs 134 lines (clang). If someone knows the answer, please tell me. ... Read more 》

In today’s Linux distributions, there are usually two to three levels of package management. In this blog post, I will explain the three levels of package management. 1. Local (dpkg, rpm) The first level of package management is the ’local’ level. This level consists of package management tools that install and/or remove packages via package archives such as .deb or .rpm files and a database of the local’s system state. ... Read more 》

It seems that Google is blocking wikileaks.org in its ‘Public DNS’ servers (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4): <div id="_mcePaste">; <<>> DiG 9.7.1-P2 <<>> @8.8.8.8 wikileaks.org ; (1 server found) ;; global options: +cmd ;; Got answer: ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: SERVFAIL, id: 50227 ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0 ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;wikileaks.org. IN A ;; Query time: 2457 msec ;; SERVER: 8.8.8.8#53(8.8.8.8) ;; WHEN: Fri Aug 27 18:10:43 2010 ;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 31</div> Update: Sorry Google, for me doubting you. As it turns out, you did no evil, you were just a bit slower than the others. ... Read more 》