I’ve gotten myself into a couple of arguments, simmering along in the comments pages of Jonathon’s and my blogs. Over at Jonathon’s, I’m working out some of what I’d have said here about copyright. Jonathon helpfully cited the Economist’s use of Macauley’s argument against perpetual copyright. Jonathon compares a writer’s poem and a craftsman’s table, and regrets that he can’t keep a poem as long as he could keep a table.
My response to Jonathon points to the difference between “keeping” a poem and “keeping” a table. Jonathon can obviously keep his poem in perpetuity, so long as he doesn’t want other people to know about it. Once he enters the poem into public circulation—once he offers to share it with the public—he can’t dictate terms for that sharing in perpetuity. The question at stake is, how long can he exercise control?
Shelley speaks up for lifetime control—not out of economic reasons, but out of respect for the author’s expression of innermost thoughts. She just doesn’t want a derivative dork making hash of her prose.
I’m stubbornly unpersuaded, as author of tediously plain essays and books that do not at all express my innermost thoughts, as obsessively careful writer whose sermons express as precisely as possible what he thinks about the topic, as copyrightholder whose standard of living responds very pronouncedly to any chnages in my royalty checks (though not by any means so pronouncedly as, say, the author of several O’Reilly instructional books on foundational technical matters). Once I decide to turn loose my expression on the world, other folks will do plenty of things with my texts few of which will be governed by concern for my innermost thoughts. If my thoughts need that degree of protection, I can jolly well not release them to the public (as, for instance, I never told Tom what I really think of. . . oh, now look what you made me do!).
So in controversy number one, I remain obdurate. This has some to do with my postmodern streak, some to do with my theological streak (remember that thread about recycling sermons from long ago?), some to do with my concern for sharing in general, and probably the rest derives from my being a stubborn cuss.
In controversy two, I haven’t gotten far enough in to be stubborn yet, but the conversation has delightfully joined Anne’s circle of discourse with the Blogarians who visit here. Does the persistence of regrettable power relationships online belie the hopeful tenor of some pro-Web discourses?
First, we should be clear that we’re not interested in starry-eyed, un-nuanced acclamations of online life, or bitter denunciations of flamers, h4x0rs, and anatomical photographs (sorry, I’ not going to attract hits by describing what parts of the anatomy were being illustrated). What we’re pursuing is the question of whether A-list behavior falsifies the claims that online interaction might hold out positive possibilities that, on balance, outweigh the idiocy, or (alternatively) that no matter how lovely the possibilities, bad behavior drives out good.
On that point, I mostly defer to our ailing champion, David Weinberger. Since he’ sick abed, though, I’ll speak up on his behalf to say that I suspect we can devise and sustain persistent salutary connections online in new ways that would have been significantly less workable and durable under the limitations of physical interaction. As Trevor points out, the conversation itself suggests that thoughtful interaction can encounter resonances and echoes that amplify and enhance the conversation as we link to one another across the [fragile online] barrier of unfamiliarity. And you know that can’ be bad (yeah, yeah, yeah).
Posted by AKMA at January 29, 2003 11:38 PM | TrackBackThis code should compile and run just fine, and you should see no changes in how the program works. So why did we do all of that?
Posted by: Susanna at January 12, 2004 09:16 PMBut some variables are immortal. These variables are declared outside of blocks, outside of functions. Since they don't have a block to exist in they are called global variables (as opposed to local variables), because they exist in all blocks, everywhere, and they never go out of scope. Although powerful, these kinds of variables are generally frowned upon because they encourage bad program design.
Posted by: Ebulus at January 12, 2004 09:16 PMSeth Roby graduated in May of 2003 with a double major in English and Computer Science, the Macintosh part of a three-person Macintosh, Linux, and Windows graduating triumvirate.
Posted by: Ellis at January 12, 2004 09:16 PMThe most basic duality that exists with variables is how the programmer sees them in a totally different way than the computer does. When you're typing away in Project Builder, your variables are normal words smashed together, like software titles from the 80s. You deal with them on this level, moving them around and passing them back and forth.
Posted by: Constance at January 13, 2004 09:47 AMBeing able to understand that basic idea opens up a vast amount of power that can be used and abused, and we're going to look at a few of the better ways to deal with it in this article.
Posted by: Roland at January 13, 2004 09:48 AMTo address this issue, we turn to the second place to put variables, which is called the Heap. If you think of the Stack as a high-rise apartment building somewhere, variables as tenets and each level building atop the one before it, then the Heap is the suburban sprawl, every citizen finding a space for herself, each lot a different size and locations that can't be readily predictable. For all the simplicity offered by the Stack, the Heap seems positively chaotic, but the reality is that each just obeys its own rules.
Posted by: Justinian at January 13, 2004 09:48 AM