This section will build up using the most asked questions and from points I want to clarify before you ask. Therefore this should be your first port of call before firing up your favorite email client.
Questions summary
- Where did you get the design of your web site?
- Why your site is not up to date?
- What means Nabla?
- What does 'I know only one thing: I know nothing' mean?
- You are focusing on C++ programming language, why?
- Have you heard of Microsoft Windows?
- Why Gentoo?
Questions and Answers
- Where did you get the design of your web site?
I nicked it (shame on me!) from a Linux User Group web site which borrowed it (yes that's what linux and GPL is all about) from Open Source Web Design brilliant site. I definitely recommend that you click this link to see what's there. Of course like any other of my projects I tweaked the html code (manually like in the good old days) to streamline the over bloated code so that I could take advantage (and over use) of CSS (Cascading Style Sheet for those who don't know). - Why your site is not up to date
I've not got the time to do it. But I will ... promise. - What means Nabla?
Nabla is a mathematical operator which is used heavily in Physics. Simply look at the way how you can define the four equations of Maxwell (I think if my memory does not let me down again) that makes up the electro-magnetism theory and you will know what I'm talking about: very elegant. To know more about this operator see Wikipedia for the gory details. - What does 'I know only one thing: I know nothing' mean?
This means that there is only one thing that I can be sure that I know and this is that I know nothing. For example if you look at those physicists of the end of the 19th century who thought they would resolve and understand the universe in its entirety before the turn of the following century! A. Einstein then revealed around 1910 a complete new way to view the universe and its physics. In that sense those physicists thought they knew everything when they actually knew nothing. Knowledge is way too vast to pretend that you can know something and I would hope that so call experts could be a little bit less pretentious and arrogant! A new A. Einstein could be at the next corner and show them how wrong they are. - You are focusing on C++ programming language, why?
That's the only programming language which gives you full control to low level programming (even if C is more effective I think if memory footprint is crucial) and high level programming such as building a GUI application. Adding to C++, std templates and you have a lot of power at your fingertips. This has been my preferred language since I moved from assembler (yes I started programming in 8-bit assembler which was easy in those days...) to C (many thanks Ritchie...for those who know who he is) and finally to C++. As a note I've also programmed in Fortran, Pascal, Cobol, Modula 2, Java, VB (hate it), Basic of all sorts, bash shell, c#... C++ beats them hands down in terms of flexibility and power. - Have you heard of Microsoft Windows?
Yes. Is it this operating system that costs more and more and crashes at least once a day (ok ok I know XP is getting better). Moreover it cannot be booted from other than the first disk partition and cannot see more than one partition of my USB stick (even today: 21st century man! what a pain in the a** when you want to dual boot). Ok Windows may be good in a business environment but quite expensive and boring at home. - Why Gentoo?
I've been through quite a few distros but Gentoo gives me the flexibility I want. I find 'Portage', the package manager, an invaluable tool that allows me to update my system as often as needed and in one command! Moreover access to the os components are not hidden as in some other distros that tries too hard to be like Microsoft Windows. I know I would not recommend Gentoo in a mission critical environment due to the high maintenance (and compilation time) required but for a hobbyist like me I love it.
