Far from making programmers an endangered species, AI will release them from the grunt work that stifles innovationWhen digital computers were invented, the first task was to instruct them to do what we wanted. The problem was that the machines didn’t understand English – they only knew ones and zeros. You could program them with long sequences of these two digits and if you got the sequence right then the machines would do what you wanted. But life’s too short for composing infinite strings of ones and zeros, so we began designing programming languages that allowed us to express our wishes in a human-readable form that could then be translated (by a piece of software called a “compiler”) into terms that machines could understand and obey.Over the next 60 years or so, these programming languages – with names such as Fortran, Basic, Algol, COBOL, PL/1, LISP, C, C++, Python – proliferated like rabbits, so that there are now many hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of them. At any rate, it takes quite a while to scroll down to the end of the Wikipedia page that lists them. Some are very specialised, others more general, and over the years programmers created libraries of snippets of code (called subroutines) for common tasks – searching and sorting, for example – that you could incorporate when writing a particular program. Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2024-05-11 15:00:29 UTC ]
Writers say a lack of funding and cuts to libraries mean children from disadvantaged backgrounds are missing out when it comes to school visits, after a new report shows that independent schools are far more likely to have welcomed an author in the past year than state schools. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-06-26 04:33:29 UTC ]
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The libraries cited unsustainable costs in ending the service. Cinephiles took to social media with their reactions. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2019-06-24 23:21:19 UTC ]
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Reynolds earned a standing ovation for an intensely personal keynote that touched on family, religion, his closest friends and relationships, the power of narrative, and the central, “sacred” role libraries play in people’s lives. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2019-06-22 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Among the week's headlines: the 2019 ALA Annual Conference kicks off in Washington DC; Librarians cry foul over Hachette's new digital terms for libraries; and the DPLA wins a major grant. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2019-06-21 04:00:00 UTC ]
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In Weare, New Hampshire, a small town about 45 minutes from the state’s southern border with Massachusetts, the local newspaper Continue reading at Editor & Publisher
[ Editor & Publisher | 2019-06-20 19:15:00 UTC ]
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Among the stories making news this week: veteran bookseller and library advocate Tim Coates releases a reader-focused survey; more drama over Drag Queen Storytimes; and what to expect from all the talk of antitrust action in the tech sector. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2019-06-14 04:00:00 UTC ]
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The Global Literature in Libraries Initiative takes translations to the ALA Annual Conference and administers a YA prize. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2019-06-14 04:00:00 UTC ]
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