... assuming spambots aren't able to crawl nor to train themselves.

My University has a very ... unique way of preventing e-mail adresses from being accessed illegally.

Take a look at this page, e.g. It's German, but there are some names clearly determinable as such.

The links are like: cgi-bin/mail.cgi?first.last=server.uni-stuttgart.de. It is pretty obvious that mail.cgi does something like replace = with @ and then present the resulting e-mail address in some form.

In which form? As a clear-text mailto: link, not even (pseudo-securely) url encoded, no: clear text. Perfectly readable, say, for bots.

Well, WTF? I mean, what were they thinking? That bots can't visit links? Or do they just want to be able to say "it's not our fault you're receiving spam, we got anti-spam protection!"?

I'ld like to hear your oppinions on what they were thinking :)

class Paula_Bean
  PAULA = "Brillant"

  def get_paula
    return PAULA
  end
end

derula:

I'ld like to hear your oppinions on what they were thinking :)

They were not thinking.

tray:

derula:

I'ld like to hear your oppinions on what they were thinking :)

They were not thinking.

Personally, I think they were trying to, but, you know, failed. 

tray:

derula:

I'ld like to hear your oppinions on what they were thinking :)

They were not thinking.

Maybe they thought that bots still only index links to .html and .htm files, and by that I mean not thinking/living in a cave....

P.S. maybe your school sucks derula.... 

kaamoss:

P.S. maybe your school sucks derula.... 

Well... as my IT prof introduced the object-oriented paradigm, he said that the idea behind OOP is not really used in any language. In fact he said that something like 3.+(9) doesn't appear in any language and that it could only act as a deterrent.

Obviously he's never user a strongly object-orientated language. Great...

Edit: Well I'm glad we're using Ada and not Fortran, as the physics students do... (and I'm glad I major in maths, not IT xD)

class Paula_Bean
  PAULA = "Brillant"

  def get_paula
    return PAULA
  end
end

derula:

kaamoss:

P.S. maybe your school sucks derula.... 

Well... as my IT prof introduced the object-oriented paradigm, he said that the idea behind OOP is not really used in any language. In fact he said that something like 3.+(9) doesn't appear in any language and that it could only act as a deterrent.

Obviously he's never user a strongly object-orientated language. Great...

Edit: Well I'm glad we're using Ada and not Fortran, as the physics students do... (and I'm glad I major in maths, not IT xD)

>> 3.+(9)
=> 12
>>

Perfectly valid Ruby

 

XIU:

>> 3.+(9)

=> 12
>>

Perfectly valid Ruby

 

Yeah I know... that's what I wrote in the e-mail I sent my prof yesterday xD

class Paula_Bean
  PAULA = "Brillant"

  def get_paula
    return PAULA
  end
end

kaamoss:

tray:

derula:

I'ld like to hear your oppinions on what they were thinking :)

They were not thinking.

Maybe they thought that bots still only index links to .html and .htm files, and by that I mean not thinking/living in a cave....

P.S. maybe your school sucks derula.... 

Maybe it was just made a long time ago?

I'm not all that surprised by it. I'm an American who got to study in Germany at the Technical University of Dresden for a semester. I absolutely loved it, but the IT WTFs were all over the place. It seems like the German CS departments (Computerinformatik) were purely computer science and the convergence between CS and IT hasn't really happened. There is also the iron grip of Deutsche Telekom which has really slowed access to the internet.

The professors I studied under were top notch, I really enjoyed learning there, but I was unimpressed with the rest of the university from support staff to the dorms to the cafeteria food and basic internet access. I'm sure some of it was cultural, but there is a lot more help and support for American students outside the classroom. I can see that being good because by the time you're at the University you should be an independent adult, on the other hand you should be focused on learning and having to navigate the beauracracy detracts from that.

derula - If you ever make it to the states I'll buy you a beer (a good microbrew, not the mainline Amerikan pissen bier)!!

Rotary Jihad:

derula - If you ever make it to the states I'll buy you a beer (a good microbrew, not the mainline Amerikan pissen bier)!!

 I've been to the States already - I'll definitely take you up on that if I ever get there again :)

 (I have the slight feeling this sentence was garbage. I need more practice...)

class Paula_Bean
  PAULA = "Brillant"

  def get_paula
    return PAULA
  end
end

XIU:

>> 3.+(9)
=> 12
>>

Perfectly valid Ruby

It also happens to be valid Perl code.

It's valid JavaScript and Python too.

Exteris:

It's valid JavaScript and Python too.

It's valid in C/C++ too. At least if you don't add whitespace in the wrong place.

cvi:

Exteris:

It's valid JavaScript and Python too.

It's valid in C/C++ too. At least if you don't add whitespace in the wrong place.

And speaking of whitespace....it's valid, though complete null-op, in that language too.

Okay, maybe that was a bad example... but what about 'wt'.+('f'), now you can't tell me that's valid C? Unless maybe when you overwrite the + operator...

(With my luck, this will probably happen to be invalid Ruby, too...)

class Paula_Bean
  PAULA = "Brillant"

  def get_paula
    return PAULA
  end
end

derula:

Okay, maybe that was a bad example... but what about 'wt'.+('f'), now you can't tell me that's valid C? Unless maybe when you overwrite the + operator...

(With my luck, this will probably happen to be invalid Ruby, too...)

It does happen to be valid Perl code again - this time '.' is interpreted as string concatenation rather than a decimal point, and unary + is a no-op.

asuffield:

derula:

Okay, maybe that was a bad example... but what about 'wt'.+('f'), now you can't tell me that's valid C? Unless maybe when you overwrite the + operator...

(With my luck, this will probably happen to be invalid Ruby, too...)

It does happen to be valid Perl code again - this time '.' is interpreted as string concatenation rather than a decimal point, and unary + is a no-op.

Yeah...but line noise is valid perl.

derula:

Okay, maybe that was a bad example... but what about 'wt'.+('f'), now you can't tell me that's valid C? Unless maybe when you overwrite the + operator...

(With my luck, this will probably happen to be invalid Ruby, too...)

Valid Ruby

The . is for calling a method on the 'wt' instance (same as for the number), + is the method, with 'f' as argument.

Okay so I was correct that it was valid Ruby. But not valid C, right? Right?? Otherwise I'll leave and die in shame.

Wait, I'm no enterprise company CEO but just maths student and I've never used any C, so probably I won't have to kill myself... That means I'll have to find a different reason...

Edit: How do you like my avatar? 

class Paula_Bean
  PAULA = "Brillant"

  def get_paula
    return PAULA
  end
end

derula:

Okay so I was correct that it was valid Ruby. But not valid C, right? Right?? Otherwise I'll leave and die in shame.

Wait, I'm no enterprise company CEO but just maths student and I've never used any C, so probably I won't have to kill myself... That means I'll have to find a different reason...

Edit: How do you like my avatar? 

Like it.  I can imagine that people who don't watch Invader Zim would be confused though.  "Are those purple teeth eating the outline of a person?"

I'm tempted to do the same thing to mine, except make it Dib.   

belgariontheking:

derula:

Okay so I was correct that it was valid Ruby. But not valid C, right? Right?? Otherwise I'll leave and die in shame.

Wait, I'm no enterprise company CEO but just maths student and I've never used any C, so probably I won't have to kill myself... That means I'll have to find a different reason...

Edit: How do you like my avatar? 

Like it.  I can imagine that people who don't watch Invader Zim would be confused though.  "Are those purple teeth eating the outline of a person?"

I'm tempted to do the same thing to mine, except make it Dib.   

That'd be sweet. Poor, poor Dib, all his problems could be avoided if people actually listened to him. I like how the entire show is basically "the boy who cried wolf".

Woot finally an idea for a new avatar :P

Rotary Jihad:

I'm not all that surprised by it. I'm an American who got to study in Germany at the Technical University of Dresden for a semester. I absolutely loved it, but the IT WTFs were all over the place. It seems like the German CS departments (Computerinformatik) were purely computer science and the convergence between CS and IT hasn't really happened. There is also the iron grip of Deutsche Telekom which has really slowed access to the internet.

The Telekom thing used to be true. Now it is starting to be the opposite. Since there are many resellers now where you can get a DSL line, people start demanding DSL lines. Somehow some of resellers can't handle that: Lines don't get assigned, billing errors occur, etc.,  so many people are pretty pissed off and are actually going back to get DSL from the Telekom - at least they have proper (and free 0800) service.

I used to study CS at the University of Marburg, which was great, because the department is very small. On the other hand, there's not much you can do as to specializing in a certain field. A big problem in Germany seems to be that technology improvements happen faster than universities/professors can adjust. Sounds sad, is sad. I had to take a class where we learned about how the 8086 processor works (including some nice simulator where you could write your own microcode and have them visualized) - even though its good to know how basic things work, it should, however, be noted that this was in 2001...

Rotary Jihad:

The professors I studied under were top notch, I really enjoyed learning there, but I was unimpressed with the rest of the university from support staff to the dorms to the cafeteria food and basic internet access. I'm sure some of it was cultural, but there is a lot more help and support for American students outside the classroom. I can see that being good because by the time you're at the University you should be an independent adult, on the other hand you should be focused on learning and having to navigate the beauracracy detracts from that.

I guess that's just a matter of what you're used to. In Germany we don't know better :-) Go see the student consultant. Most of the time he will need to look up whether your subject can be studied at the Uni at all...

But anyway: nice to hear from someone who liked it in Germany :)

belgariontheking:

I'm tempted to do the same thing to mine, except make it Dib.

You mean, the big-head-guy? He really has a terribly huge head, doesn't he. 

XIU:

Woot finally an idea for a new avatar :P

"I miss you, cake..." 

class Paula_Bean
  PAULA = "Brillant"

  def get_paula
    return PAULA
  end
end

derula:

Well, WTF? I mean, what were they thinking? That bots can't visit links? Or do they just want to be able to say "it's not our fault you're receiving spam, we got anti-spam protection!"?

I'ld like to hear your oppinions on what they were thinking :)

Obviously, they're going to sue you if your webcrawler visits that link  - just like the hundreds of "admin.cgi?action=deletepage" links...