Technology and Social Skills Essay Example for Free

Technology and Social Skills Essay Not long ago people took the time to get to know a person whom he or she had just met. In years past, for a person to claim he or she had a relationship they would invest time in building that relationship. Years ago when people spent time together they paid attention to those they were with, they socialized and interacted with other human beings in a real life environment. The technology today has provided many ways to interact with others via cell phones; computers and PDA’s, just to name a few. With all this technology, it seems as though the true social interaction between people has started to disappear. This technology allows people to interact more but has it made us less sociable? The interaction is taking place in separate rooms, states and even countries, but not together. Is this true interaction? Social interaction is vital to our physical and mental health and it has been proven that maintaining healthy relationships help us to live longer. It is becoming more common for people to socialize via simulated means, internet, texting, and chat rooms to name a few, and ultimately replacing a part of human behavior that is vital for society to function. A second grade teacher of 20 years is shocked when her students do not know what to do when the time comes for recess. AIM, a feature from AOL, encourages the butchering of the English language with abbreviations such as LOL, (lots of laughs), and IDK, (I don’t know). The incentive for going out to make friends has disappeared because of the idea of hundreds of friends on Facebook and MySpace (Knapp, 2008). The dating world has also been completely turned upside-down. Just a couple decades ago chivalrous romance was the way to go about finding a date. Today one would send a friend request on facebook and the prospective date would look at the online profile to see if he or she would be interested. I must admit that I have fallen victim to these new ways of dating and technology but not to the end of chivalry and romance. In due time these ancient ways will be gone as well. Cell phone texting and social networking Web sites such as Facebook help keep today’s teens connected to their peers at all times. A recent national survey of 800 teens and nine focus groups in four United States cities revealed that half of the teens surveyed send 50 or more text messages a day, or 1,500 texts a month. One in three sends more than 100 texts a day, or more than 3,000 texts a month (Gore, 2011). The book â€Å"Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community,† by Robert D. Putnam states that over the past 30 years, nationally, community involvement has declined. In his book Putnam debates that the baby boomers and their children have contributed to this decline. Reasons blamed for this decline has been the growing availability of the Internet and electronic entertainment and gadgets such as IPods, portable computers, and smart phones (Putnam, 2000). Dr. Philip Aspden and Dr. James E. Katz conducted a study that covered several aspects of the internet; the influence on societal infrastructures, and the role the internet had in creating new modes of interaction and communication. Aspden and Katz were unable to find any support to prove that internet activity contributed to any decline in community involvement. In fact, some of the internet users that were interviewed stated they were more involved in social activities than the non-users surveyed. Also found was that 70 percent of internet users had four or more online friendships with 60 percent of this group having met at least one internet friend in person (Blair, 2001). A three year study by sociologist Barry Wellman and Keith Hampton of a social interaction in â€Å"Netville,† a community in Toronto Canada that was one of the first neighborhoods in the world to have broadband internet technology. According to Hampton and Wellman (1999) â€Å"Relationships are rarely maintained through computer-mediated communication alone, but are sustained through a combination of on-and off-line interactions. Despite the ability of the Internet to serve as a global communication technology, much online activity is between people, who live (or work) near each other, In Netville, the local network brought neighbors together to socialize, helped them to arrange in-person gatherings-both as couples and as larger groups (barbecues, etc. facilitated the provision of aid, and enabled the easy exchange of information. The high rate of online activity led to increased local awareness, and high rates of in-person activity. † People today can live in Florida, work in Texas, go to school in Arizona and never leave their house. They can buy a car in their pajamas, attend a meeting halfway around the world and do all their shopping on the Internet. Basically one can do just about anything necessary over the Internet and never see or touch a human being. At times this will be an ideal situation but society is becoming isolated and self absorbed even lonely. Indeed, the fact that people in the United States today claim to be lonelier than prior generations, suggests that although technology has increased interactions it has not created true connections between people. For children raised on the illusion of connection through technology, the danger is that of never understanding how to develop true relationships and to grow up not understanding that without social connections societies easily fall victim to self-interest and fade away. Reference http://www.strosechronicle.com/2.13878/new-technology-replaces-social-interaction-1

Family and Juvenile Delinquency

Family and Juvenile Delinquency The family is the foundation of humanity. Children who are rejected by their parents, who grow up in homes with considerable conflict, or who are inadequately supervised are at the greatest risk of becoming delinquent. Adolescence is a time of expanding vulnerabilities and opportunities that go along with it, widens social and geographic exposure to life beyond school or family. Family is one of the most influential institutions in socializing a child. Being raised in a single parent home can lead to delinquency, regardless if it was because of divorce/separation, death, or incarceration. The outcome of the childs life is considerably different compared to a child who has a stable life with both parents. With only one parent, a child may receive only half the guidance given by two parents. This usually results in the child making wrong decisions like getting involved with other risk factors such as school problems or dropping out. The way we are socialized by our surroundings has a dramatic impact on whether we become delinquents. The composition of families is one aspect of family life that is consistently associated with delinquency. Children who live in homes with only one parent or in which marital relationships have been disrupted by divorce or separation are more likely to display a range of behavioral problems including delinquency, than children who are from two parent families (Thornberry, et al. 1999). Children who witness marital discord are at greater risk of becoming delinquents. Previous research has demonstrated associations between exposure to parental divorce and marital conflict while growing up and childrens psychological distress in adulthood (Amato Sobolewski 2001). Social learning theory argues that aggressive behavior is learned; as parents display aggressive behavior, children learn to imitate it as an acceptable means of achieving goals (Wright Wright 1994). When parents are divorced and there is just one parent to take care of the child, the child is quick to feel just half there. If it is the mother who has the child, she may have to work to support him, and she would not be able to be home when he comes home from school. If he comes home and finds the home empty, he would not stay there, but he will go out with his peers. The gang will then get bored and look around for something to do. This will lead to stealing possibly, and these activities can go on until they end in murder or drug addiction. Parents teach children to control unacceptable behavior, to delay indulgence, and to respect the rights of others. On the contrary, families can teach children aggressive, antisocial, and violent behavior (Wright Wright 1994). This statement alone could easily explain how the juvenile may end up becoming a delinquent. Wright and Wright (1994) suggest positive parenting practices during the early years and later in adolescence appear to act as buffers preventing delinquent behavior and assisting adolescents involved in such behavior to desist from delinquency. Gorman-Smith and Tolan (1998) found that parental conflict and parental aggressiveness predicted violent offending; whereas, lack of maternal affection and paternal criminality predicted involvement in property crimes. Familial characteristics suggesting familial antisocial behavior or values such as family history of criminal behavior, harsh parental discipline, and family conflict have been among the most consistently linked. In another study conducted by Gorman-Smith and her colleagues, data show that children are more likely to resort to violence if there is violence within relationships that they may share with their family (Gorman-Smith, et al. 2001). In the realm of family functioning there is a theory known as the coercion theory, which suggests that family environment influences an adolescents interpersonal style, which in turn influences peer group selection (Cashwell Vacc 1996). Peers with a more coercive interpersonal style tend to become involved with each other, and this relationship is assumed to increase the likelihood of being involved in delinquent behavior. Thus understanding the nature of relationships within the family, to include family adaptability, cohesion, and satisfaction, provides more information for understanding youth (Cashwell Vacc 1996). The cohesiveness of the family successfully predicted the frequency of delinquent acts for non-traditional families (Matherne Thomas 2001). Family behaviors, particularly parental monitoring and disciplining, seems to influence association with deviant peers throughout the adolescent period (Cashwell Vacc 1994). Among social circumstances which have a hand in determi ning the future of the individual it is enough for our present purpose to recognize that family is central (Wright Wright 1994). Juby and Farrington(2001) claim that there are three major classes that explain the relationship between disrupted families and delinquency; trauma theories, life course theories, and selection theories. The trauma theories suggest that the loss of a parent has a damaging effect on children, most commonly because of the effect on attachment to the parent. Life course theories focus on separation as a long drawn out process rather than a discrete event, and on the effects of multiple stressors typically associated with separation. Selections theories argue that disrupted families are associated with delinquency because of pre-existing differences in family income or child rearing methods, for example (Juby Farrington 2001). Communication also plays a big role in how the family functions. Clark and Shields (1997) state that the importance of positive communication for optimal family functioning has major implications for delinquent behavior. They also discovered that communication is indeed related to the commission of delinquent behavior and differences are shown within categories of age, sex, and family marital status. Klein and Forehand (1997) suggest that the prediction of juvenile delinquency in early childhood depends on the type of maternal parenting skills that are imposed upon the child during early adolescence. Muehlenberg (2002) poses the question of how do children from single parent family homes fare educationally compared to children from intact two parent families. In most cases, delinquents have been viewed as individuals who come from less intact families, often referred to as broken homes. Typically, the term broken home has been structured to mean children residing in single-parent households or any type of household other than a household in which both biological parents are present (Rankin, 1983; Geismar Wood, 1986). In contrast, an intact family usually refers to a nuclear family arrangement in which both biological parents reside in the household with their biological children (Kierkus Baer, 2002). Intact family arrangements differ from other modern-day family arrangements including single-parent arrangements, two-parent arrangements involving a stepparent, extended family member arrangements, and the adoptive/foster family arrangement (Wells Rankin, 1986). Since 1970, the proportion of American households that have children who live with both parents has declined substantially. In 1970, 64 percent of African American children lived with two parents, compared with 35 percent in 1997; comparable figures for white children are 90 percent and 74 percent, respectively (Lugaila, 1998). According to some estimates, as many as 40 percent of white children and 75 percent of African American children will experience arental separation or divorce before they reach age 16 (Brayand Hetherington, 1993) and many of these children will experience multiple family disruptions over time (Furstenberg and Cherlin, 1991). Sometimes the focus is taken off the mother and shifted towards the father. The lack of emphasis on the role of fathering in childhood conduct problems is especially unfortunate given that there are several reasons why fathers can be expected to be particularly significant in the initiation and persistence of offspring offending. For example, fathers are particularly likely to be involved with sons who are at higher risk than daughters of delinquent behavior (Flouri Buchannan 2002). Popenoe(1997) states that fatherlessness is a major force behind many disturbing US social problems. The institution of marriage acts as cultures chief vehicle to bind men to their children. The absence of fathers from childrens lives is one of the most important causes related to childrens well being such as increasing rates of juvenile crime, depression and eating disorders, teen suicide, and substance abuse. Two parent households provide increased supervision and surveillance of property, while single parenthood increases likelihood of delinquency and victimization simply by the fact that there is one less person to supervise adolescent behavior (Wright Wright 1994). Children, regardless of whether they are a product of a single parent or dual parent household, are more likely to become juvenile delinquents if there is a minimum amount of quality time spent with the guardians. Guardians actually need to be parents rather than just provide for the child. Parents provide structure which entails rules, encouragement, and any type of consistent adult behavior that a juvenile can use as guidelines throughout his or her own adolescent years. Although a majority of delinquents are from single parent households, delinquency is fostered by a lack of parental/juvenile interaction. Monitoring the child is also a major contribution towards the creation of delinquency. By spending time with a juvenile as a family through family activities, it not only provides that necessary supervision for being aware of the whereabouts of the child, how the child is functioning emotionally, and how he or she is doing as an adolescent, it creates positive interaction with th e parents that is needed for a healthy upbringing. Reference Page Amato, Paul and Juliana M. Sobolewski. 2001. The effects of divorce on adult childrens psychological well-being. American Sociological Review. 66: 900-921. Cashwell, Craig S. and Niccholas A. Vacc. 1996. Family Functioning and Risk Behaviors: Influences on adolescent delinquency. School Counselor. 44: 105-15. Geismar, L.L., Wood, K.M. (1986). Family and delinquency: Resocializing the young offender. New York: Human Sciences Press. Gorman-Smith, Deborah and Patrick H. Tolan. 1998. Relation of family problems to patterns of Delinquent involvement among urban youth. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology. 26: 319-34. Gorman-Smith, Deborah, Patrick Tolan, Ashli J. Sheidow, and David B. Henry. Partner Violence and Street Violence among Urban Adolescents: Do the Same Family Factors Relate? Journal of Research on Adolescence.11: 273-95. Hagan, John and Holly Foster. 2001. Youth violence and the end of adolescence. American Sociological Review. 66: 874-899. Immarigeon, Russ. 1996. Families know best. State Government News. 39: 22-4. Juby, Heather and David P. Farrington. 2001. Disentangling the Link between Disrupted Families and Delinquency. British Journal of Criminology. 41: 22-40. Kierkus, C., Baer, D. (2002). A social control explanation of the relationship between family structure and delinquent behavior. Canadian Journal of Criminology, 44 (4), 425-458. Klein, Karla and Rex Forehand. 1997. Delinquency during the transition to early adulthood: Family and parenting predictors from earlyà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ Adolescence. 32: 61-81. Muehlenberg, Bill. 2002. The case for two-parent family Part II. National Observer. 53: 49-58. Popenoe, David. 1997. Life without Father. New Jersey, US: Annual Conference of the NCFR Fatherhood and Motherhood in a Diverse and Changing World. Prochnow, Jane E. and James V. DeFronzo. 1997. The impact of economic and parental characteristics on juvenile misconduct. Journal of Emotional Behavioral Disorders. 5:119-128. Rankin, J. H. (1983). The family context of delinquency. Social Problems, 30, 466-479. Thornberry, Terence P., Carolyn Smith, Craig Rivera, David Huizinga, and Magda Stouthamer-Loeber. September 1999. Family Disruption and Delinquency. Juvenile Justice Bulletin. 1-7. Wells, L.E., Rankin, J.H., (1986). The broken homes model of delinquency: Analytic issues. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 23, 68-93. Wright, Kevin N. and Karen E. Wright. 1994. Family Life, Delinquency, and Crime: A Policymakers Guide. Research Summary. Washington DC: OJJDP. 4-21.

La notion de pouvoir

La notion de pouvoir Anthropologie politique :La notion de pouvoir Janvier 2010 Lanthropologie politique est une discipline rà ©cente qui sest dà ©veloppà ©e rà ©ellement à   partir des annà ©es 1920, mais qui tire son essence des prà ©occupations de la philosophie politique du XVIIIà ¨me sià ¨cle. En effet, cette discipline dont le projet est de fonder une science du politique, analyse la rà ©partition et lorganisation du pouvoir et des phà ©nomà ¨nes politiques qui permettent de dà ©gager une perspective commune au delà   de la diversità © culturelle. Plusieurs philosophes sont à   lorigine des prà ©occupations fondamentales de lanalyse et de la comprà ©hension des phà ©nomà ¨nes de pouvoirs politiques. Ainsi, Montesquieu, La Boà ©tie, Rousseau ou encore F. Engels et K. Marx se sont penchà ©s sur les rapports que les dominants avait à   là ©gard des dominà ©s. Cette relation de domination apparaà ®t comme un phà ©nomà ¨ne inhà ©rent au pouvoir politique institutionnel. Cependant, avec les premiers anthropologues, cest une nouvelle forme de pouvoir politique qui est valorisà ©e. Par exemple, ces à ©tudes rà ©và ¨lent lexistence de rapport de pouvoir en dehors des relations institutionnalisà ©es, inhà ©rent à   linconscient des collectività ©s, comme le sacrà © et les relations dà ©change de don, qui participent au pouvoir politique. La notion du pouvoir est lun des sujets de prà ©dilection de lanthropologie politique. LAnthropologie politique est, à   cet à ©gard, là ©tude de lorganisation et des structures politiques (au sens aristotà ©licien) au travers de leur diversità ©. Il sagit dà ¨s lors de distinguer les mà ©canismes du pouvoir ainsi que son exercice, lorganisation symbolique, consciente ou inconsciente. Doà ¹ le problà ¨me : comment en Anthropologie politique, selon les diffà ©rentes enquà ªtes ethnographiques, le pouvoir peut-il se manifester en dehors du cadre institutionnel? Cest pourquoi il est important de revenir sur les formes de pouvoirs en politique, pour comprendre par la suite lapproche minimaliste puis maximaliste. I- Les diffà ©rentes formes du pouvoir, une rà ©flexion qui cristallise lintà ©rà ªt des anthropologues politistes Tout dabord, il est important de distinguer les diffà ©rentes composantes qui organisent le pouvoir : centralisation, concentration des pouvoirs, recrutement de gouvernants, le cadre du contrat social instruit par la loi et les sanctions lors des dà ©rives individuelles. Centralisation ou dà ©centralisation de lautorità © qui peut à ªtre dà ©composà ©e en diffà ©rents segments (lignage, villages). Chez les Lobi par exemple, il ny a pas de pouvoir central, mais chaque village constitue une entità © centralisà ©e. Cette autorità © peut mà ªme sà ©tendre au-delà   du cadre territorial dans le cadre dethnies dispersà ©es comme par exemple chez les LAlemany du Fouta Djalon qui possà ¨de une autorità © morale sur tous les Peuls. Montesquieu relevait dans lEsprit des Lois, la concentration ou dispersion du pouvoir. En effet, cette notion de sà ©paration ou non des trois pouvoirs lexà ©cutif, du là ©gislatif, du judiciaire – engendre une typologie de rà ©gime. Ainsi, plus les pouvoirs sont concentrà ©s, plus le rà ©gime est tyrannique. Ainsi, dans les socià ©tà ©s traditionnelles le chef dispose à   la fois du pouvoir exà ©cutif et juridiciaire. Chez les Nuer, cest  « lhomme à   peau de Là ©opard  » qui est chargà © de rà ©soudre les conflits. La domination du pouvoir peut à ªtre là ©gitimà ©e par la transmission du pouvoir hà ©rà ©ditaire, à ©lection, dà ©volution, dà ©signation. L. de Heusch explique dans son ouvrage Du pouvoir. Anthropologie politique des socià ©tà ©s dAfrique centrale, que dans la zone tetela-hamba au Congo, socià ©tà © à   lignages patrilinà ©aires, pour devenir chef de lignage les aspirants doivent faire valoir le bien-fondà © de leurs prà ©tentions, en pratiquant des dilapidations festives et des distributions de cadeaux que lauteur nhà ©site pas à   mettre dans la mà ªme catà ©gorie que le potlatch. Les lois qui rà ©gissent nimporte quel systà ¨me politique ont pour fonction dassurer la stabilità © de la socià ©tà © en question. Par contre, elle peut aussi crà ©er des fossà ©s entre les diffà ©rentes couches de ladite socià ©tà ©, rà ©sultant en un sentiment de coercition, de contrainte. Donc le pouvoir contient un paradoxe bien à ©vident car  « il apparaà ®t, à   la fois, comme nà ©cessità © et comme danger  »; cest cette ambigà ¼ità © concernant la notion de pouvoir que G. Balandier appelle une dissymà ©trie dans les rapports sociaux. Autrement dit, là ©lite au pouvoir se reproduit dans les hautes classes. Chaque systà ¨me politique, dans la mesure oà ¹ il est là ©gitime et que la loi est connue de tous, comporte un certain nombre de contraintes afin de prà ©server un à ©quilibre en place ; il peut sagir de violence là ©gitime au sein de lEtat, de violence corporelle ou morale dans les socià ©tà ©s traditionnelles. II- Là ©mergence de lEtat ou linstitutionnalisation du pouvoir Lapproche minimaliste considà ¨re quune gestion primitive dune socià ©tà © ne serait pas une forme de gouvernement. Il existe trois crità ¨res selon les politologues qui caractà ©risent un Etat et permettent de dà ©limiter le champs politique : un territoire dà ©limità © par des frontià ¨re reconnues, le consentement des populations qui y vivent et enfin lexistence de structures organiques fondant lunità © politique. Il apparaà ®t à ©vident que le flou sà ©mantique quant aux crità ¨res caractà ©risant un Etat, prà ©sente ses limites pour les anthropologues. Ainsi, pour Balandier il est possible de confondre lEtat avec un groupe local (chefferie). Pour finir, selon M. Weber lEtat est le seul instrument de domination, qui dispose dun appareil coercitif pour orienter toute action sociale, et est lià © aux socià ©tà ©s modernes et à   la rationalisation. LEtat dispose du monopole là ©gitime de la violence. En revanche, P. Clastres qui a à ©tudià © à   partir des socià ©tà ©s amà ©rindiennes les groupes qui contrà ´lent le pouvoir soppose à   cette conception rà ©ductrice du pouvoir. Dans toutes les socià ©tà ©s, il y a du politique ; cet exercice du politique nest pas automatiquement lià © à   lexercice de la violence là ©gitime et à   la coercition. III- Lexistence dun pouvoir comme un  « fait social total  » Le pouvoir politique nest pas nà ©cessairement institutionnalisà ©. Il peut sexprimer à   travers dautres formes inhà ©rentes à   linconscient collectif.  « Il ny a pas de socià ©tà © sans gouvernement  », cest par cette phrase prononcà ©e par L. de Bonald que lon peut rà ©sumer la pensà ©e des maximalistes. Autrement dit, toutes les structures participant à   la direction dune socià ©tà © concourent au politique. A cet à ©gard, il semble important dapprà ©hender les phà ©nomà ¨nes de la Kula et du Potlatch comme expression du politique puis de comprendre limbrication du sacrà © dans le cadre du pouvoir politique pour illustrer nos propos. Dune part, le phà ©nomà ¨ne dà ©changes de biens prà ©cieux, lors du Potlatch et de la Kula, rà ©và ©là © par F. Boas et B. Malinowski mettent en à ©vidence limbrication à ©conomique et politique dans les socià ©tà ©s du nord au sud : les Tlingit, les Tsimshian, les Haida, les Bella Cola, les Kwakiutl, les Nootka, les Salish – dans un fait social total selon M. Mauss. Cette pratique ritualisà ©e et cà ©rà ©monielle de don, ne vise pas à   donner pour donner mais à   donner pour dominer et/ou recevoir en retour. Ce nest donc pas un don de gà ©nà ©rosità ©, mais un don de rà ©ciprocità ©, qui en outre comporte souvent un aspect de dà ©fi. Il enclenche ou perpà ©tue la dialectique du don et du contre-don. Le potlatch et la kula ne jouent pas sur des biens de subsistance mais sur les biens prà ©cieux. Ils constituent des stratà ©gies sociales, plus ou moins paroxystiques, qui visent à   fabriquer du prestige, et donc de la diffà ©renciation sociale. Dautre part, grà ¢ce sa capacità © à   transcender lHomme, et donc lautorità © du chef et de lEtat, le sacrà © a inà ©vitablement entretenu des tantà ´ts conflictuels des tantà ´ts pacifistes au pouvoir politique. Ainsi, Frazer sest intà ©ressà © au pouvoir de la royautà © sacrà ©e dans le rameau dor. Dans les socià ©tà ©s à   pouvoir centralisà © et quand le sacrà © est la source du pouvoir du roi, on assiste à   toutes une sà ©rie de rituels pour lintronisation dun nouveau roi pour marquer son pouvoir et rà ©organiser le politique. Ainsi, chez les Nkumu, les dà ©tenteurs du pouvoir sont investi du pouvoir sacrà ©, lekopo. De plus, Selon Aronoff ,  « Le religieux et le politique sont des domaines lià ©s depuis le dà ©but de lhumanità © de ses cultures et de ses civilisations  ». Dans les socià ©tà ©s acà ©phales il nexiste pas de frontià ¨res nettes entre les sphà ¨res politiques, à ©conomique, religieuse, parentà ©. Il sagit, en effet, dun ensemble composant le social. Ainsi, le religieux fait son apparition dans le politique à ©galement dans des socià ©tà ©s à   Etat et/ou Laà ¯que (Irlande oà ¹ le conflit religieux est en corrà ©lation avec lordre politique). Il nest pas inutile de rappeler quun gouvernement peut dà ©river directement du religieux (thà ©ocratie), que le sacrà © peut devenir des outils pour là ©gitimer le pouvoir du souverain ou du groupe dominant. De mà ªme, la religion peut à ©galement fournir des structures sous jacente manipulable par les dà ©tenteurs du pouvoir. Enfin, Evans-Pritchard dà ©veloppe une analyse des relations et des institutions au sein de peuple, en apparence, dà ©pourvu de gouvernement tout en rà ©pondant aux exigences comparatistes et thà ©oriques. Parallà ¨lement il propose une à ©bauche typologique et contribue à   donner un và ©ritable statut scientifique. Par ailleurs E.E. Evans-Pritchard dà ©veloppe son analyse en mettant en relation le politique avec là ©conomique, le culturel et le religieux ; intà ©rà ªt fondamental dans des socià ©tà ©s oà ¹ tout est à ©troitement imbriquà © (dà ©marche fonctionnaliste). En conclusion, lhistoire de lanthropologie tant à   dà ©montrer que la politique est le synonyme et le frà ¨re jumeau du pouvoir. Le pouvoir politique nest pas seulement un contrat social mais il est aussi un rapport de force consistant en un à ©quilibre fragile. Les concepts de là ©gitimità ©, de pouvoir et de coercition restent des notions incontournables en anthropologie politique mais celui de pouvoir a prà ©sà ©ance sur les autres. Peu importe la socià ©tà ©, sa stabilità © est basà ©e sur un à ©quilibre approximatif et le pouvoir doit jouer le rà ´le de stabilisateur pour protà ©ger la socià ©tà © contre ses propres dà ©faillances soit par la force, soit par des ententes tout en restant fidà ¨le à   ses principes vitaux assurant sa survie. Ce domaine nà ©cessaire au politologue permet de dà ©centrer le regard au-delà   des conceptions classiques concernant cette notion. Il est intà ©ressant de finir par lutilisation de la dà ©marche à ©pistà ©mologique, dans les sciences politiques, relative à   des aspirations ethnographiques en citant un article paru dans la Revue Franà §aise de science politique. En effet, lauteur, Olivier IHL revient sur les formes et usages dune technique de vote : lurne à ©lectorale. Ainsi, il dà ©finit la scà ©nographie relative au vote et la mise en scà ¨ne qui sorganise autour de lurne à ©lectorale ainsi que la sacralisation de cet outil cher à   lexercice de la dà ©mocratie. Ce qui nest pas sans rappeler G. Balandier qui dans son ouvrage anthropologie politique revient sur la sacralità © du politique en à ©nonà §ant cette phrase :  « le rapport du pouvoir à   la socià ©tà © est essentiellement une relation chargà ©e de sacralità ©  »

My Definition of Freedom Essay -- Definition Essays

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The constitution of the United States of America gives me the right to freedom because I am a United States citizen. I consider "freedom" to be my right to express myself in any way I choose. Freedom is defined as "having liberty of action or thought, independent". "Self-governed or not controlled by an outside party" is another definition of freedom. Freedom has a different meaning to each individual thus making it hard to find a clear concise definition.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  When referring to freedom these words are often associated with freedom: Liberty, independence, sovereignty, autonomy, privilege, immunity, and indulgence. Everyone has the right to life, liberty, and justice. Independence is granted by freedom in the sense that an outside party does not control you. To gratify ones desires by whichever ways they choose is freedom through indulgence. Privileges are g ranted through freedom. In some countries the dictator or ruler makes choices for their people on regards to what profession they shall have or to what religion they shall worship. In the United States we have special privileges that let the people of the country decide on their own religion and professions.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Freedom has limitations just as it has privileges. Everyone is allowed freedom of speech, but if an individual were to yell fire in a public building they would be thrown in jail. Thus implying that freedom of speech has limitations. The government does in ...

Cloud Computing Descends Essay -- Cloud Technology, United States, Job

An upgrade to cloud technology over the United States will potentially affect its workplace. It will lead to an increase in job creation all over the world, mostly due to its implementation at various institutions and companies globally and via many other services that will emerge to enhance or regulate this technology. In comparison to the initial machined technology, cloud computing offers instant delivery, simple & customizable usage, easy accessibility, cost reduction, thus increasing efficiency and demand and its wide range of acceptability. This technology, like any other, also has its disadvantages, though they are seemingly negligible in comparison. Cloud Technology is creating many jobs due to its implementation at most of the institutions such as the schools, companies, and even the government. This is to save expenses while increasing the overall efficiency and quality of their services. This will led to the formation of various additional services such as course instructions and certifications at educational institutions, and new companies to ensure the safety of cloud, thus creating more jobs. Even though its critics claim that this technology is decreasing the amount of jobs present in this field, but they fail to notice that the same amount of jobs are required to run the cloud technology and even more are created due to many of the cloud’s additional maintenance requirements. This is properly verified through many of the surveys including those of Microsoft which suggest that a large percentage of the hiring conducted by many tech companies are due to the Cloud Technology. The value of this market is also predicted to increase by six times its current value. As most people are aware of, there are various possibil... ...T Workforce."ZDNet.com. 2011. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 19 Feb. 2014. Stallman, Richard M. "Cloud Computing Threatens User Freedom and Should Be Avoided." Technology and the Cloud. Ed. David Haugen and Susan Musser. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2013. At Issue. Rpt. from "What Does that Server Really Serve?" Boston Review (18 Mar. 2010). Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 19 Feb. 2014. "Year for business to look to the heavens - PREDICTIONS 2014 -." Australian [National, Australia] 25 Feb. 2014: 27. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 2 Mar. 2014. McClure, David. "Federal Policy Fosters Government Adoption of Secure Cloud Computing." Technology and the Cloud. Ed. David Haugen and Susan Musser. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2013. At Issue. Rpt. from "Cloud Computing: What Are the Security Implications." 2011. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 2 Mar. 2014. Cloud Computing Descends Essay -- Cloud Technology, United States, Job An upgrade to cloud technology over the United States will potentially affect its workplace. It will lead to an increase in job creation all over the world, mostly due to its implementation at various institutions and companies globally and via many other services that will emerge to enhance or regulate this technology. In comparison to the initial machined technology, cloud computing offers instant delivery, simple & customizable usage, easy accessibility, cost reduction, thus increasing efficiency and demand and its wide range of acceptability. This technology, like any other, also has its disadvantages, though they are seemingly negligible in comparison. Cloud Technology is creating many jobs due to its implementation at most of the institutions such as the schools, companies, and even the government. This is to save expenses while increasing the overall efficiency and quality of their services. This will led to the formation of various additional services such as course instructions and certifications at educational institutions, and new companies to ensure the safety of cloud, thus creating more jobs. Even though its critics claim that this technology is decreasing the amount of jobs present in this field, but they fail to notice that the same amount of jobs are required to run the cloud technology and even more are created due to many of the cloud’s additional maintenance requirements. This is properly verified through many of the surveys including those of Microsoft which suggest that a large percentage of the hiring conducted by many tech companies are due to the Cloud Technology. The value of this market is also predicted to increase by six times its current value. As most people are aware of, there are various possibil... ...T Workforce."ZDNet.com. 2011. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 19 Feb. 2014. Stallman, Richard M. "Cloud Computing Threatens User Freedom and Should Be Avoided." Technology and the Cloud. Ed. David Haugen and Susan Musser. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2013. At Issue. Rpt. from "What Does that Server Really Serve?" Boston Review (18 Mar. 2010). Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 19 Feb. 2014. "Year for business to look to the heavens - PREDICTIONS 2014 -." Australian [National, Australia] 25 Feb. 2014: 27. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 2 Mar. 2014. McClure, David. "Federal Policy Fosters Government Adoption of Secure Cloud Computing." Technology and the Cloud. Ed. David Haugen and Susan Musser. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2013. At Issue. Rpt. from "Cloud Computing: What Are the Security Implications." 2011. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 2 Mar. 2014.

English Phrasal Verbs Translation Into Russian and Finnish

| Article Summary| AEPS Reading, Writing & Spoken Communication – Language Centre – University of Helsinki| | | 20. 03. 2013| | The article represents a part of a research about English multi-word expressions and their translation equivalents in other languages. The research was important for different tasks such as language learning, translation, automatic multilingual lexicon etc. The article is a short review of English phrasal verbs and their translations to Russian and Finnish. English phrasal verbs are multi-word expressions consisting of a verb and an adverbial particle with a spatial or locative meaning.The meaning of this combination doesn’t depend on the individual meanings of its parts. The most frequent phrasal verb pattern is any form of lexical verb plus prepositional adverb/particle, and usually there can be a noun phrase, any pronoun or any adverb embedded between the verb and the adverb/particle. Neither Russian nor Finnish has phrasal verbs. Eng lish-Russian If there is an English phrasal verb with an adverb or particle, which on its own is a function word like in, on, up etc. , it is usually translated into Russian as verb with prefix, e. g. die down – , find out – .If a part of an English phrasal verb may act as a content word such as forward, behind, apart, together etc. , the Russian translation is often a verb + adverb combination, e. g. bring together – , leave behind – . However, some verbs of this group can be also expressed in Russian by prefixation, e. g. take apart – . In addition, if an English phrasal verb is highly idiomatic, the Russian translation will be either idiomatic expression or a lengthy explanation. English-Finnish Many English phrasal verbs can be translated as single Finnish verbs, e. g. ake up – herata, herattaa; move ahead – edeta. There are also phrases and idiomatic combinations in Finnish, which can be used as translations of English phrasal verbs, e. g. find out – saada selville, switch off  Ã¢â‚¬â€œ kytkea pois paalta. Sometimes we can use both techniques: hide away – piilottaa, panna piiloon, often the single-word expression is more formal. Often Finnish equivalent expressions and English phrasal verbs are morpho-syntactically close to each other, it is a result of influence from Swedish or other languages, e. g. : write down – kirjoittaa ylos. There can be also more native Finnish expression like kirjoittaa muistiin.There are also fixed combinations with object in Finnish to express English phrasal verbs, e. g. : tie  up – sitoa kengannauhat. Conclusion English phrasal verbs usually have a single-word translation equivalents in Russian and Finnish. The balance between single-word and multi-word expressions changes across languages. Reference: Mudraya, O. and Piao, S. and Lofberg, L. and Rayson, P. and Archer, D. (2005) English-Russian-Finnish cross-language comparison of phrasal verb translation equivalents. In: Phraseology 2005, 2005-10-132005-10-15, Lovain-la-Neuve, Belgium.

Java-Whitepaper Essay

This white paper compares C++/Qt with Java/AWT/Swing for developing large-scale, real-world software with graphical user interfaces. References are made to independent reports that examine various aspects of the two toolsets. 1 A Comparison of Qt and Java 1. What Do We Compare? When selecting an environment for a large software development project, there are many aspects that must be considered. The programming language is one of the most significant aspects, since its choice has considerable impact on what other options are available. For example, in a GUI development project, developers will need a GUI library that provides ready-made user interface components, for example, buttons and menus. Since the selection of the GUI library itself has a large impact on the development of a project, it is not uncommon for the GUI library to be chosen first, with the programming language being determined by the languages for which the library is available. Usually, there is only one language per library. Other software components like database access libraries or communication libraries must also be taken into consideration, but they rarely have such a strong impact on the overall design as the GUI libraries. In this white paper, the objective is to compare the C++/Qt environment with the Java/AWT/Swing environment. In order to do this in the most useful way, we will begin by comparing the programming languages involved, i. e.C++ and Java, and then compare the two GUI libraries, Qt for C++ and AWT/Swing for Java. 2. Comparing C++ and Java When discussing the various benefits and drawbacks of particular programming languages, the debate often degenerates into arguments that are based on personal experience and preference rather than any objective criteria. Personal preferences and experience should be taken into account when selecting a programming language for a project, but because it is subjective, it cannot be considered here. Instead we will look at issues such as programmer-efficiency, runtime-efficiency and memory-efficiency since these can be quantified and have been examined in scientifically conducted research, although we will also incorporate information based on the practical exerience of projects that have been implemented in our own company. 2. 1. Programmer-efficiency Programmer-efficiency describes how efficiently (i. e. how quickly and accurately) a programmer with a given degree of experience and knowledge can implement a certain set of requirements in a particular programming language, including debugging and project setup time. Since developer salaries are one of the primary cost factors for any programming project, programmer-efficiency greatly affects the 2 A Comparison of Qt and Java cost-efficiency of the project. To some extent, programmer-efficiency is also determined by the tools available. The main design goal of Java is increased programmer-efficiency compared to other general-purpose programming languages, rather than increased memory- or runtime-efficiency. Java has several features designed to make it more programmer-efficient. For example, unlike C++ (or C), the programmer does not have to explicitly â€Å"free† (give back) allocated memory resources to the operating system. Freeing unused memory (garbage collection) is handled automatically by the Java runtime system, at the expense of memory- and runtime-efficiency (see below). This liberates the programmer from the burden of keeping track of allocated memory, a tedious task that is a major cause of bugs. This feature alone should significantly increase the programmer-efficiency of Java programmers, compared to C++ (or C) programmers. Research shows that in practice, garbage collection and other Java features, do not have a major influence on the programmer-efficiency. One of the classic software estimation models, Barry Boehm’s CoCoMo1 predicts the cost and schedule of a software project using cost drivers which take into account variables like the general experience of a programmers, the experience with the programming language in question, the targeted reliability of the program, etc. Boehm writes that the amount of effort per source statement was highly independent of the language level. Other research, for example, A method of programming measurement and estimation by C. E. Walston and C. P. Felix of IBM2, points in the same direction. Both the reports cited here pre-date the advent of Java by many years, although they seem to reveal a general principle that the sophistication of a general-purpose programming language has, compared with other aspects, like the experience of the developers, no significant influence on the overall project costs. There is more recent research that explicitly includes Java and which supports this hypothesis. In An empirical comparison of C, C++, Java, Perl, Python, Rexx, and Tcl3, Lutz Prechelt of the University of Karlsruhe, describes an experiment he conducted in which computer science students were assigned a particular design and development task and asked to implement the specification provided in any of the languages C, C++, or Java which they could freely choose according to their personal preferences (the other languages were examined in a different part of the research project). The data gathered shows almost the same results for C++ and Java (with C running third in most aspects). This is also backed up by our own experience: if programmers can choose their favorite programming language (which is usually the one they have most experience of), programmers with the same level of experience (measured for example, in years of programming experience in general) achieve about the same programmer-efficiency. Another interesting aspect that we noted (but which is not yet supported by any formal 3 A Comparison of Qt and Java research) is that less experienced developers seem to achieve somewhat better results with Java, medium-experienced developers achieve about the same results with both programming languages, nd experienced developers achieve better results with C++. These findings could be due to better tools being available for C++; nevertheless this is an aspect that must be taken into account. An interesting way to quantify programmer-efficiency is the Function Point method developed by Capers Jones. Function points are a software metric that only depend on the functionality, not on the implementation. Working from the function points, it is possible to compute the lines of code needed per function point as well as the language level which describes how many function points can be implemented in a certain amount of time. Intriguingly, both the values for the lines of code per function point and the language level are identical for C++ and Java (6 for the language level, compared with C’s 3. 5 and Tcl’s 5, and 53 for the lines of code per function point, compared with C’s 91 and Tcl’s 64). In conclusion: both research and practice contradict the claim that Java programmers achieve a higher programmer-efficiency than C++ programmers. 2. 2. Runtime-efficiency We have seen that Java’s programmer-efficiency appears to be illusory. We will now examine its runtime efficiency. Again, Prechelt provides useful data. The amount of data he provides is huge, but he arrives at the conclusion that â€Å"a Java program must be expected to run at least 1. 22 times as long as a C/C++ program†. Note that he says at least; the average runtime of Java programs is even longer. Our own experience shows that Java programs tend to run about 2-3 times as long than their equivalent C/C++ programs for the same task. Not surprisingly, Java loses even more ground when the tasks are CPU-bound. When it comes to programs with a graphical user interface, the increased latency of Java programs is worse than the runtime performance hit. Usability studies show that users do not care about whether a long running task takes, say, two or three minutes, but they do care when a program does not show an immediate reaction to their interaction, for example when they press a button. These studies show that the limit of what a user accepts before they consider a program to be â€Å"unresponsive† can be as little as 0. 7 seconds. We’ll return to this issue when we compare graphical user interfaces in Java and C++ programs. An explanation about why Java programs are slower than C++ is in order. C++ programs are compiled by the C++ compiler into a binary format that can be executed directly by the CPU; the whole program execution thus takes place in 4 A Comparison of Qt and Java hardware. (This is an oversimplification since most modern CPUs execute microcode, but this does not affect the issues discussed here. ) On the other hand, the Java compiler compiles the source code into â€Å"bytecode† which is not executed directly by the CPU, but rather by another piece of software, the Java Virtual Machine (JVM). The JVM in turn, runs on the CPU. The execution of the bytecode of a Java program does not take place in (fast) hardware, but instead in (much slower) software emulation. Work has been undertaken to develop â€Å"Just in Time† (JIT) compilers to address Java’s runtime efficiency problem, but no universal solution has yet emerged. It is the semi-interpreted nature of Java programs that makes the â€Å"compile once, run anywhere† approach of Java possible in the first place. Once a Java program is compiled into bytecode, it can be executed on any platform which has a JVM. In practice, this is not always the case, because of implementation differences in different JVMs, and because of the necessity to sometimes use native, non-Java code, usually written in C or C++, together with Java programs. But is the use of platform-independent bytecode the right approach for crossplatform applications? With a good cross-platform toolkit like Qt and good compilers on the various platforms, programmers can achieve almost the same by compiling their source code once for each platform: â€Å"write once, compile everywhere†. It can be argued that for this to work, developers need access to all the platforms they want to support, while with Java, in theory at least, developers only need access to one platform running the Java development tools and a JVM. In practice, no responsible software manufacturer will ever certify their software for a platform the software hasn’t been tested on, so they would still need access to all the relevant platforms. The question arises why it should be necessary to run the Java Virtual Machine in software; if a program can be implemented in software, it should also be possible to have hardware implement the same unctionality. This is what the Java designers had in mind when they developed the language; they assumed that the performance penalty would disappear as soon as Java CPUs that implement the JVM in hardware would become available. But after five years, such Java CPUs have not become generally available. Java automatically de-allocates (frees) unused memory. The programmer allocates memory, and the JVM keeps track of all the allocated memory blocks and the references to them. As soon as a memory block is no longer referenced, it can be reclaimed. This is done in a process called â€Å"garbage collection† in which the JVM periodically checks all the allocated memory blocks, and removes any which are no longer referred to. Garbage collection is very convenient, but the trade offs are greater memory consumption and slower runtime speed.. With C++, the programmer can (and should) delete blocks of memory as soon as they are no longer required. With Java, blocks are not deleted until the next garbage collection run, and this depends on the implementation on the JVM being used. Prechtelt provides figures which state that on average (†¦ ) and with a confidence of 80%, the Java programs consume at least 32 MB (or 297%) more memory than the C/C++ programs (†¦ ). In addition to the higher memory requirements, the garbage collection process itself requires processing power which is consequently not available to the actual application functionality, leading to slower overall runtimes. Since the garbage collector runs periodically, it can occasionally lead to Java programs â€Å"freezing† for a few seconds. The best JVM implementations keep the occurrence of such freezes to a minimum, but the freezes have not been eliminated entirely. When dealing with external programs and devices, for example, during I/O or when interacting with a database, it is usually desirable to close the file or database connection as soon as it is no longer required. Using C++’s destructors, this happens as soon as the programmer calls delete. In Java, closing may not occur until the next garbage collecting sweep, which at best may tie up resources unnecessarily, and at worst risks the open resources ending up in an inconsistent state. The fact that Java programs keep memory blocks around longer than is strictly necessary is especially problematic for embedded devices where memory is often at a premium. It is no coincidence that there is (at the time of writing) no complete implementation of the Java platform for embedded devices, only partial implementations that implement a subset. The main reason why garbage collection is more expensive than explicit memory management by the programmer is that with the Java scheme, information is lost. In a C++ program, the programmer knows both where their memory blocks are (by storing pointers to them) and knows when they are not needed any longer. In a Java 6 A Comparison of Qt and Java program, the latter information is not available to the JVM (even though it is known to the programmer), and thus the JVM has to manually find unreferenced blocks. A Java programmer can make use of their knowledge of when a memory block is not needed any longer by deleting all references that are still around and triggering garbage collection manually, but this requires as much effort on the part of the programmer as with the explicit memory management in C++, and still the JVM has to look at each block during garbage collection to determine which ones are no longer used. Technically, there is nothing that prevents the implementation and use of garbage collection in C++ programs, and there are commercial programs and libraries available that offer this. But because of the disadvantages mentioned above, few C++ programmers make use of this. The Qt toolkit takes a more efficient approach to easing the memory management task for its programmers: when an object is deleted, all dependant objects are automatically deleted too. Qt’s approach does not interfere with the programmer’s freedom to delete manually when they wish to. Because manual memory management burdens programmers, C and C++ have been accused of being prone to generate unstable, bug-ridden software. Although the danger of producing memory corruption (which typically leads to program crashes) is certainly higher with C and C++, good education, tools and experience can greatly reduce the risks. Memory management can be learned like anything else, and there are a large number of tools available, both commercial and open source, that help programmers ensure that there are no memory errors in the program; for example, Insure++ by Parasoft, Purify by Rational and the open source Electric Fence. C++’s flexible memory management system also makes it possible to write custom memory profilers that are adapted to whichever type of application a programmer writes. To sum up this discussion, we have found C++ to provide much better runtime- and memory-efficiency than Java, while having comparable programmer-efficiency. 2. 4. Available libraries and tools The Java platform includes an impressive number of packages that provide hundreds of classes for all kinds of purposes, including graphical user interfaces, security, networking and other tasks. This is certainly an advantage of the Java platform. For each package available on the Java platform, there is at least one corresponding library for C++, although it can be difficult to assemble the various libraries that would be needed for a C++ project and make them all work together correctly. However, this strength of Java is also one of its weaknesses. It becomes increasingly difficult for the individual programmer to find their way through the huge APIs. For any given task, you can be almost certain that somewhere, there is 7 A Comparison of Qt and Java functionality that would accomplish the task or at least help with its implementation. But it can be very difficult to find the right package and the right class. Also, with an increasing number of packages, the size of the Java platform has increased considerably. This has led to subsets e. g. , for embedded systems, but with a subset, the advantage of having everything readily available disappears. As an aside, the size of the Java platform makes it almost impossible for smaller manufacturers to ship a Java system independent from Sun Microsystems, Java’s inventor, and this reduces competition. If Java has an advantage on the side of available libraries, C++ clearly has an advantage when it comes to available tools. Because of the considerable maturity of the C and C++ family of languages, many tools for all aspects of application development have been developed, including: design, debugging, and profiling tools. While there are Java tools appearing all the time, they seldom measure up to their C++ counterparts. This is often even the case with tools with the same functionality coming from the same manufacturer; compare, for example, Rational’s Quantify, a profiler for Java and for C/C++. The most important tool any developer of a compiled language uses, is still the compiler. C++ has the advantage of having compilers that are clearly superior in execution speed. In order to be able to ship their compilers (and other tools) on various platforms, vendors tend to implement their Java tools in Java itself, with all the aforementioned memory and efficiency problems. There are a few Java compilers written in a native language like C (for example, IBM’s Jikes), but these are the exception, and seldom used. 3. Comparing AWT/Swing and Qt So far, we have compared the programming language Java and the programming language C++. But as we discussed at the beginning of this article, the programming language is only one of the aspects to consider in GUI development. We will now compare the packages for GUI development that are shipped with Java, i. e. AWT and Swing, with the cross-platform GUI toolkit, Qt, from the Norwegian supplier, Trolltech. We have confined the comparision on the C++ side to the Qt GUI toolkit, since unlike MFC (Microsoft Foundation Classes) and similar toolkits, This seems to contradict Java’s cross-platform philosophy and may be due to the the initial AWT version being reputedly developed in under fourteen days. Because of these and a number of other problems with the AWT, it has since been augmented by the Swing toolkit. Swing relies on the AWT (and consequently on the native libraries) only for very basic things like creating rectangular windows, handling events and executing primitive drawing operations. Everything else is handled within Swing, including all the drawing of the GUI components. This does away with the problem of applications looking and behaving differently on different platforms. Unfortunately, because Swing is mostly implemented in Java itself, it lacks efficiency. As a result, Swing programs are not only slow when performing computations, but also when drawing and handling the user interface, leading to poor responsiveness. As mentioned earlier, poor responsiveness is one of the things that users are least willing to tolerate in a GUI application. On today’s standard commodity hardware, it is not unusual to be able to watch how a Swing button is redrawn when the mouse is pressed over it. While this situation will surely improve with faster hardware, this does not address the fundamental problem that complex user interfaces developed with Swing are inherently slow. The Qt toolkit follows a similar approach; like Swing, it only relies on the native libraries only for very basic things and handles the drawing of GUI components itself. This brings Qt the same advantages as Swing (for example, applications look and behave the same on different platforms), but since Qt is entirely implemented in C++ and thus compiled to native code; it does not have Swing’s efficiency problems. User interfaces written with Qt are typically very fast; because of Qt’s smart use of caching techniques, they are sometimes even faster than comparable programs written using only the native libraries. Theoretically, an optimal native program should always be at least as fast as an equivalent optimal Qt program; however, making a native program optimal is much more difficult and requires more programming skills than making a Qt program optimal. Both Qt and Swing employ a styling technique that lets programs display in any one of a number of styles, independent of the platform they are running on. This is possible because both Qt and Swing handle the drawing themselves and can draw GUI elements in whichever style is desired. Qt even ships with a style that emulates the default look-and-feel in Swing programs, along with styles that emulate the 9 A Comparison of Qt and Java Win32 look-and-feel, the Motif look-and-feel, and—in the Macintosh version— the MacOS X Aqua style. 3. 2. Programming Paradigms In Qt and Swing While programming APIs to some extent are a matter of the programmers’ personal taste, there are some APIs that lend themselves to simple, short, and elegant application code far more readily than others.