4 ms·

(LATE EDIT: I now see that your responses were influenced by cballard's original examples of NSURL and NSString but I wasn't talking about those.) I was thin

by jasode 11y ago

(LATE EDIT: I now see that your responses were influenced by cballard's original examples of NSURL and NSString but I wasn't talking about those.) I was thinking of ASCII/Unicode string types and not the URLString vs SQLString types. Yes, a URLString would be redundant. In C#, the URI data type contains a Utf16 string as a data member but it is not another type of string. We were talking about different things. The ASCII/Unicode string data types would be somewhat analogous to int32/int64/float32/float64/Money data types. The way C# does it is that everything is Utf16 and there is no separate ASCIIString data type for pure ASCII strings. They also don't have pure Utf8 strings. Instead, the UTF16 classes has member "get()/encode()" functions that interpret as ASCII or UTF8. The ASCII/Utf8 data state is transitory. This architectural choice is fine for most apps but if you have 1 gigabyte of ASCII data, it's very memory inefficient to double the memory footprint to 2 GB for Utf16 just to slice & dice strings. If you use byte[] arrays to keep everything as raw ASCII to conserve memory, you don't get any convenient string-like slice & dice functions. The "string type" is lost in a opaque byte[] array.

mannykannot 11y ago
> We were talking about different things. You started by disagreeing with kazinator's objection to typed strings, and for several posts after that you explicitly defended the concept of typed strings. Now you are trying to rewrite the discussion as if it were about the internal representation of strings, which it has never been.
- jasode 11y ago
  >You started by disagreeing with kazinator's objection to typed strings, You misunderstood our subthread. Kazinator was talking about "fat" strings. I was pointing out that there can be "string types" that helps detect defects. We had 2 different ideas of "string types". I can't say we disagreed insomuch as clarified what each of us was talking about. I also don't care for your accusatory tone as if I'm deceiving people. My examples of string types has been consistent from the very beginning. I was never talking about NSURL/UrlString but you did. I simply didn't pick up on that divergence which was huge. Also, an internal memory representation has ramifications on external semantics. That's not a rewrite. That's been my point all along (see my earlier clipboard example). A sequence of of bytes on disk, or network port, or memory always requires correct semantics to process.
  - mannykannot 11y ago
    Kazinator has the last word on what he meant, but his original post, which is short, clear, and to-the-point, contains no such qualifications.
    - jasode 11y ago
      He qualified it with the Alan Perlis epigram: "The string is a stark data structure and everywhere it is passed there is much duplication of process. It is a perfect vehicle for hiding information." My "string type" examples to help uncover defects in parsing & yanking were not relevant to Alan Perlis criticisms. The "hiding information" of strings is an orthogonal issue.
      - mannykannot 11y ago
        Given that Kazinator's post is in reply to one that specifically gives NSString vs. NSURL as an example, and you were making a point that you say does not apply to that example, then the onus was on you to make it clear that you were going off on a tangent. >My "string type" examples to help uncover defects in parsing & yanking were not relevant to Alan Perlis criticisms. Did you mean to write that Alan Perlis' criticisms were not relevant to your examples? Anyway, this should perhaps have brought it to your attention that you were going off on a tangent, given that Kazinator chose to qualify his point with this quote.
        jasode 11y ago
        Yes, kazinator replied to a post that happened to have NSURL but he made a very generalized sounding piece of advice: "Typing strings to solve bugs is the epitome of an anti-pattern." It is not unreasonable to interpret that sentence as some kind of "universal" advice. If he meant it in specific circumstances, he might have said, "solve that kind of bug" instead of "solve bugs". (It's not even clear if kazinator felt that NSURL is a bad example of string-but-not-really-a-string. NSURL is an object with well-defined structure and not a pure string. It therefore doesn't fit the criticism of the Alan Perlis epigram) If I went off on a tangent, then I felt the door was opened by kazinator's (seemingly) universal statement which expanded the scope of discussion. Whether kazinator meant it universally is irrelevant because that's how I read it and that point in time is long gone. All my subsequent replies flowed from that (mis)interpretation. In any case, writing universal replies to posts with specific examples is not uncommon on HN or any forum for that matter. It's typical ebb & flow of discussions. Lastly, I looked at your history of posts and you're just a generally argumentative type of communicator. The mods have asked people to read posts with a charitable interpretation but you don't seem to follow that spirit. I'm fine with debate but I'll ignore your posts with needless hostility. Regards,
- brazzledazzle 11y ago
  >Now you are trying to rewrite the discussion Take it from someone that used to be very uncharitable in my interpretations of other's words and actions and was subsequently very argumentative and hostile: this is something you need to extract from yourself. The sooner you take that step the better because it takes a long time to retrain yourself out of bad habits. I'm still working on it and every time I fail I wish I'd started sooner. And even if you think I'm wrong, look at this way: You're not going to convince the person you're doing this to of your accusation and the other people reading it are going to ignore your argument and will just think you're being a hostile asshole. At that point you may as well be talking to yourself.

by jasode 11y ago

mannykannot 11y ago

> We were talking about different things. You started by disagreeing with kazinator's objection to typed strings, and for several posts after that you explicitly defended the concept of typed strings. Now you are trying to rewrite the discussion as if it were about the internal representation of strings, which it has never been.

jasode 11y ago
>You started by disagreeing with kazinator's objection to typed strings, You misunderstood our subthread. Kazinator was talking about "fat" strings. I was pointing out that there can be "string types" that helps detect defects. We had 2 different ideas of "string types". I can't say we disagreed insomuch as clarified what each of us was talking about. I also don't care for your accusatory tone as if I'm deceiving people. My examples of string types has been consistent from the very beginning. I was never talking about NSURL/UrlString but you did. I simply didn't pick up on that divergence which was huge. Also, an internal memory representation has ramifications on external semantics. That's not a rewrite. That's been my point all along (see my earlier clipboard example). A sequence of of bytes on disk, or network port, or memory always requires correct semantics to process.
- mannykannot 11y ago
  Kazinator has the last word on what he meant, but his original post, which is short, clear, and to-the-point, contains no such qualifications.
  - jasode 11y ago
    He qualified it with the Alan Perlis epigram: "The string is a stark data structure and everywhere it is passed there is much duplication of process. It is a perfect vehicle for hiding information." My "string type" examples to help uncover defects in parsing & yanking were not relevant to Alan Perlis criticisms. The "hiding information" of strings is an orthogonal issue.
    - mannykannot 11y ago
      Given that Kazinator's post is in reply to one that specifically gives NSString vs. NSURL as an example, and you were making a point that you say does not apply to that example, then the onus was on you to make it clear that you were going off on a tangent. >My "string type" examples to help uncover defects in parsing & yanking were not relevant to Alan Perlis criticisms. Did you mean to write that Alan Perlis' criticisms were not relevant to your examples? Anyway, this should perhaps have brought it to your attention that you were going off on a tangent, given that Kazinator chose to qualify his point with this quote.
      - jasode 11y ago
        Yes, kazinator replied to a post that happened to have NSURL but he made a very generalized sounding piece of advice: "Typing strings to solve bugs is the epitome of an anti-pattern." It is not unreasonable to interpret that sentence as some kind of "universal" advice. If he meant it in specific circumstances, he might have said, "solve that kind of bug" instead of "solve bugs". (It's not even clear if kazinator felt that NSURL is a bad example of string-but-not-really-a-string. NSURL is an object with well-defined structure and not a pure string. It therefore doesn't fit the criticism of the Alan Perlis epigram) If I went off on a tangent, then I felt the door was opened by kazinator's (seemingly) universal statement which expanded the scope of discussion. Whether kazinator meant it universally is irrelevant because that's how I read it and that point in time is long gone. All my subsequent replies flowed from that (mis)interpretation. In any case, writing universal replies to posts with specific examples is not uncommon on HN or any forum for that matter. It's typical ebb & flow of discussions. Lastly, I looked at your history of posts and you're just a generally argumentative type of communicator. The mods have asked people to read posts with a charitable interpretation but you don't seem to follow that spirit. I'm fine with debate but I'll ignore your posts with needless hostility. Regards,
brazzledazzle 11y ago
>Now you are trying to rewrite the discussion Take it from someone that used to be very uncharitable in my interpretations of other's words and actions and was subsequently very argumentative and hostile: this is something you need to extract from yourself. The sooner you take that step the better because it takes a long time to retrain yourself out of bad habits. I'm still working on it and every time I fail I wish I'd started sooner. And even if you think I'm wrong, look at this way: You're not going to convince the person you're doing this to of your accusation and the other people reading it are going to ignore your argument and will just think you're being a hostile asshole. At that point you may as well be talking to yourself.