MBlume

45 ms·

1. 421.▲
   by MBlume 14y ago

   Thank you for causing me to notice that the last two haskell posts I really enjoyed were on the same blog. Also subscribed!
2. 422.▲
   by MBlume 14y ago

   This comment really clashes with your user name =P
3. 423.▲
   by MBlume 14y ago

   Of all the languages I've used, Python comes closest to English-like while still being a language I can enjoy programming in. I seriously doubt it's possible (absent strong AI) to get much further. Also, Guido's probably a once-per-generati
4. 424.▲
   by MBlume 14y ago

   Massively, yes. We could start seriously betting on real-world events. It becomes harder to make crappy predictions ("If this bill isn't passed, crime will skyrocket!") when people can just check the going odds. ETA: Much better explanation
5. 425.▲
   by MBlume 14y ago

   Java? Everything (except for built-in types) is nullable in Java...
6. 426.▲
   by MBlume 14y ago

   Yes, this. Trying to do real work on shared code is painful . Ownership is important.
7. 427.▲
   by MBlume 14y ago

   Are we sure building schools will help the girls? http://80000hours.org/blog/100-let-s-stop-building-schools
8. 428.▲
   by MBlume 14y ago

   I think that's going a little too far. If you can construct a "rigid beam" five feet long, I see no way that relativity countermands a "rigid beam" 25 million miles long. It's just that "rigid" doesn't mean what grandparent thinks it means
9. 429.▲
   by MBlume 14y ago

   Yeah. It shouldn't be that surprising that when you arbitrarily assume that part of the wavefunction magically disappears sometimes, you get weird results like non-locality.
10. 430.▲
    by MBlume 14y ago

    Nope. Pushing on the end of the beam sends a pressure wave through the beam. The button gets pushed when the wave reaches the other end. Wave travels significantly slower than light.
11. 431.▲
    by MBlume 14y ago

    Ooh. TIL.
12. 432.▲
    by MBlume 14y ago

    I would be a little bit afraid of working in a technical shop where "DRY" wasn't ubiquitous.
13. 433.▲
    by MBlume 14y ago

    If I'm entering a credit card number, let me type the fucking spaces. Use JS to trim them before they hit the server if you have to. I once used a site that had JS specifically to prevent me from typing a space, and it was infuriating , be
14. 434.▲
    by MBlume 14y ago

    Pylint is fantastic Googling "$LANGUAGE lint" will probably find what you need.
15. 435.▲
    by MBlume 14y ago

    Well, the Python and Ruby communities have different engineering cultures and this is part of that. "Explicit is better than implicit" is one of the mantras on the Python side. http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0020/
16. 436.▲
    by MBlume 14y ago

    Find one with a halting oracle on board and you're set.
17. 437.▲
    by MBlume 14y ago

    I realize that choosing genders by coinflip would give 25% probability of this outcome, and if that's what the author did, I'll shut up, but if not, making the antisocial cerebral character male and the technically weak, pleasant communicat
18. 438.▲
    by MBlume 14y ago

    Haskellers don't so much want to keep the variable names terse as avoid naming the variable at all.
19. 439.▲
    by MBlume 14y ago

    Personally, I've been hearing all my life about the Serious Philosophical Issues posed by life extension, and my attitude has always been that I'm willing to grapple with those issues for as many centuries as it takes. -- Patrick Nielsen Ha
20. 440.▲
    by MBlume 14y ago

    First paragraph: > Sometimes you run into a situation where you have to extend/improve some existing code. You see that the old code is very lean, but it's also difficult to extend, and takes time to read. Last paragraph: > Is it a
21. 441.▲
    by MBlume 14y ago

    I can't believe no one's saying this. If you're asking, then YES, DO IT. First of all, I'll assume you're not an idiot. If you're an idiot, and your task requires you to interact with this code, you're fucked no matter what. So, assuming yo
22. 442.▲
    by MBlume 14y ago

    All the facts are there. He presented them entirely clearly.
23. 443.▲
    by MBlume 14y ago

    I suspect you're typical-mind-fallacying.
24. 444.▲
    by MBlume 14y ago

    Not that you're necessarily wrong, but you've only addressed supply, not demand.
25. 445.▲
    by MBlume 14y ago

    I'm all for trying to find ways to improve Git's learning curve, especially for non-technical users. That said, if you're calling yourself an engineer, you've worked at a Git shop for over a month, and you're still complaining about how "ha
26. 446.▲
    by MBlume 14y ago

    Oh come on. Your language, your editor, and your source control. Three things worth knowing backwards and forwards if you're going to call yourself a developer. Three things easily worth spending a week grokking, if necessary.
27. 447.▲
    by MBlume 14y ago

    This is another area where I prefer Raymond's open-source consequentialism to Stallman's free software deontology. Raymond actually takes the time to evaluate the harms ( http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4371 ) we anticipate from closed source sof
28. 448.▲
    by MBlume 14y ago

    > The product pipeline will take years to screw up. But the ad pipeline can be screwed up in no time. Did you read the post you're commenting on?
29. 449.▲
    by MBlume 14y ago

    This page is basically a pass-through to taskrabbit -- nothing stopping you from contracting someone on taskrabbit to get you some In'n'Out in PA.
30. 450.▲
    by MBlume 14y ago

    > It seems like it does need a "why this helps me be productive" hook to convince people it has an upside. [...] Although, oddly, steroids for athletes don't get the same cultural free pass there. Although athletes produce entertainment