austinz

13 ms·

61.
by austinz 12y ago
> told to use Swift arrays as we would C arrays Until you can declare a fixed-length Swift array, or a Swift array that isn't copy-on-write by default, or a fixed-length Swift array that doesn't live on the heap, this can'
62.
by austinz 12y ago
> UnsafeMutablePointer (which is basically direct C-style memory access)
63.
by austinz 12y ago
The article discusses two Swift versions of the same program, one that uses UnsafeMutablePointer (which is basically direct C-style memory access), and one that uses Swift's built-in Array type. The former runs well, the latter is slow
64.
by austinz 12y ago
Thanks for the paper link! I'll check it out. (The histogram legend seems to indicate two distributions of observed GRBs, the larger centered around 8 degree cones.)
65.
by austinz 12y ago
Is the gamma-ray burst a spherical field, or is it a narrow, directed cone? If the latter, I wonder how the burst spreads/diffuses as it travels and what sort of equation governs the energy flux with respect to distance and initial con
66.
Sequences and Generators in Swift(austinzheng.com)
27 points by austinz 12y ago|1 comments
67.
by austinz 12y ago
If you're comfortable writing object-oriented code in Python and PHP, you should be fine. The object-oriented parts of Swift are thoroughly ordinary. One major concept you will want to become comfortable with (that doesn't really
68.
by austinz 12y ago
I've been using Swift for personal projects. The company at which I work (it's a large social network that recruiters love) has a couple of small teams which have released or are working on apps written entirely in Swift. So it&#x
69.
by austinz 12y ago
Swift's Optional is just Maybe with some built-in sugar. Sum types are supported, with the caveat that the compiler is sort of broken when it comes to generics. Personally, I just want higher-kinded types, and for the following code sn
70.
by austinz 12y ago
I think it also helps that, in practice, there seems to be a common philosophy (at least among the Clojurists I've talked to) that macros should be used only when absolutely necessary. Because of this, the sort of unrestrained, ubiquit
71.
by austinz 12y ago
Even the Windows Java client installer tries to get you to install the Ask toolbar (or at least it did; I haven't seen an update recently). I imagine it must be quite lucrative for Oracle; either that, they stopped caring about Java&#x
72.
by austinz 12y ago
I always thought it was because both languages were (at least at some point) referred to and advertised as 'systems languages', which naturally invited comparisons. However, 'systems' meant different things for each lang
73.
by austinz 12y ago
I hope Rust gains traction as a language for targeting embedded systems. Rust has the following attractive characteristics for this particular domain: * Minimal overhead (e.g. runtime), great for systems with very constrained resources * Mo
74.
by austinz 12y ago
There are a lot of valid concerns with regards to Singapore's excessive central planning, governmental and social disapproval of nonconformity, etc. But this piece really does sound like the perspective of a disappointed poverty touris
75.
by austinz 12y ago
This is one of the worst parts of technical interviews. "Take 10 minutes to write out code for this simple, abstract, poorly defined problem. Okay, now I'm going to ding you because you didn't write it using the same mindset
76.
by austinz 12y ago
This definition of "success" is pretty widespread. In the US, a college education is widely seen as a prerequisite to a middle-class lifestyle (never mind skilled trades or trade schools). Highly prestigious employers (especially
77.
by austinz 12y ago
That's real sad and all, but the root cause of the problem is far too much demand for a limited number of seats at the most prestigious schools. Until that underlying issue is solved (maybe through something akin to America's land
78.
by austinz 12y ago
In short, the UN forces were able to drive North Korean forces out of South Korea. They then began advancing into North Korea. At this point China entered the war (under the guise of the PVA) on the side of the North Koreans, which was not
79.
by austinz 12y ago
This histrionics-filled article is a waste of time. There is far more to software engineering than building mobile apps for either iOS or Android. Even back in 2010 it should have been abundantly clear that mobile was not going to subsume a
80.
by austinz 12y ago
I really like this comment. It's kind and encouraging, providing actionable and constructive advice even while pointing out a rather serious flaw.
81.
Ask HN: How to get started with PCB design?
4 points by austinz 12y ago|5 comments
82.
by austinz 12y ago
Having X number of days off for vacation per year is an explicit contract. Company culture can still be broken enough to not allow you to use those days, but in most cases the expectation is that the vacation days you've been given are
83.
by austinz 12y ago
I think maybe the argument should be that C 'makes explicit' certain fundamental concepts - pointers and pointer dereferencing, explicitly choosing between allocating memory on the stack versus the heap, the idea that things like
84.
by austinz 12y ago
It would make more sense to contrast SpaceX with ULA or any of the other rocketry startups. Whatever long-term plans SpaceX have aren't very relevant to the current supplier-contractor partnership that SpaceX and NASA share.
85.
by austinz 12y ago
You mean Celtic Tiger? China's growth is 'sputtering' because the government is starting to make the sort of reforms that everyone said they needed to make to move growth away from being driven by debt-funded infrastructure s
86.
by austinz 12y ago
Basically, all forms of measuring GDP are 'accounting tricks' to some extent, or to be more charitable they are estimates based on necessarily incomplete data. For example, by its nature the informal sector can't be precisely
87.
by austinz 12y ago
Because each set of numbers measures a different set of things. Singapore and Luxembourg may have a larger per capita GDP than the U.S. or China, but the absolute size of their economies is far too small to allow them similar amounts of mil
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‘Superbugs’ Kill India’s Babies and Pose an Overseas Threat(nytimes.com)
6 points by austinz 12y ago|0 comments
89.
by austinz 12y ago
Macros (the general Lisp concept) are really interesting. I'm still trying to grok them myself, so if I made any mistakes please downvote and correct away. A normal Lisp function call might look like this: (myfunc arg1 arg2 arg3 )
90.
by austinz 12y ago
Python natively supports this sort of list comprehension ( https://docs.python.org/2/tutorial/datastructures.html#list-... ), and the Lisp source is being translated into a Python AST, so that snippet is probably be

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