dfan

27 ms·

211.
by dfan 12y ago
Using "number of pawns of evaluation lost" as a proxy for the severity of the blunder has some fundamental problems. The main one is that the relationship between evaluation in "pawns" and expected result (expected value
212.
by dfan 12y ago
Rich Hickey is one guy and this is what worked for him. That does not mean that his experience generalizes to all developers. Listen to lots of people, perhaps weight their opinions based on their success and your admiration of them, and th
213.
by dfan 12y ago
Stalemate is a very specific term that means that the side to move has no legal moves. If checkmate is impossible this is generally called a "draw by insufficient material".
214.
by dfan 12y ago
Heck, the revival has already happened (at least compared to a decade ago). There was a long article in the New York Times the other month about Twine, for example.
215.
by dfan 12y ago
No one in the IF world would claim that games "must be pure text".
216.
by dfan 12y ago
Hadean Lands (the subject of the article) is written in it. It's a really cool language that is likely to change your thinking in a few ways.
217.
by dfan 12y ago
It can be hard to get programmers to take a second look at Inform 7, because the initial perception (mine as well) is always "Oh, it's a DSL with an English veneer on top". But because the domain is English itself, the fact t
218.
by dfan 12y ago
You can't really get around linear algebra. Geometric algebra is really neat, and you can benefit from taking a geometric algebra approach to linear algebra (Macdonald's book is pretty good for that), but it enhances linear algebr
219.
by dfan 12y ago
It's written in an obsolete programming style, and I'd never write code like that today, but boy did I learn a lot from reading through the entire source code of TeX.
220.
by dfan 12y ago
I didn't realize she had a book on the subject (although of course now I see that it's mentioned in her byline). Thanks for calling my attention to it.
221.
by dfan 12y ago
As a musician I was prepared to roll my eyes at this article but it's really good. When I was a kid I would play with Music Construction Set on my Apple ][, "painting" lots of random notes into one or two bars and then puttin
222.
by dfan 12y ago
There is a fair amount of space between "something in the title of the release announcement to explain what makes this one special" and "linkbait headlines and vapid blog content".
223.
by dfan 12y ago
I'd say you're both right; it was a blowout, and people should have predicted it based on their ratings (and of course many did).
224.
by dfan 12y ago
Yeah, I am a big fan of eshell in general but too much of the time I want to do a lot of I/O, at which it is dog slow.
225.
by dfan 12y ago
I use Shazam most often in bars and restaurants.
226.
by dfan 12y ago
I'd love to see ABV on the main list (instead of having to go to that beer's individual page). When I'm scanning through a menu, that's one of the primary things I look at.
227.
by dfan 12y ago
Yes please. Whenever I try typesetting anything with bras and kets (or inner products), I can't stop muttering "langle rangle langle rangle" for a day afterwards.
228.
by dfan 12y ago
It would be nice if this were in some sort of curriculum order. It was disconcerting to see that the first topic was Grassman [sic] Algebra. Honestly, based on my 20+ years in game development, the one essential piece of math I wish all gam
229.
by dfan 12y ago
If the insurance company is doing its job right, this was priced into its rates.
230.
by dfan 12y ago
This is terrific, but I assume that the price will put it out of reach for individuals.
231.
by dfan 12y ago
Starting in the 1980s, I used to score baseball games obsessively, taking great care to produce a beautiful and informative document. Somewhere along the line, with more and more information about the game becoming available in real time, i
232.
by dfan 12y ago
Scott Meyers' Effective Modern C++ will be required reading once it's released in October. Until then (and even after), Stroustrup's The C++ Programming Language (4th edition) is the canonical resource. It's a refere
233.
by dfan 12y ago
Also, how many companies are afraid of the new features and deprecate them internally (fearing compiler bugs, lack of portability, and/or unmaintainability). I still haven't had a chance to use full C++11 in a professional context
234.
by dfan 12y ago
I agree with your example. But, for example, before C++11, if I wanted to do an even slightly non-trivial map or filter I'd probably do it by hand rather than write a (C++) "functor" or assemble some function in place with st
235.
by dfan 12y ago
The nice thing about C++11 is that the designers seem to have actually tried to increase usability, rather than just maximizing expressivity, which is usually the case. Features like range-based for and auto make programming much more pleas
236.
by dfan 12y ago
The 4th edition of Stroustrup is quite good, and much better than the 3rd edition, which was not even very usable as a reference, due to a terrible index. It's still not a page-turner, though.
237.
by dfan 12y ago
My doctor types at a computer whose screen is explicitly set up to point at both of us. I was surprised and appreciative when he first did so.
238.
by dfan 12y ago
The O'Reilly press release in the linked URL says: "Pearson will remain a key strategic content partner of Safari. All their current materials remain available, and their future books and videos will be added to the service."
239.
by dfan 12y ago
I assume that's why he said "Also" rather than "Instead".
240.
by dfan 12y ago
This is the first one of these in a while that felt qualitatively novel to me. Nice work! I'd add at least one more level, since it should clearly be possible to reach higher tiles than 243.

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