flomo

55 ms·

751.
by flomo 12y ago
> And makes your code 20% longer One thing I've noticed on larger dynamic language projects: Developers tend to adopt a very defensive strategy in terms of validating inputs, to ensure it is clear a bug is not in their component.
752.
by flomo 12y ago
The PC XT ad is interesting in context - IBM hadn't totally won yet, and judging by the ads & content, CP/M and Z80 still ruled the day.
753.
by flomo 12y ago
> This topic (I do not know why) raises some serious emotion-based responses on coders. I saw the title on HN, and was like "uhhh, no shit, why is this here?". Then surprisingly, it all of a sudden it has 80 points and almost 5
754.
by flomo 12y ago
No, I'm really just talking about common dumb statements you see on tech sites like "Mac OS X is just *BSD with a pretty GUI". When in reality they've been maintaining their own fork for almost 20 years now, for serious
755.
by flomo 12y ago
> iOS preempted the existence of a mobile BSD userbase It's completely ridiculous to claim there anything like a "mobile BSD userbase", and zero arguments beyond that were given. There's no real reason why Android or
756.
by flomo 12y ago
I don't believe that disagrees with what I said, but if there's any confusion in terms of how it was worded, thanks for the clarification.
757.
by flomo 12y ago
I would disagree. Among the people for which that information is relevant, the vast majority are aware Apple is using BSD. (In fact the biggest misconception seem to be that Apple is using vanilla BSD or FreeBSD, when it's actually bas
758.
by flomo 12y ago
> Probably the most extreme example of this is iOS. Apple put a slick UI on BSD and now it runs on a billion zero-freedom devices while BSD is slowly dying. This is a very incorrect association to make, as the existence of iOS has very l
759.
by flomo 12y ago
> We didn't have roads 4 lanes wide Actually that would have been pretty typical for a 19th century American city, e.g. in San Francisco most of the older streets have always been that wide.
760.
by flomo 12y ago
Sure, and I understand that feeling very well :). However, I'm referring more to the "nerds" who are not good at math (or standardized tests or study skills or etcetera). People tend to inaccurately conflate certain personali
761.
by flomo 12y ago
That resonated with me for completely different reasons. Most of the "extremely weird nerds" from my high school were people with pretty serious functional problems who never did make it anywhere. They are pretty much the forgotte
762.
by flomo 12y ago
It certainly wasn't ideal and a legitimate issue for a lot of people. But at the same time there was a group of huge loudmouths who went on the warpath because piracy/paranoia/EA hatred/whatever. The whole SC incident bo
763.
by flomo 12y ago
Doing this sort of thing at scale would only be efficient if you were using slave labor or something close to it. If Etsy lets their employees take a bike-break for a good cause, fine. But I feel much better about giving my compost to a un
764.
by flomo 12y ago
> Forcing use of Origin, Sims being online only So much smoke has been blown about these things, it has almost been overlooked that SimCity apparently just wasn't a very fun game. Tiny cities, bugs, overly-complicated simulator that
765.
by flomo 12y ago
Gates may have been referring to a greatly-hyped 1990s mobile startup called (coincidentally?) General Magic, who promised software agents which could do things like book flights. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_M
766.
by flomo 12y ago
Have the same model with the NV graphics, and have had occasional video glitching since I bought it refurbished. Crashes were rare until Yosemite, and perhaps my DP port is getting funky. I've wondered if these are also semi-defective,
767.
by flomo 12y ago
Just to reinforce this, I worked with a F50 which offered vendors standardized tiers of quicker payments, in return for discounts which were (much) more than whatever their expected interest income would be. The terms weren't negotiate
768.
by flomo 12y ago
No, they can't. The key crime in the antitrust trial was Microsoft preventing OEMs from installing additional software (Netscape).
769.
by flomo 12y ago
Javascript type coercions might make sense if you realize it was originally designed for a close integration with HTML forms using a simplified proto-DOM ("Level 0"). The idea was more like "isNaN(myForm.myField)"? For a
770.
by flomo 12y ago
I cracked up over the famous NaNNaNNaNNaN Batman presentation. But, IMO that table is very predictable for a 'dynamic' language, for the normal use-cases. It only gets strange on the outer edges with oddball arrays and objects. Bu
771.
by flomo 12y ago
TIFF has a gazillion extensions. It's already possible to find TIFF files that can only be read with very specific software.
772.
by flomo 12y ago
>why apple doesn't have some sort of .app.gz "special" In addition to other fine explanations provided, it did. The defacto standard was ".sit.hqx" -- BinHexed Stuffit archive, both third-party tools that survive
773.
by flomo 12y ago
Registration failed for me with a message suggesting such remedies as trying a different email address. Punched in a gmail address and it worked. Perhaps coincidentally.
774.
by flomo 12y ago
At least in my line of work, the big gist of that question is: "Can this person summarize a technical issue in a comprehensible way for the audience? e.g. So that it could be passed through various sales teams and project managers, bu
775.
by flomo 12y ago
I think it's much more complex than that. Here was my first experience observing someone using Google Glass in the field, in a SF coffeehouse: >See attractive woman. >See bespeckled gentleman apparently leering grotesquely at the
776.
by flomo 12y ago
I recently installed pkgsrc for osx, and so far so good. (I've never liked the idea of installing software by compiling it.) However this project could really use some nice webpages and instructions to promote it. It seems like most Ma
777.
by flomo 12y ago
Agreed about the issues with Amtrak. But in most locations, your 'two things' requires a completely separate right-of-way for authentic high-speed rail. That is exactly what happened with California HSR: Originally they planned to
778.
by flomo 12y ago
This is an unproductive discussion, you're telling me that "you're wrong, but I don't know why". In any case, "trivial" has a meaning under copyright law and therefore is very relevant to the GPL and whate
779.
by flomo 12y ago
Actually, the article makes no explanation of why GNU is specially identifying "trivial" programs, nor how they came up with their guidelines. And neither do you. So I will maintain that my copyright explanation is the best explan
780.
by flomo 12y ago
It's a legal distinction. Code which is 'trivial' or 'functional' cannot be copyrighted, so therefore the GPL doesn't apply.[1] The example given there is a Hello World dialog, but certainly I have written tons

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