ken

27 ms·

211.
by ken 6y ago
How many developers care about "certified Unix", or can even say exactly what that means? Is anyone buying Macintosh computers in order to run their certified Unix software? Linux isn't certified , and none of developers us
212.
by ken 6y ago
Because there isn't any other operating system that makes all the things I want to do with a computer any simpler. We've got only 3 major desktop operating systems, and they're all overly complex and poorly designed in lot
213.
by ken 6y ago
Interestingly, no problem at all with an iPhone SE, a phone packed with 5-year-old technology.
214.
by ken 6y ago
I wrote a CSS rule to hide it, and the Google changed their DOM structure so it broke. Then I updated my user stylesheet, then they broke it again. I don’t have the energy to continue, so I’m left with that classic software dilemma: good un
215.
by ken 6y ago
"We can write a compiler as a set of macros." -- Peter Norvig
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by ken 6y ago
Not the person you were responding to, but: implements security with fine-grained and system-enforced permissions, not human approval for apps. One of these methods has a much better track record than the other.
217.
by ken 6y ago
I've seen a definite shift in what "artificial intelligence" means. Norvig's PAIP is all about manipulating symbols. It's so fundamental that in any other language you'd have to Greenspun an interpreter firs
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by ken 6y ago
> People who don’t like sports have always paid for cable networks they didn’t watch. Exactly. So now we think that sports fans paying for games they can't watch is going to cause a problem? These business people have spent deca
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by ken 6y ago
I don't know anyone who compiles their own Postgres at all. AWS is a pretty common "distro" (of sorts). Postgres 12.2 was released 2020-02-13, and AWS RDS supported it on 2020-03-31. You don't have to wait very long to
220.
by ken 6y ago
As the other comments here said, languages at the time did not generally have call stacks. It'd probably be more accurate to say that languages like Algol got call stacks because they were needed in order to implement recursion.
221.
by ken 6y ago
"Arguably the most deployed Lisp today?" That's an interesting question. My other guess would have been Gimp, and based on a quick glance at Debian's popcon, I'd say Gimp might be slightly in the lead. Then again,
222.
by ken 6y ago
> The fact of the matter is that we have open plan layouts with minimal space per employee (basically a desk plus chair) because of cost. This claim is repeated in every HN post about open floor plans. I'm sure there are some cases
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by ken 6y ago
Yes but that's not their concern. It never was. We can now clearly see what the threshold is for management making such decisions. Workers complaining of work conditions? Research showing decreased productivity? Nope. Not going t
224.
by ken 6y ago
The internet existed before ads, too. This website we're on now has no ads. Advertising is not the inevitable endgame of any particular forum. It's only there because we accept it. If I go to my public library and ask if I can
225.
by ken 6y ago
> HQ audio quality (over 4G) is markedly better than land lines This is one of those facts that, no matter how many times I hear it or what proof is offered, I find it impossible to believe.
226.
by ken 6y ago
I think this extends beyond the standard library. In my experience, once I've written a Clojure function, I rarely need to go back and edit it. The obvious, natural way to implement anything also tends to be correct, concise, generic
227.
by ken 6y ago
How do you figure? He's not using any reference types, and he's using a language that doesn't even have a GC. It's likely the Set<Path> will use heap allocation internally (there isn't really a way around tha
228.
by ken 6y ago
Are they still? I’ve certainly noticed in other areas (like tech support) they’ve gone from “hungry startup” to “division of mega corporation”.
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by ken 6y ago
GitHub wikis are repos, too, so they’re trivial to clone.
230.
by ken 6y ago
> In some programming languages, e.g. TeX, Forth, PostScript, etc you cannot really syntax highlight the program without executing it. Technically true. In practice, however, I've run into way more issues with syntax highlighters
231.
by ken 6y ago
I was maybe 8 or 9 at the time. I guarantee I missed 'the point' of a lot of things at that age! Shoot me. Even today, though, if you told me there was a great new programming language, but I had to wait a minute every time I
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by ken 6y ago
He doesn't use the term, but this looks exactly like an embedded domain-specific language. It's a nice improvement on the original sample program.
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by ken 6y ago
That's an interesting connection. Logo claimed to be "interactive" but staring at a compilation log go by for 30 or 60 (or more) seconds really pushed the limits of what one might consider "interactive". Whereas, &
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by ken 6y ago
Is Flutter what Google uses for their iOS apps? Every time I try to use Drive or Sheets on iOS, I get frustrated that nothing works right, and after 2 minutes I give up and make a mental note to view/edit the file when I get home. The
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by ken 6y ago
Logo was a hard pill to swallow in the 1980's. It had some neat features 'on paper' but it was hard to appreciate them because it was agonizingly slow on the computers of the day. It was the first programming experience I ev
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by ken 6y ago
How often do you actually do "dup, swap, roll" in a Forth program, though? The typical Forth program doesn't look like the samples you see on its Wikipedia page, just like the typical C program doesn't look like the sam
237.
by ken 6y ago
I’m not sure what “feels hackish” means but it sounds suspiciously like a nonspecific complaint that is used when all the actual potential issues have been exhausted. In programming, we’re always dealing with stacks. It’s just that they’re
238.
by ken 6y ago
Apple has silently compressed files (including executables) since Snow Leopard [1] -- to increase speed. Did Ubuntu pick the wrong compression algorithm? [1]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2009/08/mac-os-
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by ken 6y ago
I thought the Windows Registry was reviled because it was a single database that held everything from user customization to device driver and boot configuration, in one file. It was contrasted with the Unix/Linux way, which was single
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by ken 6y ago
The title is catchy and it's not exactly wrong. There's an element of truth to it. And yet, 99% of the times I hear it, it's as an excuse for crap, not some fundamental truth. Dirt has to live somewhere, too. That's

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