sfpotter

19 ms·

301.
by sfpotter 3y ago
If you’re in a situation where you “truly need” type safe generic interfaces, why wouldn’t you just use a different language? I don’t understand your second point.
302.
by sfpotter 3y ago
I don’t see how generic programming (a la polymorphic types as presented) is the only or even the best solution to this problem.
303.
by sfpotter 3y ago
What is an example of an embedded systems project which truly benefits from a generic library in the way that you described?
304.
by sfpotter 3y ago
Definitely unnecessary for them to be a part of every educated person’s library. This is a pretty absurd viewpoint. The reality is that there are loads of educated people who contribute vast amounts to the world without even the most passin
305.
by sfpotter 3y ago
Example? Why not just use C++?
306.
by sfpotter 3y ago
What problem does this solve that isn’t superficial? I don’t see why it’s important to include.
307.
by sfpotter 3y ago
I haven’t looked at it. If it seems cool and fun, why not? If you’re near a university with a decent math library, I would start there. Wander around the stacks and see what you find anything that engages you. If not, don’t sweat it—do some
308.
by sfpotter 3y ago
The math books that made the list are ones that always rate highly on these lists, but I think they are uniformly bad choices for people with a more passive or recreational interest in math. A lot of textbook publishers have series for unde
309.
by sfpotter 3y ago
Having an idea that could be a successful startup is very close to unimportant. Lots of ideas can be successful startups, and having them is easy. The hard part is having a ton of drive, the right mixture of personality traits, and the priv
310.
by sfpotter 3y ago
There are loads of people who'd be willing to do this at a national lab. The bigger problem is that very few national labs are located in places many young people want to live. For the ones that are (LBL), it's competitive to get
311.
by sfpotter 3y ago
You'd be surprised. People who aren't particularly interested in programming qua programming don't typically have strongly held opinions about it. Using the same programming language as the group you're working in is usu
312.
by sfpotter 3y ago
If knowledge evaporates, maybe it wasn’t useful knowledge after all. Likewise, if a niche disappears, it wasn’t a good niche. Good long term strategy in terms of developing your career technically comes down to identifying knowledge and nic
313.
by sfpotter 3y ago
I've had an anti-library for a good long while now, and what I've noticed is that occasionally I'll realize that I book I have is the perfect primer for a subject I need to get quickly up to speed on. This is usually only bec
314.
by sfpotter 3y ago
A totally different but very nice approach to generating uniform-ish node distributions is described in this paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S089812211... Useful for PDE and geometry.
315.
by sfpotter 3y ago
I didn't find these examples particularly illuminating, and I'm also a geometry-forward thinker. Systems of linear inequalities became transparent to me when I took a class on optimization and learned linear programming from the p
316.
by sfpotter 3y ago
Same thing in C99: static const uint8_t table[256] = { ['\0'] = 1, ['a'] = 1, ['/'] = 1, ['\\'] = 1, }; bool get_table_value(char c) {
317.
by sfpotter 3y ago
Well, as far as I can tell, we don’t have any philosopher’s stones kicking around… There are more than a few parallels between AGI and philosopher’s stones. Base metals were never successfully turned into gold, and we are literally not ma
318.
by sfpotter 3y ago
“We believe Artificial Intelligence is our alchemy, our Philosopher’s Stone – we are literally making sand think.” Uhh, does Marc Andreesen know how things went down historically for alchemy…? Or how the word “alchemy” is used colloquially?
319.
by sfpotter 3y ago
They should… have the decency? What? Are you familiar with our government?
320.
by sfpotter 3y ago
What percentage of NYC apartments are rent-controlled?
321.
by sfpotter 3y ago
Follow These Five Easy Steps And You Too Can Be a Great Artist!
322.
by sfpotter 3y ago
Your comment was only downvoted because the average HN reader is not artistically inclined.
323.
by sfpotter 3y ago
If you don't come from a math-y background and are trying to "get into serious mathematics", the only way to do this is to get a PhD. I realize this might come across as gatekeeping, but the reality is that each subfield of m
324.
by sfpotter 3y ago
I think this is correct.
325.
by sfpotter 3y ago
It is a dud.
326.
by sfpotter 3y ago
People on HN love this article. I think it's because people on HN have a self-flattering view of themselves and their intelligence. The irony is that HN is itself a cargo cult.
327.
by sfpotter 3y ago
This is a horrible framing, and in fact, not even true.
328.
by sfpotter 3y ago
How can you be so sure they wouldn’t buy a Hummer-style bicycle?
329.
by sfpotter 3y ago
Strongly recommend using meson or CMake instead of Make unless you have a very specific reason you can’t use one of these tools.
330.
by sfpotter 3y ago
There’s space between highly speculative startups, huge stagnant companies, and open source: small privately held companies teamed by highly skilled engineers building products outside the “web space” that actually do something useful.

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