shoyer

24 ms·

211.
by shoyer 12y ago
This stack overflow discussion summarizes pros of immutability reasonably well: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1863515/pros-cons-of-immu... The main reason is that mutable objects are more complex and thus har
212.
by shoyer 12y ago
True, but who really wants the mutating version? Worse, do we really want to make it more obvious/natural to modify in place? I think this is a standard library convention that is best forgotten. In pandas, for example, you need to wri
213.
Show HN: Xray: N-D labeled arrays and datasets in Python(github.com)
6 points by shoyer 12y ago|0 comments
214.
by shoyer 12y ago
By "state in general", I particularly meant mutable or nonlocal state in general. There is obviously nothing wrong with using variables. To restate my analogy: the problem is when you can run the same function twice with the same
215.
by shoyer 12y ago
the moral of the story is avoid modes whenever possible We try to avoid using global state (and state in general) in software engineering for this exact same reason. Humans just aren't good at keeping track of more than a few
216.
by shoyer 12y ago
To be fair, mixing math and display logic in a giant function like that is a bad idea in any programming language. But the frightening flexibility of the Mathematica language certainly doesn't help.
217.
by shoyer 12y ago
Actually, print(a, b, c) works in Python 3.
218.
by shoyer 12y ago
"everybody in physics these days uses Word to compose papers" What subfield of physics have you worked in? In my experience, this is not remotely true. Almost paper I read in grad school (e.g., on arXiv/quant-ph) was written
219.
by shoyer 12y ago
Is there support for saving/restoring window layouts? I find that feature very handy in Slate when removing/adding external monitors.
220.
by shoyer 12y ago
Can you elaborate on what a "Fully funded fellowship" means? I'm guess it's vague because you haven't figured out how much support you'll be able to provide yet?
221.
by shoyer 12y ago
I'm not sure... you should ask on Cliff's blog! The NWS/NOAA websites are rather ad-hoc and disorganized.
222.
by shoyer 12y ago
You missed the biggest player in numerical weather forecasting -- the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). Everyone agrees their models are the world's best. Regrettably, the American models are pretty far behind
223.
by shoyer 12y ago
Yes, of course they did what D-wave calls quantum annealing. As you say, that's all the D-Wave machines can do. The D-Wave executive's claim that the problems used in the study are "not at all the right choice for probing a q
224.
by shoyer 12y ago
Looks like a cool project... but I hope the plan to open source their library to export Scikit-Learn classifiers to PMML! This would be a great way for them to give back to the open source community.
225.
by shoyer 12y ago
This link makes much more sense now that I see that the article is already published rather than being submitted to Science. Journals like Science and Nature have strict policies of not publishing papers if the results have already been
226.
by shoyer 12y ago
There are a lot of people who manage to live in the bay area on far less than $7500/month. For example, it's very affordable to live in Oakland and commute in on BART.
227.
by shoyer 13y ago
My experience is that R more often has advanced statistical packages you might want, but Python (particularly pandas) can be much faster. R's ggplot is also way better than anything in the Python ecosystem. IPython's notebook actu
228.
by shoyer 13y ago
It took some searching to find the "What's New" page: http://ipython.org/ipython-doc/dev/whatsnew/version2.0.html The principal milestones of 2.0 are: - interactive widgets for the no
229.
by shoyer 13y ago
"Nobody but Monsanto benefits from Roundup Ready products" Not even the farmers who grow the seeds with Monsanto's traits? Thousands of Monsanto's happy customers would beg to differ. You benefit, too, because GM crops a
230.
by shoyer 13y ago
Because already means element-wise power. The reason we need a new operator (@) for matrix multiplication is precisely so we can all the same operators for arrays that we already use for scalars.
231.
by shoyer 13y ago
Guido has indicated that he is ready to accept the PEP after a few details are worked out: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/python-ideas/aHVlL6BAD... So it appears that we will indeed have @ for matrix m
232.
by shoyer 13y ago
Pending resolution of a few details, Guido has indicated that he is ready to accept the PEP: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/python-ideas/aHVlL6BAD...
233.
PEP 465: Dedicated infix operators for matrix multiplication and matrix power(legacy.python.org)
3 points by shoyer 13y ago|1 comments
234.
by shoyer 13y ago
You create a list, so this expression won't shortcut like or. Or is definitely the right way to write an expression like this. Any has its place, but mostly when it's input is a generator, e.g., any(k in obj for k in other)
235.
by shoyer 13y ago
"given enough time every satellite will hit the tether" Let's do a back of the envelope calculation: https://www.google.com/search?q=(pi%20*%20(radius%20of%20the... If a satellite in low-earth orbit has a cro
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by shoyer 13y ago
There has been plenty of hype about quantum coherence in photosynthesis, too, which I have played a part in debunking [1]. It is clear (in my opinion) that quantum coherent motion not play a large role in energy transfer in photosynthesis,
237.
by shoyer 13y ago
I recently finished my physics PhD focused on quantum effects in photosynthesis, and I saw Hameroff and Bandyopadhyay's talks at Google's "Quantum Biology" workshop back in 2010. These guys live in a bizarre alternate un
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by shoyer 13y ago
Better idea: bite the bullet, drop PHP. Switch to a language that was designed. In the eyes of many of us, PHP is beyond redemption.
239.
by shoyer 13y ago
...except PHP still has htmlspecialchars as a core library function. If Linux ever had these some of warts, they were resolved long ago.
240.
by shoyer 13y ago
Yes, exactly. You don't need to understand quantum mechanics to understand most biological processes (within the limits of our current knowledge). Biologists don't need to learn quantum mechanics.

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