wduquette

5 ms·

61.
by wduquette 7mo ago
Loreline transpiles to Java, but from the diagram it looks like that only works with Android. Is it possible to use Loreline with Java on other platforms?
62.
by wduquette 7mo ago
The Habanas don't seem to have page numbers, which is one of the things I particular like about the 1917s.
63.
by wduquette 7mo ago
I love the Leuchtterm 1917s. They've got everything you say, and they hold up under daily use without falling apart. As for pens, I use the Uniball Jetstream 0.38 ballpoint--fine point, doesn't skip, and I prefer ballpoints. I u
64.
by wduquette 7mo ago
I keep notes in Obsidian...but when I'm genuinely studying a text I write out a precis as an outline in my bullet journal, and later transcribe it. That means that I engage with the material at least twice: once when I first read it,
65.
by wduquette 7mo ago
They won't rename themselves again. They're um, "beyond" that.
66.
by wduquette 7mo ago
In almost forty years of experience, the fraction of developers I've known who read in the field beyond what's strictly needed for their task is very small. I'm always delighted when I find one.
67.
by wduquette 8mo ago
Sure they can, but it’s still five to ten years away. (Rimshot)
68.
by wduquette 8mo ago
Have you seen Z notation? See also TLS+.
69.
by wduquette 8mo ago
> All control structures are reserved as keywords in Haskell and they're not extensible from within the language. In C I can't tell that an if(condition) isn't a function call or a macro without searching for additional sy
70.
by wduquette 8mo ago
I don't have any real problem with words that are reserved absolutely and words that are reserved just in particular places. My point was more that in Algol-derived languages control structures look like control structures. And even
71.
by wduquette 8mo ago
Semantics are where the rubber meets the road, certainly; but syntax determines how readable the code is for someone meeting it the first time. Contrast an Algol-descendant like C, Pascal, Java, or even Python with a pure functional languag
72.
by wduquette 8mo ago
Sounds very cool. I've dabbled with Lisp on and off since the mid-80's, starting with a text adventure in LISP-80 on a Kaypro 4, and though I've never written a serious project in Lisp I've learned a great deal from it.
73.
by wduquette 8mo ago
I'm on a similar arc to the OP, except that it looks like I started about rather earlier, in the late 70's. My job title is "software engineer"; but I long ago chose to regard myself as not so much an engineer but as a
74.
by wduquette 8mo ago
Many years ago I was fortunate to hear management consultant Peter Drucker give a talk aimed at budding management consultants. At one point he said, "Never work for someone you do not respect." The crowd laughed. He said, in a
75.
by wduquette 8mo ago
It's certainly the case that I don't always know how the layer below works, i.e., how the compiled code executes in detail. But I have a mental model that's good enough that I can use the compiler, and I trust that the compi
76.
by wduquette 9mo ago
Grady Booch said that any large system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a smaller system that worked. I've seen this cited as Gall's Law, from John Gall's 2012 book Systemantics, but I read it in a book by
77.
by wduquette 9mo ago
Memory has always been measured in binary units. Storage vendors have always measured capacity in decimal units, going back at least to the 80 MB (!) hard drive I paid about $800 for back in the late '80s. It was the first time I ran
78.
by wduquette 9mo ago
The article has a graphic contrasting a "Random" distribution vs. a "Universal" distribution vs. a "Periodic" distribution. I'm guessing the "Random" distribution is actually a Poisson distribut
79.
by wduquette 9mo ago
It's a whole lot of fun.
80.
by wduquette 9mo ago
Simply my favorite programming text of all time.
81.
by wduquette 9mo ago
Been there, did that, very much enjoy the result.
82.
by wduquette 9mo ago
I took him to mean "deep" in the sense of "strongly felt", not as a comment on how sensible or well-informed the opinion is.
83.
by wduquette 10mo ago
“Cold-blooded software” concisely expresses something I’ve thought about for years. Modern software based on HTML/CSS and frameworks works great so long as maintenance is ongoing. But for software I write for myself, I much prefer co
84.
by wduquette 10mo ago
You’re speaking of implementing yet another system of a familiar kind, I.e. a new project. The OP says that generic design works for new projects. He’s mostly talking about designing new features to be added to an existing system, in whic
85.
by wduquette 10mo ago
Fans might also look at Steven Brust's fantasy Dumas pastiches, especially The Phoenix Guards, set in the same world as his Vlad Taltos novels. Truly a hoot.
86.
by wduquette 10mo ago
No; muskets were a battlefield weapon, and little of the book takes place on the battlefield. You wouldn’t carry them around Paris.
87.
by wduquette 11mo ago
And in fact, professionally, I still live in the good old days. I code in Java 21, I minimize dependencies, and I use an IDE that can do the heavy lifting when I want to refactor something…which is often. I produce a .jar that gets instal
88.
by wduquette 11mo ago
This is something I have known (but not by this name) since the early 90’s. A proposed feature a customer brings to you is almost never what they need. You must iterate with them to discover their real problem and move on from there. I le
89.
by wduquette 11mo ago
The rubber rollers were degrading on mine, or I’d have done something similar.
90.
by wduquette 11mo ago
I watched this happen from the outside. I bought a Laserjet IV when it was first released; by the time it started to fail, many years later, USB had killed the older printer interfaces. It was a workhorse. I wouldn’t even look at an HP p

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