wrs

24 ms·

421.
by wrs 11mo ago
It’s amazing how people are reading this to say the opposite of what it says. The end of the essay literally tells the reader they can appreciate Lisp if they just take the time to understand it, and they should make the effort. Not “if
422.
by wrs 11mo ago
My point was that you could implement type checking with macros, not that you could type check macros. (Though that would be cool!) As opposed to having to change the language definition first (Python) or implement an entirely new compiler
423.
by wrs 11mo ago
Talk about moving the goalposts! Did you implement TypeScript yourself before using it?
424.
by wrs 11mo ago
GCC can type-check printf (matching format string to arguments) because the compiler doesn’t just treat it like a function. But that requires special-case code in the C compiler itself that is basically opaque magic. Rust doesn’t need tha
425.
by wrs 11mo ago
The example that comes to mind immediately is that inline assembly is a Lisp macro. You can also read anybody ranting about how great Zig comptime is if you want more contemporary examples.
426.
by wrs 11mo ago
“Common, even”? Citation needed. I’ve worked closely with hundreds of developers over the years and maybe two of them made a conscious, knowledgeable choice whether to use Lisp for something. You’re even sort of making the same point. Speci
427.
by wrs 11mo ago
I’m writing a lot of Rust lately, which is rapidly becoming regarded as a conventional language, and I sure do appreciate all those things I use every day that end in exclamation points.
428.
by wrs 11mo ago
On the other hand, it would be easier to add type checking to a Lisp than it was to Python or JavaScript, and I don’t know any technical reason you couldn’t. A little Googling shows it’s been experimented with several times.
429.
by wrs 11mo ago
The essay’s thesis is “most people don’t consider Lisp because they don’t know what’s different and special about it”. I think that’s unarguably the case. You equated that with “everyone else is stupid”, which is uncharitable and not at all
430.
by wrs 11mo ago
In reality, most people, intelligent though they may be, don’t consider and reject Lisp, so that argument doesn’t really work. I know it irritates people who actually do consider and reject Lisp, but those people don’t realize that they
431.
by wrs 11mo ago
While what you say is true (I’ve used Lisps for 40 years and here I am writing Rust), the people who consciously make that choice are a tiny niche. There are vastly more people who don’t and can’t make that choice because they don’t have 1-
432.
by wrs 11mo ago
Let's include the Russians Stanislav Petrov and Vasily Arkhipov, who both refused to start a nuclear war. There should be a permanent monument to all these folks in Greenland or something.
433.
by wrs 11mo ago
My concern here is the behavior of the official and their bosses, not the visitor. No one has a right to politeness or professionalism from the official either, but as a citizen paying their salary, and a citizen with pride in my country, I
434.
by wrs 11mo ago
For one thing, as I understand it, the ACA was pretty effectively sabotaged by removing the mandate, which destroys the math that makes insurance work. Because pre-existing conditions have to be covered, you're free to wait until you h
435.
by wrs 11mo ago
This seems very much worth a look! (I suspect, to paraphrase Greenspun's rule, any sufficiently complicated app using Web Workers contains an ad hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of half of this library...)
436.
by wrs 11mo ago
Who said anything about a “right to enter”? This is just about not massively invading visitors’ privacy for no good reason. Of course, if you just don’t want anyone with intelligence or dignity to visit the country, this is great policy.
437.
by wrs 11mo ago
Far be it from me to defend Walmart, but… The relevant number here is not gross profit, but net income, which was more like $20B. And that’s on a gargantuan $680B of revenue, so the profit margin available for increasing wages is less than
438.
by wrs 11mo ago
Another example is the (very recently fixed) documented but unobvious and unenforceable requirements for calling Timer.Reset() [0]. [0] https://pkg.go.dev/time@go1.22.12#Timer.Reset
439.
by wrs 11mo ago
Yes, my example was garbled. Thanks @masklinn for correcting it for me below!
440.
by wrs 11mo ago
> In Go, a slice is a fat pointer to a contiguous sequence in memory, but a slice can also grow, meaning that it subsumes the functionality of Rust’s Vec<T> type and Zig’s ArrayList. Well, not exactly. This is actually a great ex
441.
by wrs 11mo ago
Ironically, years ago I fell into the habit of using too many non-interrupting em dashes because people thought semicolons were pretentious. But introductory rhetorical questions? As sentence fragments? There I draw the line.
442.
by wrs 11mo ago
Seattle has always been a second-mover when it comes to hype and reality distortion. There is a lot more echo chamber fervor (and, more importantly, lots of available FOMO money to burn) in SF around whatever the latest hotness is.
443.
by wrs 11mo ago
Reading a long explanation on a GoL forum is a great way to experience what it’s like for my spouse to listen to my work conversations on Zoom. This jargon is fantastic.
444.
by wrs 11mo ago
I’m surprised not to see more questions about this part: “It became endearingly known as the 'soul doc' internally, which Claude clearly picked up on.” What does that mean, “picked up on”? What other internal documents is Claude
445.
by wrs 11mo ago
You stopped quoting too soon; the best part is the error message that straight-up lies! “The printer driver is not installed on this computer.” Absolutely classic Windows right there.
446.
by wrs 11mo ago
I used one of these in 1978 or so, when it was the hotness, so it's great to see the restoration. However, I am compelled to point out that it doesn't have a "1024*780 pixel resolution", because it doesn't have pixe
447.
by wrs 11mo ago
None? A lot of written descriptions and textual side-effects of human behavior go into it. But no actual human behavior.
448.
by wrs 11mo ago
OK, so... Employees are compelled to go into the office, so they can have better in-person collaboration. They are also encouraged not to go to meetings (aka in-person collaboration sessions), so they can have more focus time. I haven'
449.
by wrs 11mo ago
> LLMs of today copy a lot of human behavior Funny, I would say they copy almost no human behavior other than writing a continuation of an existing text.
450.
by wrs 11mo ago
"Rational [citation needed] individuals at the other end of these deals" Your assumption is questionable. This is the biggest FOMO party in history.

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