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  1. Re:Betteridge is actually appropriate here on Does Switching Jobs Make You a Worse Programmer? (forrestbrazeal.com) · · Score: 1

    Those both sound like specific instances of DRY?

  2. All Macs that time where 68k based.

    We're still talking about *the 90's*, like Kristoph and Anon Coward were, right? Were you just trolling? The PowerPC-based Power Macintosh 6100 shipped in March of 1994.

    A/UX ran on all Macs.

    According to Wikipedia (and a few other sites I googled), A/UX did not run on PowerPC-based Macs. It may have been promised but was never delivered.

    far far far superior to an 80286 or 80683(sic)

    No duh, but Intel's 486 shipped in 1989 and the Pentium shipped in 1993. So you're not comparing the right things.

  3. Inferiour to a Windows PC, most definitely not.

    From a hardware bang-for-buck perspective, it was. This ended up being a good thing when we resold some of our old equipment.

    From a software perspective, it didn't start out that way (System 7 was much more pleasant for me to use than Windows 3.1), but NT 4.0 came out in 1996. A/UX only ran on some 68k-based Macs, which were getting long in the tooth by the late 90s.

  4. Re:Brain scan? on Why Some People Can Hear Silent GIF (bbc.com) · · Score: 1

    You absolutely do not visualize 10-dimensional shapes

    I read that as "10-dimensional herpes". I'm pretty sure I need to get my eyes checked. Or maybe something else.

  5. Re:Hasn't Ada fixed all of this decades ago? on Why ESR Hates C++, Respects Java, and Thinks Go (But Not Rust) Will Replace C (ibiblio.org) · · Score: 1

    My apologies for somehow blanking about Ada and operator overloading! I don't like saying wrong things.
    Looks like Ada does support it, even in Ada'83.

  6. Re:Hasn't Ada fixed all of this decades ago? on Why ESR Hates C++, Respects Java, and Thinks Go (But Not Rust) Will Replace C (ibiblio.org) · · Score: 1

    I don't currently use Rust or Ada, but I think Rust has enough original useful ideas and tradeoffs -- along with a corresponding need for a lack of baggage a la the "C -> C++" compatibility story -- that it was worth pursuing as a separate language.

  7. Re:Hasn't Ada fixed all of this decades ago? on Why ESR Hates C++, Respects Java, and Thinks Go (But Not Rust) Will Replace C (ibiblio.org) · · Score: 1

    I don't think the following necessarily disagrees with your post, but I'd like to elaborate on it.

    I get the point that doing something "the C++ way" can be more verbose than "the C way", especially when one is writing a library. Whether it's the pimpl pattern, rule of 3 (now rule of 5), overloading every stupid arithmetic operator for a numeric class, defining const/non-const versions of a method, adding template sugar everywhere to your declarations if you're working on a template class, adding standard iterability to a class ... it all makes for some pretty stupid boilerplate.

    That said, while life is more complex for the class implementor, the class user's life is much simpler. C coders shouldn't have to (poorly) reimplement a std::vector subset every time they need a dynamically-sized array of something, nor should they have to sacrifice RAII. Since a class is usually used more often than it is written, it's a net C++ win.

    There are other corner cases (like printf() vs iostreams) where the C++ way looks more complex, but works with arbitrary types. I still resent needing to use io manipulators (don't forget to reset your state!) for stream operations when I am really just working with C types. I do understand there are libraries like Boost.Format that help with this; it irks me that they are not standard.

  8. Re:Hasn't Ada fixed all of this decades ago? on Why ESR Hates C++, Respects Java, and Thinks Go (But Not Rust) Will Replace C (ibiblio.org) · · Score: 2

    I used Ada circa 1997 for a DoD project.

    Ada felt like industrial-strength Pascal. It was generally cool -- why *wouldn't* I want the compiler to range-check array index operations by default, at least for non-critical code paths? This could help me today, on *real problems*. Why *wouldn't* I want an enforced, specified order of initialization for global/static objects? I also strongly preferred the generics and exception syntax over their C++ equivalents. Ada's OS-agnostic task support was ahead of its time (hard for the language to support threads when the underlying OS doesn't).

    Going back to C afterwards felt like returning to something ... primitive. But, I develop in C++ today.

    Ada had historical issues and feature lags, some of which still plague it today, such as:
    -- historically, no free compiler (today, there is FSF GNAT)

    -- the object.method() - style syntax didn't show up until 2005; standardized bitwise operations didn't show up until 1995

    -- small standard library, which in general has lagged behind even what C++ supports. Containers didn't appear until 2005. Also, AFAIK Ada still has no equivalent of say, C++'s Boost or Rust's crates.io (though there are at least some Ada projects and libraries on Github). Want to call epoll() directly on Linux? In C++ you can use it directly; in Rust you can find a wrapper, in Ada you need to roll your own (to be fair, Ada's C interface support is excellent). Want standardized smart pointers? Maybe in Ada2020. If you want to make Ada more popular, I think this general problem of "I have to write my own version of xyz" is the single most important thing you could tackle.

    -- Some things are just relatively awkward to express in Ada, even beyond the normal verbosity of the language (some of which there are good reasons for). Here for example is a comparative look at closures. As another example, C++'s operator overloading is ripe for abuse, but it also enables a nice abstraction of, say, bignums or half-precision floats. AFAIK Ada has nothing like that. To be fair, you can make this criticism about any language for a given feature that might be important to your problem domain.

  9. Re:I actually saw this rocket in person on SpaceX Successfully Launches, Recovers Falcon 9 For CRS-12 (techcrunch.com) · · Score: 1

    Did they have "Firework" on repeat?

  10. Morons come in all nationalities on Only 36 Percent of Indian Engineers Can Write Compilable Code, Says Study (itwire.com) · · Score: 2

    I've worked (and work) with talented Indian developers, and ones who are frigging hackmasters, not in the good sense.

    When you hire a team of developers into a position where you treat, pay, and support them (in terms of infrastructure, equipment, etc.) like cheap drones, the devs you attract (or at least the ones who stick around) will tend to be ... the drones.

  11. Re:Just wait for Falcon Heavy on SpaceX Makes Aerospace History With Successful Launch, Landing of a Used Rocket (theverge.com) · · Score: 1

    Eventually, mining asteroids.

  12. Re:Can someone explain the turbine here? on Government Watchdog Says SpaceX Falcon 9s Are Prone To Cracks (engadget.com) · · Score: 1

    I'm not much better educated than yourself, but here's an attempt (which may be wrong):

    The higher the pressure a combustion chamber runs at, the more efficient the combustion tends to be, so your rocket goes higher for a given amount of fuel. To get enough fuel into a high pressure chamber you need a good fuel pump. To drive this fuel pump, a gas turbine is used (the resulting fuel pump is called a "turbopump").

    Inside the gas turbine, the turbine proper (the spinning fan-thingy at the back) is driven from a combustion chamber (normally different than the main chamber) that uses the same fuel/oxidizer as the main engine (though the plumbing paths/pressures are different). That turbine pressurizes the fuel for use by the main chamber. (Separate turbopumps are used to pressurize fuel and oxidizer)

    Did you have a more specific question?

  13. Re:That's what happens when you're offering 1 prod on Mac Sales Declined Nearly 10 Percent Last Year (9to5mac.com) · · Score: 1

    The iMac and Mac Mini are laptops being sold as desktops instead of being engineered to be what they are —desktop products.

    I don't see the problem with that, since the iMac + Mac Mini are severely space-constrained, just like a laptop. My AOpen MiniPC from 2009 uses what are, effectively, laptop parts.
    If you want to go after Apple, look at their soldering of memory and (especially) SSD parts to the chassis.

  14. Re:Best compiler for Plain Old C... on Slashdot's Interview With Swift Creator Chris Lattner · · Score: 1

    Which compiler is better for Plain Old C?

    It depends on what you're trying to do.
    As the author of a (crappy) chess engine, if you have a performance-sensitive app, then you just need to build it with both and see which one "wins". In my app's case, clang was a little faster, but YMMV.
    Both compilers will sometimes catch warnings that the other won't, so it's a good practice anyway.

    In terms of warning/error clarity, clang might be slightly better, but gcc's is perfectly fine (especially if you're used to it). In the rare case that you see an obtuse error from one of them (this happens more often w/C++ obviously) then you build it with the other and hope the error is more decipherable.

    Build time wise, I think clang is slightly faster, but if that is a huge deal for you, then you should probably be looking into a dedicated solution (see:meson/ninja, make -j, ElectricAccelerator etc.)

    Good luck!

  15. Re:So... on If You Get Rich, You Won't Quit Working For Long (bbc.com) · · Score: 1

    I agree regarding your father's lifestyle. I do think it's sad that your father dutifully stashed away (if I did the math correctly) $96k over the course of 8 years, only to have it sucked away in 6 weeks by cancer and funeral expenses.

  16. Re:The real losers are his supporters on Donald Trump Wins US Presidency (nytimes.com) · · Score: 1

    At the end of the day Trump is too incompetent to start a major war. Or do anything else too drastic. He is vain and intellectually lazy, so the lobbyists will keep him under control.

    This sounds a lot like what people would have said about Bush Jr (minus the "vain" part). Maybe by "major" you meant WW3?

  17. Re:Handing your vote to someone else on Donald Trump Wins US Presidency (nytimes.com) · · Score: 1

    >>> You have the right to vote for whoever you like best but you are idiotic for exercising that right in plain denial of the reality of the situation.

    Neither major party candidate had enough to offer on the issue(s) I care about. There was a 3rd party candidate who did, and I voted for them in good conscience. For that reason alone, I do not regret it.

    If your emphasis is on gaming the system, then let me phrase it in terms you will understand: I live in a non-swing state and would have effectively thrown away my vote on a minority candidate I didn't really like. If less people think like you in the future, and 3rd-party results become strong enough to more prominently affect elections, then perhaps it will send an appropriate message. In the meantime, I am comfortable enough to signal my dissatisfaction with both major party candidates via the most direct legitimate action possible, and I am pleased to make it easier for 3rd parties to obtain funding and get on the ballot in the future. Good luck to you sir.

  18. Also, the paradigm might discourages people used to classes and such

    I believe you're referring specifically to the (non-)support of class inheritance. Rust support for classes in general should be fine.

  19. Thanks to both cowards for the info!

  20. I don't know Ms. Pao, besides what I read on her wikipedia article. Nor do I agree with her actions regarding Y Combinator, even though I can't stand Trump and can see her perspective. Anyway:

    1) Where are you getting the sexual harrassment thing from? I do see a mention of a gender harrassment lawsuit in her bio.
    2) What you said sounds logical at first blush, but if you have sex with somebody, and they later make unwanted sexual advances to you (after it's made clear you're not interested anymore) then that is still sexual harassment is it not?

    In short, please clarify? What you're saying doesn't seem accurate.

  21. To be honest, no, I'm not. But he was pretty open with me about his situation, and I have seen him with weed, and not seen him with other drugs. I also researched it, and from what he described of his use and his symptoms, I had no reason not to believe him. Apparently it's possible to have a bad withdrawal if you're hard-core enough about it.

  22. I don't know, man. I had a jobless friend who convinced himself it was better to buy a little more weed and avoid going through withdrawal symptoms (he was a *really* heavy smoker) than to save his money for car insurance. He only stopped smoking because he ran out of money. He was about to the point of selling his truck for cash. I helped him out with his bills and food, as we both agreed if he didn't have a working vehicle things would have got much worse for him.

    That said, (and here's my point) I don't think you can expect "them" to make rational decisions $5 at a time. I think their general perspective, in their low moments, is "I'm screwed no matter what I do, so I might as well enjoy a little of it". Frankly, when I don't know somebody, and my sole interaction with them is going to be "do I hand this person money or not" I don't usually feel like I'm helping them whether I give or don't.

  23. Ummm ... here's better info about why the name was chosen:
    https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/...

  24. Re:Only as safe as the sandbox on Mozilla Will Ship Its First Rust Component In Firefox 48 (softpedia.com) · · Score: 3, Informative

    Java isn't supposed to be able to get out of its sandbox without permission, yet it's the source of many vulnerabilities. Why would we trust Rust to be any safer?

    Good question.

    My guess is that running untrusted Java code in a trusted Java sandbox has a much larger attack surface than playing untrusted media in a (more or less) trusted Rust app.

    The Rust code should still be an improvement, safety-wise, over the current C/C++ solution.
    That does not mean the Rust solution will be perfect, and it *definitely* doesn't mean you should download and run untrusted Rust apps!

  25. Re:Lynch will indict on Assange: Wikileaks Will Publish 'Enough Evidence' To Indict Hillary Clinton (rt.com) · · Score: 1

    The GP is referring to the impeachment of Andrew Johnson.