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FurrBall

51 karma · joined July 13, 2013

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FurrBall··on Vim.js - JavaScript port of Vim
Too slow for me on Chrome.
FurrBall··on Free Games: Fallout, Fallout 2, and Fallout Tactics
Baldur's Gate 2 is still my all-time favorite. It is more than just a game. One of humanities greatest works of art.
FurrBall··on "You're not qualified to join our team"
"...we'd like to extend an invitation to you to apply again whenever you feel more capable".

Sounds like it was written by a pompous egg head on a power trip.

FurrBall··on Ask HN: Chess players here?
I play yahoo's online chess once and a while.
FurrBall··on [dead]
Wages cannot be too low. It's simple supply and demand. Too many workers, with little demand for their work. Evidenced by the fact people are willing to work at wal-mart wages.

I would love for everyone to be successful but it's not the kind of thing you can wave a magic wand with a fantasy solution, dump blame on wal-mart, then call it a day.

FurrBall··on Ask HN: Introduction to the Java Ecosystem for Someone Wanting to Learn Clojure?
I'd suggest skipping Clojure altogether. The JVM cannot support tail call optimizations. Use of recursion will be muffled a bit. Not very lispy.

Newer is not always better. Try racket or common lisp.

FurrBall··on Ask HN: What are you doing for Halloween?
I was part of a haunted house. Kids went through the backyard and garage. With really good candy at the end (snickers bars, kit kat, etc)

My girlfriend's brother was a clown with a real chainsaw (chain removed). It is amusing how much clowns scare people.

FurrBall··on Ask HN: what open source project do you want on your tombstone?
I don't have a tombstone worthy project.

But my favorite personal project is a database comparison tool. It is basically a "diff" on databases. Everything from the schema, to stored procs, indexes, etc. It also works cross database. You can compare Oracle to SQLServer to [insert DB here].

There are lots of database "diff" tools. But I believe mine is the only one that works well cross-database. And it's easy to add support for a new database (day's work at most).

FurrBall··on Ask HN: what open source project do you want on your tombstone?

  "the tools I use recognize that structure"
Yes. I would describe it as parsing the content into a tree. Interaction's with content can then be legal operations on the tree, instead of random acts on plain text.

Thank you for putting in the labor to create tree-based interaction.

FurrBall··on Ask HN: Do you see the future in Go?
Absolutely. Generics are too powerful an abstraction to do without in 2013. I can't imagine coding without them. Go is a no-go for me.

Everyone talks down on C++ but it's one of the few languages that gets generics right. The only language with implicit RAII (not explicit like C#/Java). The only language to put into practice 0 cost abstractions.

FurrBall··on Ask HN: What are HNs views on Marijuana/ Medical Marijuana?
Sure there are health issues from inhaling smoke. But a strategy of suppression and control rarely creates a better world. Instead it empowers criminal organizations who use violence to make a foothold in the black market. Like the mafia during prohibition. Or the Mexican drug cartels in present day.

Marijuana is safer than alcohol. Too much alcohol will cause death. You cannot OD on marijuana.

Marijuana is safer than Tylenol which a kid can buy over the counter in a store. Too much Tylenol will shut down your liver. You cannot OD on marijuana.

Repeatedly punching yourself in the face causes brain damage. It's a dangerous power every kid in the world has. But putting them in straight jackets is not a good solution.

Recreational use of Marijuana is bad. However I do not believe the answer is suppression and control.

FurrBall··on Ask HN: What system programming language do you use and why?
I use C++. For user applications, not "systems".

-Momentum. I am already familiar with it.

-RAII and smart pointers

-Generics

-Best supported for cross-platform mobile phone use.

FurrBall··on National Skills Registry - India
They are treating people like cattle. Herd em up, brand em, and profit.
FurrBall··on UN caused deadly cholera in Haiti, covered it up, lawsuit says
It's a community of hackers. But topics are not restricted by category.
FurrBall··on Is Microsoft The Right Technology For A Scalable Web-Based System?
I thought I was the only one using C# and Postgres. Secret's out!
FurrBall··on Haskell & Happstack Teacher for Queer/Trans/Disabled/Female People of Color
Because it makes the troll more elegant and pure.
FurrBall··on Ask HN: How do you find "coders with families" in the Bay Area?

  "Us founders are blitzing 80+ hours a week."
This is where most people with a family would stop reading.

  "If you're young and energetic, come join us."
That is border-line ageist. The rest is a half-hearted apology that won't entice a normal person to want to work in the advertised conditions.
FurrBall··on Ask HN: How do you find "coders with families" in the Bay Area?
That wording doesn't sound very attractive. Down right scary actually.
FurrBall··on Ask HN: what would you do with $750k that you just inherited?
I'd buy a house for myself.

I'd buy 1 low-end rental property (dip my toes in with 1 before finding out I don't like land-lording).

With that much cash, inflation becomes a big issue. You don't want to let the money sit in a regular checking or savings account. I'd hire an adviser on where to park the rest of the money to protect against inflation with minimal risk.

I wouldn't try to convert all of the money to real assets. The liquidity of paper is nice.

I would continue to work. It's a lot of money but I wouldn't call it set for life.

I would avoid high risk investments. ie no start ups.

Disclaimer: I am risk averse.

FurrBall··on Bjarne Stroustrup – The Essence of C++ [video]
Well you do have to ban raw pointers. Heap allocation is safe with smart pointers.
FurrBall··on Ask HN: What are the best technologies you have worked with in 2013?
New? I'm still going headfirst down the Emacs rabbit hole. You can never escape wonderland.
FurrBall··on Grand Theft Auto V Earns $800 Million in a Day
It's not strange if you consider there were no female programmers on the team. Demographics is a different point all together.
FurrBall··on Bjarne Stroustrup – The Essence of C++ [video]
Pasting a response:

Blocks are an improvement, but not the same as RAII. A block is literally converted to a try-finally by the compiler. It is the same thing with a cleaner syntax. There is no safety added to the old Java way. A programmer can forget to put his stuff in a block and leak the resource the same as he forgets to use a try-finally. The onus is on the consumer, not the library writer.

With C++ RAII the onus is removed from the consumer. The consumer writes safe code automatically, no onus to remember any special clean up idioms.

FurrBall··on Bjarne Stroustrup – The Essence of C++ [video]
Reality is there are many Java code bases which handle resources like this. For java 6 and below this not bad code; it is how you are forced to deal with resources.

Even with the new block syntax, you have painful nesting if the operation requires several disparate resources.

Blocks are an improvement, but not the same as RAII. A block is literally converted to a try-finally by the compiler. It is the same thing with a cleaner syntax. There is no safety added to the old Java way. A programmer can forget to put his stuff in a block and leak the resource the same as he forgets to use a try-finally. The onus is on the consumer, not the library writer.

With RAII the onus is removed from the consumer. The consumer writes safe code automatically, no onus to remember any special clean up idioms.

FurrBall··on Bjarne Stroustrup – The Essence of C++ [video]
I look at Java code and it horrifies me. Java is great if your resource is memory. It turns into a horrible unsafe mess the moment your resources are not memory.

  //C++ RAII goodness.
  void foo()
  {
  	conn.open();
  	file.open();
  	printer.activate();
  	//do stuff
  }
  
  //Java's lack of RAII is disturbing
  void foo()
  {
  	try{
  		conn.open();
  		file.open();
  		printer.activate();
  		//do stuff
  	}
  	catch(Exception e) { }
  	finally{
  		try {
  			conn.close();
  		}
  		catch(Exception ee) {}
  		finally{
  			try {
  				file.close();
  			}
  			catch(Exception eee) {}
  			finally {
  				try{
  					printer.close();
  				}
  				catch(Exceptoin eeee) {}
  			}
  		}
  	}
  }
FurrBall··on Ask HN: Career advice for a developer with 10+ years experience
I have no doubt ageism is real but it does not start in the 30's. Trust me. You have a few decades to go before ageism is your problem.
FurrBall··on Ask HN: What alternatives to floppy disks exist?
7 bucks shipped. And you can't save on shipping with a batch order. Not as disposable as a floppy but getting close.

I foresee the day we can buy $1 flash drives at the local dollar store. Relative to inflation.

FurrBall··on Ask HN: Which two books were the most influential on you?
This is going to sound like sucking up on hacker news but....

Hackers and Painters by Paul Graham. It is the reason I looked into lisp. A very entertaining read that made me change my opinion on several political issues.

FurrBall··on Ask HN: I'm a research engineer. How bad do I need an MBA?
If you work for people who promote MBA's then it could help get you promoted. Other than that I see little value. I'm a pessimist.

How much will the MBA cost and how much extra money would your promotion bring in? Need the inputs to answer "is it worth it?"

FurrBall··on GNU Emacs Manual by rms, 1st ed, 1985 [pdf]
RMS in full plate armor riding a GNU into battle. Epic.
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