HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

Ygg2

8,245 karma · joined March 28, 2012

submissionscomments
Ygg2··on Waymo Safety Impact
> Aircraft typically carry hundreds of people and can crash to the ground.

Cars are more numerous and could spontaneously either plow into pedestrians, or rear-end someone, causing chain damage and, quite often, a spillage of toxic chemicals (e.g., a cistern carrying acid/fuel/pesticide).

Plus, you have a problem of hostile actors having easier access to cars compared to planes.

Ygg2··on Astral to Join OpenAI
I didn't know Claude bought Astral! /S
Ygg2··on Measuring progress toward AGI: A cognitive framework
AGI is defined now as "whatever makes 1 trillion dollars of profit".
Ygg2··on Type resolution redesign, with language changes to taste
Culinary they are separate. But fruit can refer to anything that develops from a pollinated flower. Including cucumber and strawberry.
Ygg2··on Type resolution redesign, with language changes to taste
> So, the question here is: What specific information is it that you think is failing to be effectively communicated?

Expressivity. As the video I linked before shows, there is a quantifiable and objective difference between a language that has exceptions and one that doesn't. Or lambda's or async.

What terms like "message passing" and "inheritance-based" capture is unique ability of each language to do something novel* other languages can't. Rust as of now lacks such capabilities, although it can probably simulate them to some extent.

*For message passing, it's the method record and replayer. For inheritance-based it can be something like easy DOM manipulation.

Ygg2··on Tech companies defeat bill as AI drains local water supplies
Why are they using blue water? Can't they just use grey water?
Ygg2··on Coding after coders: The end of computer programming as we know it?
True, but motivations for mass production also are motivations for making things worse off overall.
Ygg2··on Coding after coders: The end of computer programming as we know it?
> I am producing 5x as before, my boss is paying me the same salary just for two hours of actual work per day.

Great. Once your boss notices your actual work has decreased, he'll adjust compensation, increase workload, or both.

Ygg2··on Coding after coders: The end of computer programming as we know it?
> The assembly line has been mass producing ready-made products for over 100 years and yet product quality, material stability

Luckily if you want stability or quality they are nowhere to be found.

Ygg2··on Type resolution redesign, with language changes to taste
> It is, for some definition of object-oriented.

Sure, for some definition of red, green is red. E.g., colorblind people. I'm interested in more broadly accepted jargon.

The problem is, Rust isn't really object-oriented either. I'm interested in a mostly consistent and hopefully majority definition.

It's not message-passing sense (can't do cool fancy things* a la Ruby or Smalltalk); nor is it inheritance-based (can't do inheritance-based nor prototype-based OOP patterns).

There is one more mathematical definition of whether two features are equal, but it involves languages, local macros, and Turing machines. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43XaZEn2aLc

* There was some kind of message recorder and playback in Ruby/Smalltalk, that I can't find. Basically send methods to objects and record them, then playback them at later date. Will update if I find it.

Ygg2··on Type resolution redesign, with language changes to taste
Pretty sure even games moved to C#.
Ygg2··on Type resolution redesign, with language changes to taste
> Polymorphism? That was never mentioned. Let me reiterate the definitions

Sigh. Look at what started this whole discussion.

     > pjmlp: Plenty of OOP architectures can be implemented 1:1 in Rust type system.
It's pjmlp's insistence that Rust is object-oriented.

I'm fine with object-oriented meaning message passing.

I'm fine with object-oriented being used to describe inheritance based langs Java/C#/C++.

But where that fails miserably is when you try implementing inheritance based stuff like DOM in Rust.

You can't have your cake (all capabilities of OOP) and also eat it too (also most of them missing).

Rust was never about inheritance hierarchies or message passing.

It's just structs with privacy modifiers. And functions that are applied to them.

Ygg2··on Type resolution redesign, with language changes to taste
> That is exactly why the term "object-oriented" was originally coined for Smalltalk.

Sure but your definition doesn't cover it. If language for which the term was coined, it's a bit meaningless, ain't it.

Problem with making encapsulation and polymorphism essential to OOP definition, is that it then starts garbling up functional languages like Haskell and imperative like C.

I can see them being necessary but not enough to classify something as OOP.

> And when you look you'll soon find out that there is no commonality here.

Perhaps, but broadly speaking people agree that C++ and Java are OOP, but for example C isn't.

Same way when people say and give me a fruit (as in fruits and vegetables), you'd be looked oddly if you gave a cucumber, rather than an apple.

Same way can be thought of OOP. The common definition is basically covers Message-passing-languages, and inheritance/prototype based languages.

Ygg2··on Type resolution redesign, with language changes to taste
> The primary common ground is that their functions have encapsulation

You omitted Smalltalk. Most people would agree that SmallTalk is object-oriented.

But that kinda ruins the common ground thesis.

> Language evolves, certainly. It is fine for "object-oriented" to mean something else today.

pjmlp definition is very fuzzy. It judges object-orientedness based on a few criteria, like inheritance, encapsulation, polymorphism, etc. More checks, stronger OOP.

By that, even Haskell is somewhat OOP, and so is C, assembly, Rust, and any language.

---

What I prefer is looking at it as it's used. And how it's used for appears to be akin to using it as an everyday term fish or fruit.

No one would agree that a cucumber is a fruit. Or that humans are fish. Even though botanically and genetically they are.

Ygg2··on Type resolution redesign, with language changes to taste
I think the issue is OOP patterns are one part missing features, one part trying to find common ground for Java, Modula, C++, SmallTalk, that it ends up too broad.

A much saner definition is looking at how languages evolved and how term is used. The way it's used is to describe an inheritance based language. Basically C++ and the descendants.

Ygg2··on Type resolution redesign, with language changes to taste
> Plenty of OOP architectures can be implemented 1:1

Plenty of OOP architecture can be implemented in C. That's an extremely flawed and fuzzy definition. But we've been through this before.

Ygg2··on Type resolution redesign, with language changes to taste
That's disingenous, Rust tries to minimize errors, first at compile time then at runtime, even if it at some discomfort of to programer.

Zig goes for simplicity while removing a few footguns. It's more oriented towards programmer enjoyment. Keep in mind that programmers don't distinguish ease of writing code from ease of writing unforeseen errors.

Ygg2··on My “grand vision” for Rust
Scala had an unnatural dependency on Java, not JVM. I.e., imitating not just some patterns but copying its flawed interfaces. For example, Scala could express and bypass decades of cruft in the Java Collections API. Did it choose to do it?

To paraphrase former Scala developer and present poker player, "If Java cut its nose, would you Scala... Oh god, stop! The blood, the blood!"

Everyone who wants to talk to low-level code has to have C ABI. The equivalent Scalaism in Rust would be if Rust reimplemented the C-inspired java.util.Date. Yes. Monday should be 0, not an enum. Because C did it.

Ygg2··on LLM Writing Tropes.md
@ - @ jackrabbit
Ygg2··on My “grand vision” for Rust
Doubt Rust will ever get to implicit hell of Scala 2.

If for anything, Rust isn't married to C as Scala is to Java.

Ygg2··on My “grand vision” for Rust
> This may be too much advanced type theory for a useful language.

Maybe but:

- Move fixes Pin

- Linear types, prevent memory leaks

- potentially effects simplify so many things

Each of these functionalities unlock capabilities people have complained about Rust. Namely async, gen blocks, memory leaks.

Ygg2··on Claude is an Electron App because we've lost native
Sure, either of them qualifies. I was just pointing out that Delphi (and C, and VB) aren't really widely used in GUI toolkits anymore.

It's not just the difficulty. It's the lack of learning materials, widgets, examples, and whatnot. Debuggers also suck, at least they did when I used Delphi.

What also helps is having a huge behemoth of a corporation improving your GUI toolkit for free (Chromium, although you pay in ad exposure).

Ygg2··on Claude is an Electron App because we've lost native
There is a difference between being in business and thriving.

I've been in a few companies that managed to eke out a living by maintaining a piece of software no one in their sane mind would still maintain. Sometimes a government gig, sometimes the private sector.

Shoutout to my boys that in 2018 maintained a Java 1.3 app. Still going strong to this day (it was migrated to Java 8 last time I checked).

EDIT: ~21 Delphi apps in world! Woohoo! Delphi number #525

Ygg2··on Claude is an Electron App because we've lost native
What's the alternative for cross-platform GUIs? Qt? Swing? Avalonia?

Electron is bad, but it's the least bad of all other cross-platform GUIs.

> Most of those Electron folks would not manage to even write C applications on an Amiga, use Delphi, VB, or whatever.

That's true of most people on the planet. No one has access to them.

Ygg2··on Claude is an Electron App because we've lost native
> React was an instant hit because it had the facebook brand behind it and everyone was tired of angular.

Ok, but why was everyone tired of Angular? Sure, web frameworks are examples of Fad Driven Development to the extreme, but Angular.js, was pure unmitigated ARSE.

Made ten bindings on a page? That's 100 cross connections. Made 100 two-way bindings? that's 10000 connections.

Clicked one way through fields A, B then started typing, they show same data. Clicked through fields A and C, now they are bound but B isn't. Clicked B then C, congrats all three of your bindings suddenly start filling in.

It was a combination of shitty performance scaling and unintuitive Angular data flow that primed everyone for React to take over.

Ygg2··on U.S. science agency moves to restrict foreign scientists from its labs
Sure, but Trump was not campaigning on that; if anything he campaigned on being the most peaceful president. Hitler didn't campaign on honoring treaty of Versallies, and avoiding war with neighbors.
Ygg2··on Against Query Based Compilers
Fair point but auto traits are already leaky.

And they were created to minimize writing down what auto traits your types implemented. You can filter by them, but they are assumed automatic bounds.

And interestingly enough Zig doesn't have this property either it leaks constness, alignment and similar info.

Ygg2··on U.S. science agency moves to restrict foreign scientists from its labs
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Umberto Eco is a great writer, but whenever his list of ways to describe Blackshirts comes up, it fails.

First, it's very fuzzy. You don't have to have all aspects, but many aspects are present in many systems without it being outright fascist.

---

Is 5 out of 14 enough to make something fascist? Are "Appeal to a frustrated middle class", "Fascist societies rhetorically cast their enemies as 'at the same time too strong and too weak'", "Newspeak" and "Obsession with a plot" enough?

I think it confuses rhetorical devices like "Fascist societies rhetorically cast their enemies as 'at the same time too strong and too weak'" and "Newspeak" as hallmarks of Fascism when they are just a tool.

George Orwell famously pointed that calling things "fascist" and "Nazi" is in itself an example of Newspeak, because it's not used to describe a government system that is far-right, authoritarian, and extremely xenophobic, but it's used as a label to say something is Bad™.

It also confuses its populist roots and enemies at the time. "The cult of action for action's sake," and especially anti-intellectualism.

---

Like take Starship Troopers, an extremely fascistic society. Let's score it on Eco's scale. It definitely has "Rejection of Modernism", "Disagreement is treason", "Cult of action", "Fear of Difference", "Life is Warfare", "Everybody is a hero", and "Newspeak". So 7/14.

- Cult of tradition doesn't exist that much per se. Granted, I could have missed it.

- Appeal to the frustrated middle class; as far as we see, there isn't one .

- Obsession with plot isn't really a thing, because the Bugs aren't really a plot; they are a clear and present danger. The internal enemies if any aren't mentioned.

- Casting enemies as "at the same time too strong and too weak." Bugs are shown more or less realistically, they are a difficult enemy that can be defeated.

- "Selective populism". It's not so much selective populism as state enforced labor to gain citizenship.

- "Contempt for the weak" there isn't much out-group to belong to. The Terran Federation covers the globe, and almost everyone is a citizen. There isn't any contempt for underlings, even if there are military cross branch out-groups. Like real world counterparts jarheads, squids and wingnut.

- If Machismo exists, it's mutated to cover both sexes.

Granted, I might have missed a few, but still, shouldn't Eco's 14 traits light up more for a more fascistic society?

Ygg2··on U.S. science agency moves to restrict foreign scientists from its labs
Ok, but what are the hallmarks of a fascist state?
Ygg2··on U.S. science agency moves to restrict foreign scientists from its labs
Sure, I see ultranationalism. And if I squint, I can see that a huge chunk of the US population is pro-Trump, but that's not culty overall.

You can still speak against him, as far as I can tell. Compare this to, say, Mao Zedong. If you spoke against him, your life was forfeit, and even that's not fascism.

If this is one of those fuzzy definitions, it definitely isn't on the strong side. Where is the rampant militarism, the worship of death, and of the military?

← PreviousPage 7 of 34Next →