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For me the biggest hurdle was learning what they were 'for' and that took a long time. The real magic for me was capture groups - I could now suddenly see why you'd have a regex and not just string matching.

Then it was about knowing a situation or a problem when regexes would apply and knowing how to look up the things I needed to solve that problem. Some regex 'phrases' are good for grepping, others for find and replace. Some will help you swap names around, some to reformat phone numbers.

After a while the phrases give way to general understanding and certain things become fluent.

I still only really write short or basic regexes, but I use them all the time in editing text or doing things that are a little bit complicated but actually a short regex just turns it from a hard problem into an easy problem.

I'll 'get started for free' with jq thanks.

Flippant HN comment aside, the syntax for trivial manipulations in jq is pretty straightforward, very similar to defining a dictionary in python. Non-trivial transformations are going to be complex regardless and not having to learn an 'obscure syntax' isn't going to make it easier to get your head around.

It reminds me of when people release a "friendlier syntax" for regular expressions: at the end of the day you still have to learn the underlying concepts in order to complete your task.

In order to use your tool it looks like you still need to learn JSONpaths as a concept and then learn what all the operators in your drop downs mean at which point why not learn some obscure syntax?

And then I have the overhead of an electron app which I'm paying $9 a month for.

Maybe this has a future as the component of someone else's all-in-one low/no-code ETL platform, but as a standalone tool being pitched to the HN crowd it makes no sense.

I found these two videos on combinators and lambda calculus recently. They're only tangentially related to Haskell, but they are the most approachable videos on the topic I have ever seen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VQ382QG-y4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAnLQ9jwN-E

I will, thank you

Can you download apps and use the app store without a Google account? That's probably the biggest analogue to TFA here.

You can also dual boot and/or swap out hard drives. It took me a goodly while to get immersed and comfortable with Linux, so I'd definitely plan a discovery and/or transition phase before hard switching over.

So literally just now I opened the Google photos app and it came up with a nag screen to turn on auto-backup which I had already explicitly turned off. The message was worded to make it sound like they were doing me a favour and it was difficult to close the banner (I just exited the app because what I needed to do was possible with a less invasive version).

I would not go so far as GP as to say that this dark pattern is better or worse than what Microsoft is doing, but I think it is a fair point that a Google/Microsoft account is needed on the biggest mobile/desktop platforms respectively and their attitude to privacy and user agency is somewhere between laissez-faire and contemptuous.

With Android there does at least feel like with F-Droid, different OEMs, alternative apps, the web and even Other android spins that these aren't quite the lockdown that Windows is, although it's fair to say that in either case you shouldn't really be constantly on your guard for the next way that your operating system is going to try to trick you into giving away more of your stuff to them.

I love how you leapt on 'audience' there and didn't want to refute use cases. Also leaning on that '30 year' figure. Funny.

The Steam Deck has sold millions of units (increase in audience) and now supports 89% of the top 1000 games at Silver and above (increase in use case). 2% is indeed an increase from where it started in 2018, but it goes to show how many Windows machines are out there that the % isn't higher.

I don't really understand your position. You're vehemently against any Windows code or games running at all and want to belittle, minimise or dismiss any progress that has been made. It feels like you're arguing in bad faith.

So pirate it

Proton DB says that 89% of the top 1000 games, 89% of the top 100 and 6 of the top 10 games on steam are rated Silver or above (a 7th is rated Bronze and 3 are broken).

AreWeAntiCheat yet says:

161 games are Supported (42%)

46 games are Running (12%)

3 are planning to support Linux (1%)

147 are currently Broken (38%)

28 (only) are explicitly Denied (7%)

So, many don't but, also, many do. Not everything, not nothing.

HDR is coming. The OLED steam deck supports it, for example.

But hang on, your original comment was slating Linux for people saying that it was an escape for the past 30 years. It is now an escape for an ever increasing audience and set of use cases, and you're saying that these new people who have to this point not had any issues with running Windows games won't be able to "escape" because they'd have to play Windows games?

Have some consistency.

To be perfectly honest, anyone approaching Linux from Windows needs caveats so that they can make their mind up for themselves and pick what's best for them. Every distro (and Linux as a whole) has trade offs and things that will need to be considered.

I don't really understand the issue. I click on 'play' on Steam and the game works. That's all that matters to me.

Are there trade-offs with this?

Proton has massively changed the game. I'd say the time since 2018 has had more advances in usability than the 25 years before it (for "normal" people), effectively making any "you've been saying this for X years" argument moot.

I'd love to cross reference this against all the Eggcorns from the Adam and Joe show (and subsequently the Adam Buxton Podcast).

I think my broader point is that whatever technology has been adopted hasn't had a noticeable effect and that's due to the usage, attitude and hence supporting infrastructure to adopt them.

GP asked what use a smartphone would have, implying that it could only ever be bad. I'm just arguing that this isn't necessarily the case, not that we should adopt it or even that adoption is likely.

What useful things could a smartphone do during school hours.

You have a literal internet connected computer with any function you could care to name, interactive touch screen display, full sound with headphones being provided by the student.

The situation we have now is that there are few apps that are suitable for a classrooms, even fewer which teachers would be allowed to use and none which are endorsed or included in the curriculum[1].

Meanwhile students phones have no central management unless by parents using a specialist app, are not automatically locked down to appropriate use during school hours, meaning they just get used for messaging and inappropriate stuff.

There is no reason that a students phone couldn't become the world's most amazing educational tool the moment they walk onto school premises - the world just hasn't caught up yet and probably won't for a while.

[1] I don't know this, but I'm sure they're providing iPads or something if they're actually doing anything around this.

But it still retains some meaning. Using a glob pattern to wildcard files with the same name vs. running an image entity classifier across 1 to n images in potentially recursive directories. In a command line utility for displaying files.

What would you do if you had several billion devices that you had root access to, used directly by humans and isn't making you any money in sales these days?

The 2024 answer is to use it to capture data to train AI.

Microsoft could lose 9/10 of their market share (which they won't) and still have millions of devices harvesting training data for them.

You need an analogue of Linux distributions (Python distribution? Making choosing a repo a separate and deliberate step?).

That way you could pick a repo based on your risk appetite rather than needing to trust PyPI. Debian style python for the cautious and AUR style python for the bleeding edge and reckless.

Tiling window managers are a different way of thinking about how one uses a computer, similar to how different touch interfaces are, but in the other more keyboardly direction.

I find I reach for a tiling WM (or tmux) when I have a lot of terminal tasks I need to do and being able to quickly summon, dismiss and rearrange windows visibly is more important than their placement.

As with everything else, everyone has their preferences and each paradigm has its strengths, weaknesses and natural use cases.

El Reg doing the decent thing with the health warning, but sad that this is a) necessary and b) starting to have consequences for those wanting security updates after having decluttered.

What are you talking about, fam? Exchange support for Thunderbird is the entire second half of the article.

At the moment there don't appear to be ads on the chat page. Is this something that will be coming so that chat can be monetised?

I really like the way this has been added to the UI. It's off to the side so I can just use DDG as God intended if I want to, but also is distinct enough that I discovered it prior to seeing it on HN. It makes it clear this is done in a DDG private way (which is one of the things I'm wary about with ChatGPT on its own) and offers multiple models/vendors in one place.

Pretty good! Thumbs up from me.

We can probably cut this back and forth short just by linking to ProtonDB [0] and AreWeAntiCheatYet [1].

[0] https://ProtonDB.com

[1] https://AreWeAntiCheatYet.com

The Steam top 1000 games:

Rating System: ProtonDB Medals

29% Platinum

47% Gold

11% Silver

3% Bronze

4% Borked

In aggregate:

76% P+G (Games you can just play)

86% P+G+S (Games you can play with minor tweaks)

Anticheat:

154 Supported (45%)

39 Running (12%)

3 Planned (1%)

118 Broken (35%)

25 Denied (7%)

The Primeagen feels like he's bringing Linux, neovim, programming et al to a new audience, in the same way that Low Level Learning [0] brings rust, assembly and reverse engineering to a younger audience.

I don't think his style is for me personally, but I definitely feel the world is a better place with his voice in it.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6biysICWOJ-C3P4Tyeggzg