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bostonOU

65 karma · joined October 27, 2010

ClojureScript tips and insights at http://clojurescriptmadeeasy.com
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bostonOU··on AI is a bubble, just like dot-com
if you read the post, you'd see I do analyze it and point out one reason calling the internet a bubble was both right and wrong, and that AI is similar. It's not even about the bubble aspect but that you can have wildly divergent perspectives that are somehow both accurate.
bostonOU··on AI is a bubble, just like dot-com
> Put Claude and other LLMs away for a few days and then write a blog post from scratch using your own words. No asking for help, comments, editing, nothing.

Ok, but (and this is the whole point) where _should_ we use LLMs? Because your comment could easily be said to someone writing code.

If slop === LLM involved, that's too reductive. If LLM does all the work, that's also too reductive.

bostonOU··on AI is a bubble, just like dot-com
At least the thought got through to one person
bostonOU··on AI is a bubble, just like dot-com
Is it frustrating that I used Claude to turn detailed outlines, notes, and discussions into a post?

> go anywhere beyond the usual AI good/bad arguments This is literally the point of the post. AI is not good or bad just like the internet was not all bubble or all value. The goal is to better understand how to use ai well. I'd rather try writing my thoughts than just dump a bunch of notes and diagrams on a blog

bostonOU··on AI is a bubble, just like dot-com
> Here's another great Claudism: "The replies had a different read. One of them, in full: {embedded tweet}" lol. Who writes like that? "In full"? You're promising me you didn't fake the embedded tweet or something?

I originally had the content of the tweet and when posting switched it to have the embedding. So ironically, the error you're pointing out was my manual fix

bostonOU··on AI is a bubble, just like dot-com
how is that any different than claude generating code? honest question
bostonOU··on AI is a bubble, just like dot-com
Can I ask what makes it read like slop? Because lots of comments here on the style and little on the thinking behind it, which is where I spent my effort.

It seems like a lot of folks arguing about rather or not we need to still read code.

bostonOU··on Om Next – David Nolen [video]
An old talk (2012) so I'm not sure how accurate it is now, but Nolen discusses performance of ClojureScript. At the very least, you know someone cares and is thinking about it.

http://www.infoq.com/presentations/ClojureScript-Optimizatio...

bostonOU··on Why ClojureScript Matters
The inconsistency part makes sense, I guess I just never thought it was a big deal. If you're going to use WillMount, it's either going to be with reify (Om) or meta (Reagent). Doesn't seem like an important distinction to me, but obviously it is to some people. And that's totally legitimate.
bostonOU··on Why ClojureScript Matters
While not a specific answer, "feels" is a valid response IMO. Like mentioned elsewhere, using reify seems to throw people off, which falls in to the "feels" category I think.
bostonOU··on Why ClojureScript Matters
Can you explain why Om hurts your brain? I've heard other people say similar things, but I've never quite understood why. Is it cursors? Local component state?
bostonOU··on Is Typed Clojure worth the trouble?
I believe ClojureScript only supports boolean type hints/performance optimization. Other type hints are "supported" but don't do anything.
bostonOU··on The pleasantness of Om
Is your project open source? I'd love to see what you're doing. From my understanding of React/Om, Om shouldn't cause a full re-render if React wouldn't.

The immutability of Om/cljs means that the code for determining re-renders (shouldUpdate lifecycle method) is (always?) faster than React.

bostonOU··on It’s the Sugar, Folks
We started drinking juice to replace cereal in the morning and to increase our vegetable intake. This morning, I just happened to only use fruit.

I'd bet that eating the fruit & vegetables would be better. But at this point, neither my wife or I will be eating kale or celery for breakfast. Juicing helps us at least some vegetables in our diet. Baby steps.

bostonOU··on It’s the Sugar, Folks
>> Ever use a juicer? Think about how many oranges it takes to make an 8 oz. glass. (It takes several, and if you tried to eat that many, you would be full halfway through due to the fiber.)

I was replying to that quote of yours, meaning that it doesn't take an excessive amount of fruit to make 8 oz. of juice.

I admitted that I don't know about the science of sugar, but I have a hard time believing that fresh fruit juice is equivalent to Coca Cola with some vitamins added in.

bostonOU··on It’s the Sugar, Folks
I made juice this morning: 2 oranges, 2 kiwi, and 1 grapefruit. Made two cups of juice for my wife and me. I don't know about the science of sugar, but eating 1 orange, 1 kiwi, and half a grapefruit doesn't seem excessive to me.
bostonOU··on Why We Shut Down Charm on the Eve of Public Launch, at $48k/Year and Growing
I understand your hope that you can resurrect the project. I was more interested in OSS for the opportunity to learn through reading the code and looking through your server setup.
bostonOU··on Why We Shut Down Charm on the Eve of Public Launch, at $48k/Year and Growing
Have you guys considered open-sourcing the code and/or providing some detailed info on the architecture you've built?
bostonOU··on The Gift
Romans 5:8 - But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

In the Romans verse, it explains that God has shown His love for everyone. He did it without expectations for something in return. He did it for people who couldn't repay Him. He did it for people that were His enemies. This is by definition unconditional and there isn't a single verse in the Bible that contradicts this.

Matthew 23:37 - O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.

The Matthew verse shows that this love must be accepted. Jesus says that He wants to show His love in a close relationship, but the expressions of His love are rejected.

That Matthew verse also points to something that is often overlooked/misunderstood about hell. The worst thing about hell is not fire, darkness, demons, etc. The worst and most significant thing about hell is being separated from God. Heaven is where people have reciprocated God's love and experience complete intimacy with Him. Hell is where people have rejected God and experience complete separation from Him. With that understanding, it shows that it makes no sense to say "God sent someone to hell." Hell is the choice of someone that has rejected God's love. God, not being a rapist, does not force anyone to love Him.

bostonOU··on Why Quit? Because the other company has bigger monitors.
I think the data you're looking for has to come from having good relationships with your employees. For example, did you know the following about your ex-designer:

1) Is he married or looking to get married? 2) Does he have kids or plan to have them soon? 3) Has he had any serious health issues in his family (e.g. history of heart disease)?

Obviously, those type of questions can get you in trouble if they are asked on an employer->employee basis. But in the course of really getting to know someone, those types of things will come up. It's then on you to think about what you'd want in that situation and do it for them.

So if ex-designer was planning on having kids, you might consider the cost of the family plan and be willing to splurge on that at the expense of the beer and snacks budget (or something focused on single people).

My main problems with employers have been their ignorance and/or lack of concern about what is important to me. I had one company that bragged about fully paying for our health insurance. Well, the owners of the company all had several kids. I didn't even have a girlfriend at the time. Health insurance as a young, healthy, single guy was barely even on my radar. That was easily accessible data (which they had), and yet they didn't act on it at all.

Simply, put yourself in their shoes and ask, "What would I want in this situation?" Considering you were friends with the ex-designer, my thought would be that you could have probably spent more time thinking about what he wanted instead of just asking. For some reason, many people won't speak up about what they want. Many times they themselves don't know until someone shows it to them.

My 2 cents.

bostonOU··on How To Train Your Robot
How much time did you give to the activity? I'd love to do this with some of the kids I tutor but I'm not sure if we'd have time.

Awesome work!

bostonOU··on The $150k Solution
For what it's worth, I grew up around Austin and have absolutely no desire to move back.
bostonOU··on Bank of America website disrupted for 4th day in a row
You can either pay 100% cash or you can get manual underwriting. Manual underwriting is harder/takes longer, but is possible.

- Put at least 20% down on your home.

- Choose a 15-year, fixed-rate conventional mortgage.

- Have a strong employment history and personal income to support the loan.

- Demonstrate 4–6 trade lines that span 18–24 months. These are just regularly recurring expenses such as rent, electric bills, water bills, cell phones, etc.

[1] http://www.daveramsey.com/article/the-truth-about-your-credi...

[2] http://www.churchillmortgage.com/info/no-credit-score.aspx

bostonOU··on Tricky Programming Concepts Aren’t
Just last night I was explaining regular expressions to my fiancée who has absolutely no programming experience. I just showed her some fundamentals:

1) '[\d]' means any digit

2) '+' means one or more

3) '[\d]+' means one or more digits

Understanding that is not hard or tricky at all. Using that to build a complicated regular expression is hard.

I think that's the author's point. Understanding the concept of a pointer or recursion is not hard. Actually using those concepts to build something takes practice and hard work.

edit: formatting

bostonOU··on Show HN: How Obama's budget proposal affects you (Weekend Hack)
Looks cool, especially for a weekend hack. The design is very well done.
bostonOU··on Ask HN: what makes a good developer?
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. -Einstein

That's the quote that's been banging around in my head since I've been trying to clean up the mess left by the programmer I replaced.

When I think of a good programmer, I think that reading/understanding their code should be as simple as possible. If I'm reading through the controller of a basic Rails app, it should be pretty simple. I should be able to easily figure out what's going on. I shouldn't see a 100 line action that mixes view and model code. If I'm reading through the Rails core, I should expect to spend significant time understanding what's going on. Simple as possible, but not simpler.

In my experience, bad programmers take misguided pride in writing complex code (which is always more brittle than clean, clear code). Or they think you are the bad programmer because you don't immediately understand it.

Good programmers are programmers that are fun to work with (code-wise especially) that get things done. At least that's my working definition.

Here's how I judge myself:

1) Do other programmers have good things to say about working with me?

2) Do other programmers have good things to say about my code?

3) Do I get things done/working?

4) When I read my old code, do I understand it quickly (relative to the complexity)?

5) When I read my old code, do I see things that I could have done better (shows personal growth)?

The Dunning-Kruger effect is always on my mind as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect

edit: formatting, typo

bostonOU··on Anonymous hacks Booz Allen Hamilton, US military contractor, 90k logins dumped
What you're saying is true.

In a Phase II, the deliverable is normally a prototype. But since it is by definition research, it's expected that some of these projects come against problems that are not reasonably solvable. Therefore, you can fail on your deliverable and have that be completely ok.

bostonOU··on Anonymous hacks Booz Allen Hamilton, US military contractor, 90k logins dumped
In all my experience, the SBIR program was one of the biggest scams around. At the end of project, you only have to produce "proof that you researched" the problem. It's completely ok for you to spend all the money to simply determine that the project is not feasible (i.e. we watched movies all day and did a few google searches during the previews).

In theory, the government would stop giving projects to companies that never produced anything. I personally never saw that happen.

If a company is really on the up and up, the SBIR program could be a great opportunity. However, it's way too easy to game the system.

bostonOU··on Anonymous hacks Booz Allen Hamilton, US military contractor, 90k logins dumped
I worked for a Woman/Minority Owned Small Business. Believe me, it was the ol'govt'boys network, just at a smaller scale. We had a lady who's job description basically boiled down to being something pretty for our money/government guy to look at.

After $17 million-ish in projects, we produced nothing but a bunch of 'research'. And trust me, there were a few of us developers that really tried to do something useful. Management had no interest in what was produced other than more proposals to get more money. Your bonus/promotion was totally tied to how many proposals you wrote (and this was a software company). Your bonus/promotion had zero to do with how much or how well you wrote code.

bostonOU··on Brick Nintendo before they brick you
We also may share such information and any User Content you create with third parties. We may share your PII, Non-PII, and Aggregate Information with third parties to complete your transactions and provide you with advertising and other promotional materials on your Nintendo 3DS System.

In government & medical work, they hammer into you that PII must be protected. Nintendo specifically saying they can share it is a big deal. Agreed, PII != usage data.

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