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devrelm

184 karma · joined January 4, 2013

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devrelm··on Ask HN: Why the Microsoft hate?
I disagree that MVC is not well documented, but perhaps I've just learned where the good documentation is (for MVC.)

That said, I have to agree that every time I've dived into PHP/RoR, there have been plenty of articles with well-drawn maps of the minefield (to borrow your analogy.)

> Oh, and just for fun every 5 years or so MS deprecates that particular mine field, lays a new one, and forces everyone to go play in the new minefield instead.

I know I started at the beginning with this new minefield (MVC came out less than a year before I started using it,) but I don't see this happening as much, at least not with MS's web offerings. The last version or two of MVC and EntityFramework have been OSS under Apache 2, so they can continue to be developed even if MS decides to go a separate route.

I understand that this is not the case for their desktop and mobile offerings, and that they have jerked their developers in that field around in different directions each time they come out with a new OS. I think that their web offerings are more stable. The only things that may change fundamentally are server components (IIS, SQL Server, MVC, EF, etc.), or the browser. If the browser changes, everyone's screwed; and if the server components change, the developer can simply decide to stay on older versions (until licenses run out, which I'll concede as one problem.)

And of course, all this flows back to documentation. PHP/Python/RoR have much better documentation because they're all much more widely used. If more people used MVC, more people would write about it, and there would be more documentation for it.

The only remaining issue is a pretty big one: cost. Yes, there's a VS Express Web Edition, but that has its own issues. So, you're left with BizSpark as the next best option. It's what I've done. I have 2 more years left before I have to decide whether to start paying. So far it's great, but I know that it's going to come back and bite me in the ass unless I start something profitable before then.

And I believe that that's the real reason that it's not more widely used; or at least the original reason, with lack of documentation and other MS-hate being secondary to and/or consequences of it. In a community where people have 5 ideas fail before hitting something profitable, it's hard to justify the extra cost of $1000 or more per developer, even if it's actually free for the first few years. Why risk paying $1000+ per developer and an extra $100+ per server 3 years from now, when you can start with something free and have it still be free 3 years from now? That's what it all boils down to.

I'll admit, I'm probably tossing in the towel on MVC soon. But it's not because of poor documentation or fear of being forced to switch to a new API requiring a large rewrite on my part. It's because 1) the IDE and servers are 5-10x more expensive than those for Python/Ruby/Node/PHP; and 2) everybody's using Python/Ruby/Node/PHP, so finding work is tough. After all, what good is working on a side project to show off my MVC skills, if nobody will hire me for it anyway?

devrelm··on Fury at Facebook as login requests “Government ID”
Except that someone with the ability to "hack" a Facebook account will also likely be able to come up with a convincing ID.
devrelm··on 15 years ago, Congress kept Mickey Mouse copyrighted. Will they do it again?
I've argued this point with friends for years. Individual characters (Mickey Mouse, Bart Simpson, James Bond, etc) and the like would be trademarked, and could only be used in new works by the trademark holder. Those works, however, would be released into the public domain after x years.
devrelm··on 15 years ago, Congress kept Mickey Mouse copyrighted. Will they do it again?
Why aren't characters trademarked instead of copyrighted? I feel like it would make so much more sense. Disney can have Mickey Mouse for as long as it wants, but the company has little to no financial need to keep 100-year-old cartoons out of the public domain.
devrelm··on Ask HN: Why the Microsoft hate?
That's what I'm getting out of pretty much this entire post.

As an asp.net mvc developer by trade, I could easily say that it could take me hours/days to get stuff done in node.js/rails/django/name-your-framework, that I could otherwise get done in minutes in mvc. Of course, I'm self-aware enough to realize that it's because I have 4 consecutive years of experience with .net, but only a cumulative of maybe a few months in all other technologies (php/rails/python/c/c++) combined (not including school-work.)

devrelm··on Ask HN: Why the Microsoft hate?
This is my problem right now. I recently quit my corporate job doing asp.net mvc for the financial industry in NYC. I'd like to move into a startup on the west coast, but I'm having trouble finding anything that uses asp.net mvc. I'm applying to non-.net shops too, but I get the feeling that they throw my resume in the trash as soon as they notice the lack of node.js/ruby/python/java experience.
devrelm··on Visual Studio 2013 released to web
Bingo. I've regularly worked with 15+ project solutions, and never noticed much hanging. Read through this guy's entire comment wondering what he was talking about until I got to that part:

> Also, VS would block for me a lot, but that was probably due using too many plugins.

Yeah, that's where your problem is. I'd put good money on ReSharper being the problem, as it's slowed me down in the past. Uninstalled it and never had another problem. The only plugin I have now is VsVim (which I highly recommend for those who'd like vim bindings.)

devrelm··on Why can a scam company raise $40 Million Series C + $76 Million Series B?
That's a good call. If while speaking to someone, you told them they could skip the month, they would likely think that no action is needed. Then, the average user's attention is probably gone by the time they get to "Skip as many months as you'd like." At this point, they'd probably be satisfied, stop reading, and never get to the part about "If you do not take action..."

Also, wow. Looking at the progression from the old page to the new page, it becomes obvious that they're trying to hide the "VIP Membership" details.

1) The right-side column has become more narrow.

2) The right-side column becomes almost entirely devoid of color.

3) The right-side columns now uses grey instead of black.

4) The 4th item, originally headlined with "If You Do Not Make A Purchase Or Skip The Month By The 5th, You'll Be Charged $39.99 For A Member Credit On The 6th" in large, bold font is now moved to the end of the details on the 3rd point and changed match the same light, small-print font as those other details. As a side-note, this point is also the 2nd-to-last sentence in the right-side column; this could arguably make it worse since anyone skipping to the bottom would read "Each credit can be redeemed for 1 JustFab item, so use it to shop later!" and think that it doesn't sound bad.

5) The old page requires you to check a box to "accept the terms of the Just Fab VIP Membership Program."

On the old page, the only other stuff on the page appears to be the form. I'd wager that most people viewing the page would at least glance at the right-column's text, thinking that it's instructions. For that matter, moving the membership details to the order summary page from the payment & shipping page is in itself a way of playing it down.

Seeing the two pages side-by-side, I cannot imagine that many if not all of the points described above were specifically designed to lessen likeliness of the user actually reading the membership details.

devrelm··on Malware Hidden Inside JPG EXIF Headers
In that case I agree that it would never be used as it was written, and suggest that the author must have jumbled the parameters. Calling the method as preg_replace($exif['Make'], '', $exif['Model']) would correct the behavior to something useful, while keeping the vulnerability in place.
devrelm··on Malware Hidden Inside JPG EXIF Headers
The code in question seems to be removing any occurrences of the Make from the Model. This might be useful if you have a camera that sets the Model to contain the Make name, like setting Make="Nikon" and Model="Nikon D5000". If we want to know the actual model number, then we have to remove the Make from the Model, giving us " D5000". Using preg_replace() might just as good as anything to do this.
devrelm··on Oculus Rift co-founder killed by gang trying to escape police
Had a similar experience a few months ago while out with my wife in NYC. We had the walk sign at a Y intersection. A driver came through the turn going at least 30 mph. He came within an arm's length of hitting us. I definitely pay more attention now when crossing the road, even if I do have the walk sign.
devrelm··on Elon Musk: Tesla network to triple by July, cross country travel by year’s end
It's not that bad. I take weekend trips between NYC and [1 hour west of Chicago] multiple times a year. At around 870 miles, it's about a 13-14 hour drive with pit-stops. I usually split the trip into 2 days from NYC to Illinois, but only because I typically leave right after work, and I certainly wouldn't want to drive overnight.

The trip back is usually done in one day, ~10am to ~midnight. This usually includes 2-3 stops for gas and food. I wouldn't mind these stops being half an hour instead of their usual ~15 minutes, but it would mean that I would have to leave an hour earlier, or get home an hour later. since I'd have 50-100 miles less range per "fill-up" with the top-of-the-line Model S, I'd probably have to make an extra stop as well.

Ultimately, I look forward to none of this discussion mattering in 10 years, at which time I fully expect 400+ mile range in self-driving EV cars that charge in 10 minutes.

  ***fingers-crossed***
devrelm··on Google Maps has removed the collapsed I-5 bridge in WA
If I were designing it it would. That is a common technique that I use in heavy traffic (that scares the crap out of my wife.)
devrelm··on P might be NP: A Polynomial Time Algorithm for the Hamilton Circuit Problem
This appears to be a corollary: "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only tried it, not proved it correct."
devrelm··on The fly-by, Wi-Fi hacking machine
MYO + Google Glass alone looks like an interesting concept[1] (of course, snowboarding makes anything look cool.)

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v...

devrelm··on Google Maps has removed the collapsed I-5 bridge in WA
Interesting problem. How do Google's self-driving cars react to road problems such as bridge-collapses and sinkholes? Scanning for objects and avoiding objects which extend above the road level is obvious, but what about when the road cuts off? These things rarely happen, but it would be terrifying to be in a self-driving car in that moment when the bridge ahead of you collapses and the car continues to drive as if there is nothing wrong.

I actually had a similar thought yesterday when thinking about how the cars would handle object-avoidance. Say a deer hops out in front of the car. The car is constantly aware of its environment for 100+ feet in all directions, so it could tell if there are no cars in a neighboring lane and swerve to miss the deer. But what if there _are_ cars in neighboring lanes and the only available direction is to go onto the shoulder or into the ditch? If the ditch is fairly level with the road, then this could be the safest option. But if the ditch is steep, then it would be more dangerous than simply hitting the brakes and hoping you don't hit the deer too hard.

devrelm··on Google Maps has removed the collapsed I-5 bridge in WA
This is correct. When I scrolled south towards the nearest on/off ramps, I could see "(planned)" over the road.
devrelm··on Student's self-driving car tech wins Intel science fair
> A golf cart is just fine for going 5-10 miles in urban traffic.

I hadn't thought of this. Imagine Google buying garages all over NYC and filling them with driverless Smart cars (or similar). A button is added to your phone's Google Maps app, so that in addition to "Get Directions" and "Navigate", you also have the option of "Pick Me Up".

So, you search for where you want to go on Google Maps and tap "Pick Me Up", with the option of telling it how many people are in your party. Within 5 minutes enough Smart cars for your party stop within 20 feet of you, even if you've already started walking, thanks to your phone's GPS. You get in the car, which has no steering wheel, and touch "Go" on the in-dash touch-screen to start the car driving to your destination.

I could get used to that.

devrelm··on Sydney tunnel water screen stop sign for oversized vehicles [video]
In the US, there's a system called PrePass[1]. It's intention is to be used to allow a truck to bypass weigh-ins. The in-vehicle transponder has a red and green light on it. It could be repurposed to flash red when the vehicle triggers a too-tall warning, though this would be of minimal benefit since it's a small flashing red light most likely in the driver's peripheral vision.

However, I'm unsure if there's any similar system in place in Australia (or most other countries, for that matter.)

[1] http://www.prepass.com/services/prepass/Pages/PrePassTranspo...

devrelm··on Sydney tunnel water screen stop sign for oversized vehicles [video]
I predict legislation saying that certain self-driving vehicles cannot be unmanned. This benefits the truck driver while still maintaining a reason to have one. Besides, someone will still have to fill the thing with diesel.

In the long term, though, you're most likely right; truck drivers will have to find new careers. However, said legislation combined with what I believe will be slow adoption due to high cost should give truck drivers a decade or two to migrate to other jobs.

devrelm··on I Am a Bad Developer
As far as the integer intersection question goes, I wonder if the interviewer didn't think too hard before before saying that he never uses it. At least where I work it comes up from time-to-time.

For instance, say we have a list of Users and a list of UserIds that we want to filter on (but for one reason or another don't want to do the filtering in the database.) The problem of getting the filtered list of Users based on their unique integer UserId has nearly the exact same solution as finding the intersection of the two integer lists, one being the requested UserIds filter, and the other being the list of UserIds from our list of Users.

devrelm··on Tearable cloth in asm.js
Just installed Nightly to test this out. It doesn't work. Just sits there blinking "Seeing how much your system can handle..." with no growing cloth in the background.

Opened up FireBug; the console had the following error at line 18 of renderer.js:

> NS_ERROR_FAILURE: Failure > this.gl = canvas.getContext('webgl') || canvas.getContext('experimental-webgl')

EDIT: It doesn't work in FF 20.0.1 either... Win 7

devrelm··on Django cheat sheets for versions 1.3, 1.4, and now 1.5
Django 1.5 cheat sheet, "Model fields" area: FileField is listed twice.
devrelm··on Why I can’t work at Google
The article is just marketing. He mentions multiple times that he works for Bright.com, "a San Francisco-based company that is building algorithmic tools to match candidates and employers."

He is purposely reading into the "do you know anyone here?" question so that he can make a story out of it.

devrelm··on What Does 200 Calories Look Like?
I'm really depressed at the amount of Bailey's in that glass.
devrelm··on Zimbabwe Has Only $217 Left in the Bank
I'd imagine this is closer to the "fiscal cliff" thing. The US Govt. may be running a deficit, but they still have billions of dollars more than I do.
devrelm··on 64 GB Surface Pro will only have 23 GB free
People did sue over formatted capacity a long time ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_prefix#Legal_disputes

devrelm··on Michael Moritz on immigration reform
I know at least 2 who were unemployed for some time. But then again, I only know them because my employer is the one who fired them.

I think there's something like 5% unemployment amongst computer programmers in the US. Based on experience with (ex-)coworkers, that number can easily be attributed to people who are looking for programming jobs who aren't competent enough to hold a job. In fact, that unemployment number should probably be higher, and I shudder to think what kind of crappy unmaintainable code is being written by those programmers who really should probably be unemployed (or at least in another field.)

In short, our need for programmers doesn't come from some lack of people willing to work for a certain salary; it comes from a lack of people capable of doing the job.

devrelm··on Google CIO To Unveil Free WiFi In NYC’s Chelsea Neighborhood
I think it's probably just to support their offices and employees located in Chelsea. They probably had to have some agreement with the city to have an open network if they wanted to put up antennas for their own use, or maybe they just figured--being the do-no-evil company that they are--that if they were canvassing the area with their own wifi that they might as well have a parallel network open to the public as a public-relations stunt.
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