gusmd

During my MSc, I was implementing, validating, and comparing multiple numerical methods for a certain field of Aeroacoustics. Most (peer-reviewed!) papers had errors, some glaring, some subtle. The cynic in me thought those were done on purpose so that results were harder to reproduce.

There was one specific signal change (a + to a - in an equation) that took me almost a month of hitting my head against a wall to figure out...

Yep! This is generally referred to as "amortized linear time". It's the difference between considering the cost "per operation" vs. "per algorithm". The former is technically correct (as an upper bound), but too pessimistic when you consider the algorithm as a whole.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amortized_analysis#Dynamic_Arr...

I would like to believe so. But maybe there isn't, or his leaving makes it worse. My point, though, is that that burden shouldn't fall on the single individual, for his power to promote actual change is negligible.

More anecdotally, I know in my home country it was a lost fight, as even among close friends and family, I found it hard to find a reflection of my own values. How could I hope to influence the other 200+ million people?

In the US, for private-sector employees, not only is it not illegal, it is a protected activity under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) of 1935. Your employer cannot forbid or fire you for discussing salaries or job conditions.

(IANAL)

> The moral issue is whether it is ok to take skilled people that have been trained using the limited resources of poorer areas of the world without supplying an equally skilled person in return.

The skilled people that have been trained using the limited resources of poorer areas have literally funded those limited resources through their taxes or by directly paying for their education (private schools are a thing everywhere, even in poor countries -- 1st-hand experience here).

Nobody has a moral obligation to stay in their home country when a much better quality of life is achievable elsewhere. The origin nation does not need to be to "satisfied". Humans should be free agents to defend their best interests and seek a better outcome for themselves and their families, wherever that may be (as long as the destination accepts them!).

Talk about heating up! My rent in Carmel Valley increased by 10% last month!

That is why once they get 12-24 months under their belt and are attractive to other companies, you adjust their compensation to reflect that so that staying at their current job is attractive.

We have this huge problem in this industry where companies hire junior people, pay them below market (completely justified), but then don't bring them up to market rates once they are no longer junior. Fix your compensation and they won't (have as much reason to) jump ship.

I think the most important thing is empathy. It can be pretty hard for some people to put egos aside when doing/receiving code reviews.

Other than that, have clear standards regarding formatting (preferably do it automatically with something like clang-format), build and run a linter/tests on CI so that the most basic things are caught automatically.

Finally, remember the objective is not criticizing someone else's style, since we all have our own, but instead sharing knowledge and improving quality.

Just to clarify, optometrists do not go to Medical School, they go to a different "Doctor of Optometry" professional program. Still, your view about the US system is likely right.

Funny enough, back in my home country, "optometrists" don't exist. Everybody goes to an actual eye doctor (Ophthalmologist) to get eye prescriptions. Of course, you pay the price, as the consultations cost as much as any other doctor visit.

Edit: somebody beat me to it below :) I'll leave it here because of my second anecdata above.

> Alternatively, do you think you can do a better job at this than Google and Oracle?

Not sure what this "appeal to authority" is supposed to mean. I've seen -- and worked on -- many high-quality Qt applications. Granted, I'm not a Mac user, but on Windows and Linux they can look just as good as any other "native" applications.

"I think a good first step would be looking at existing Electron apps. Are you OK with the quality of apps like the Slack client and Microsoft Teams? Alternatively, do you think you can do a better job at this than Slack and Microsoft?"

The same 3 GB of data would have costed you $30 with Fi (or less if you were already near/over the 6 GB threshold). Given that 15 EUR is about 18 USD, you essentially saved 12 USD.

Personally, I would have gladly paid $12 to not have to go to a store in foreign country, switch SIM cards, have to worry about hitting the 3 GB limit, lose the ability to call or text anyone in the states, etc. But to each, their own.

If I remember correctly, Gitlab has introduced some sort of ownership control where you can say who owns what directories for things like approving merge requests that affect those directories.

I'm surprised nobody yet has mentioned reason no1 people switch jobs: to get a better-than-COL raise.

So I would say companies that continuously review compensation according to market and employee evolution would be better positioned to retain developers.

Agreed! Although I use SWIG on my job, pybind11[0] is a nice alternative that I've been looking at.

[0] https://github.com/pybind/pybind11

We use (and pay for) PyQt5 at work. Do you have experience with both and if so can you comment on any tangible differences?

If possible, I would rather get behind the "official" one since we also already pay for commercial Qt licenses.

You can do all those (sorting, filtering, etc) in Qt as well using the Model/View components. There is a bit of a learning curve to understand the "Qt way of doing MVC", but after that it works fine.

At work we use Qt5 with both C++ and Python (through PyQt) and I love it.

From a quick search, there are quite a few on Github. Can't point to a specific one, though. I implemented a very basic 2D version on one of my MSc classes, and although we used MATLAB, it was quite fast depending on grid size/fluid properties.

Awesome! Couldn't win yet, but I'll keep trying :)

On a more technical note, I wonder if you could use a Lattice-Boltzman-based flow simulation instead of classical CFD. Could be faster depending on "grid" size.

Great, great job!

I had never thought about programming (or, for what comes next, application development) as a verbal skill.

The more I think about it, the more it makes sense, especially as it pertains to UI/UX. About empathy -- you need to relate to your users, understand, be aware and sensitive of their needs and their thought process as they use your application.

Thanks for the interesting view. Not sure I read it too literally, but it gave me something to think about.

I love the Eva-Luator user as well :)

Not looking for a job, but have to say I'm impressed with your product. Looks like a genuinely useful product with a huge market if you can really pull it off. Best of luck!

ESI Group | Software Development Engineer | San Diego, CA | Full-Time, Onsite

ESI Group is a leading innovator in Virtual Prototyping software and services. ESI allows its clients to bring their products to life; ensuring reliable performance, serviceability and maintainability.

ESI US R&D, Inc., is currently seeking a Software Development Engineer at our San Diego, CA offices. Just a mile from the Pacific Ocean, we are a small team focused on developing and maintaining desktop software applications in the field of vibro-acoustics simulation. Our clients include NASA, Boeing, Airbus, GM and Ford.

We are looking for people with a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science or Engineering or Mathematics. We use C++, Python, and Qt for our desktop applications, so experience with those is required. Also desirable is experience with numerical methods, OpenGL or other 3D APIs, HPC tools, and APIs such as MPI and Linux development.

Feel free to reach Tracy at ext-tracy.sidall@esi-group.com with any questions related to the job and company. Don't forget to mention HN in the e-mail!

Nope, your users need not have the toolset, that's the beauty of it! It creates binaries compatible with any distribution newer than the machine where you are compiling. E.g., if building on CentOS 6.7, anyone on 6.7+ can run your binaries.

We also have an application stuck on RHEL 6 because of end-users, and I'm happily using devtoolset-7 which gives me GCC 7.x, and quite a bit of C++17 support :)

Edit: My understanding is that it achieves that by statically linking in the "newer" parts of libstdc++.

I second the C++ Primer suggestion. It was the book that made the pieces fit in my head.

> Self driving cars can pick the most efficient routes to get everyone where they need to go, in a way that would not be possible if a human driver is required.

What's so special about efficient routing with a driver-less car? There's no route that a human driver couldn't follow just as well if assisted by GPS software.

ESI Group | Software Development Engineer | San Diego, CA | Full-Time, Onsite

ESI Group is a leading innovator in Virtual Prototyping software and services. ESI allows its clients to bring their products to life; ensuring reliable performance, serviceability and maintainability.

ESI US R&D, Inc., is currently seeking a Software Development Engineer at our San Diego, CA offices. Just a mile from the Pacific Ocean, we are a small team focused on developing and maintaining desktop software applications in the field of vibro-acoustics simulation. Our clients include NASA, Boeing, Airbus, GM and Ford.

We are looking for people with a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science or Engineering or Mathematics. We use C++, Python, and Qt for our desktop applications, so experience with those is required. Also desirable is experience with numerical methods, OpenGL or other 3D APIs, HPC tools, and APIs such as MPI and Linux development.

Feel free to reach Tracy at ext-tracy.sidall@esi-group.com with any questions related to the job and company. Don't forget to mention HN in the e-mail!

That is incorrect. Many, many routers in fact do not have a setting to route your traffic through a VPN. My Linksys for instance does not. Famously, people flash DD-WRT or Tomato on their routers to enable that.

Check out Rajneeshpuram [0], built by the Rajneeshees in Oregon. There's a Netflix documentary about it now, called "Wild, Wild Country". Definitely worth checking out.

Besides all the controversy surrounding it, it was actually a pretty interesting example of "buying land and building a city from scratch".

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajneeshpuram [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Wild_Country

I think that will largely depend on how we define the ROI.

> Also, did you just use technical debt as a metaphor for regular old debt?

Hahahaha, good catch. I just might have.

Indeed. It's like we've been accruing technical debt for centuries by taking the "easy way out" until our technology was developed enough, and now need to pay it all back, with interest.