How is that rich? I pointed it out because that is precisely how I felt some would feel.
2,163 karma · joined January 12, 2012
Hacker News - Where Bottom Feeders Come to Play
Here's a good example-
Further it's utterly astonishing that you would equate writing clear and non-ambiguous code rather than nebulous code of uncertain purpose -- like the example Chromium code you linked -- is "intellectual laziness". That you hold good coding as deficient compared to lazy commenting is hardly surprising given your comments.
Humorous given that both webkit and from that Chromium are largely comment free. What nonsense are you arguing again?
I've worked on FreeBSD, Mac OS X, and an assortment of smaller widely used software projects, including user-facing applications.
"Worked on" in HN parlance means "I did a coop term and wrote some test cases for some irrelevant little utility". Given your comical claims about Linux and Firefox re: Chrome, I have enough information about your skills.
To your questions, while you're rhetorically asking, trying to wink to the crowd in the implication that the answers are telling, yes, actually I have. To very good effect. I'm speaking from actual experience here, not just the hilarious patter of the bottomfeeder that is far too typical on HN.
Why isn't it a GUID? Why is it 32 bits instead of 64? Why is it signed yet starts at 1? Why isn't it a string? How will the identities be merged?
The notion that answering one single question provides clarity is ridiculous.
Read almost any non-trivial successful project for good examples. The Linux kernel. Firefox. etc. The frequency and verbosity of comments tends to have a direct correlation with the simplicity of the code (which is the exact opposite of normal expectations).
That the code did X is clear by the code: No amount of words can refute or change that the code does X. The danger is replacing code is always in the behavior of the code, and never simplified descriptions of its actions.
To business logic, as someone who has worked heavily with business code for years (laughable commentary from imbeciles to the contrary), business logic in comments is one of the worst choices a team can make because it is an escape hatch. It negates the need for verbose, traceable code. It negates the need for vastly superior external proof.
Sure you are. And that's okay.
They are the crutch of people who can't read code: "Add more comments because otherwise I can't make sense of what the statements are doing." It is the English speaker demanding that every French passage have an English translation, rather than simply learning French.
They are the crutch of people who can't write code. "My code is a gigantic, illiterate mess, so instead read the comment at the top that has no guarantee of being robust or accurate."
Bringing up mathematicians and Knuth are both irrelevant distractions. Software development in the modern world is a very structure, self-describing affair, or at least it should be. Comments are the short-circuit from having to figure out how to do that.
Sidenote - "Why don't they just" shield the electronics rather than making the electronics itself radiation proof? I ask that knowing that there is a legitimate reason (shielding weight?), but it is something I have sincerely often wondered.
If the code isn't the clearest comment you have, you're doing it wrong.
Comments are a crutch for people who write poor code. Comments have zero authority or guarantee of accuracy, and more often than not have little correlation with the actual code.
Code is canonical. Comments are noise.
Writing, which is in many ways the lowest common denominator of all computing devices.
I ran a fairly successful blog (front paged here a number of times). I recently cut the cord and abandoned it. The blogging tail is getting shorter and shorter as more and more people move to the closed and walled gardens.
I shut it down because it was the illusion of accomplishment: every time I got a hit entry I would assure myself that I've moved forward in some way, achieved something, etc. Whenever I thought about doing something actually beneficial, the easiest procrastination was to just go do a blog post instead, imagining that every hit actually meant something. That I was somehow accumulating assets in something worthwhile.
It achieves nothing, at least if you're already established. If you're new to the industry and unproven then it's a good way of trying to fake it before you make it, but if you're professionally grounded, it's a liability as much as a benefit.
Worse there is a tendency for readership to start to control what you write about, which is one reason I moved to more free-form content on a walled garden: I'll write about a caterpillar in the yard, my new lawn tractor, and some new development in Android, all because I no longer fool myself into thinking the blog is a business. It's just some random thoughts, whether read or not.
The time spent writing it -- even if you're pretty successful at it -- would almost always be better spent on other endeavours. To bring up some examples oft cited on here, John Gruber is one of the most successful bloggers, as is Marco Arment. They're reduced to trying to pitch t-shirts and affiliate links. Neither of them -- despite volumes of words spilled onto epaper -- change anything in the industry through their respective blogs. A lot of words evaporating into the ether, the converted incited into a chorus of the echo chamber.
I am very aware of social nuances and cues. I have no lack of people who want to repeatedly go to dinner with me. I also have a busy life, however, so simplified caricatures of the utility of modern conveniences give me a little chuckle, hence my original post. This story is a restaurant capitalizing on the resentment of the few.
It isn't the lowest common denominator. It is the evolution of society, empowered by new communication methods. I need to know if the nanny has an issue, just as I need to react to critical professional demands, as quickly as possible. Modern technology has made that possible. If someone is personally offended because I keep my smartphone with me and check if I receive priority messages, that's rather quaint and traditionalist, but it doesn't blend with the real world.
If I'm at dinner with a casual friend or workplace peer, my family and even critical professional activities are more important than them to me. That doesn't make me more important than them, though, which is what enrages so many people, sure that they need to put people in their place.
Their post was littered with resentment and anger.
I just avoid going out with them as much as possible
Good for you. Those are the choices you get to make, controlling yourself instead of controlling others. It's probably a welcome gesture by the other party, given that they've clearly indicated that you are less important to them regardless.
People really have a highly selective ability to be annoyed by things that they are judgmental about/think that they are better than -- or even worse that they think make people better than them -- especially if it triggers their jealousy/resentment. If someone is getting texts or calls, that's incredibly annoying to someone who gets no texts or calls for obvious reasons.
Some years back we took our young children out with their grandparents to a family restaurant. It was mid evening on a Saturday night and the place was full and very loud, with escalating conversations, people having fun, etc.
My infant daughter dropped her fork. I happened to catch a woman nearby -- likely barren and fervently vengeful -- giving the most hateful, glaring look I've ever seen, and I would imagine she went forth to declare how her night was ruined by our much quieter than average table. I recall this experience whenever I hear some railing about children on airplanes, etc -- I imagine that much of it is selective, desperate clutching for offense, and it's much the same regarding people and their anti-smartphone spiels.
If I am at dinner and I decide that I want to keep on top of my device (I have four children and a very busy professional life), those with me have to deal with it. Most of the time my phone is more important than the discardable conversation happening over a meal.
It doesn't make me more important than them, though maybe it means that I have different values.
I generally veer away from these sorts of conversations because they tend to be dominated by angry people who are essentially trying to control other people ("you should do this and you should do that and I will forever be judging and disapproving or approving". You don't hear people living in the real world declaring that everyone must check their phone constantly)
Apple had itself pretty tied up with two form factors, with no near term hopes of coming out with a form factor between the two. Jobs was simply trying to undermine Samsung's efforts (though Android succeeded in doing that for him). Seriously, if 7" doesn't make sense for a touchscreen interface, how could a 3.5" screen possibly make sense? Only in Apple world is a 7" tablet simply a 10" shrunken.
The Nexus 7 is a rebranded Asus device that was talked about last year. Then consider the Galaxy Tab, and the basic fundamental that Android has never dictated the sizes of devices.
Only Apple so tightly coupled their API with very precise, specific form factors and sizes. It is impossible to view Apple's move (especially after widely criticizing a 7" tablet -- recall the sandpapered fingers nonsense) as anything but a me too maneuver.
I would observe that it has been exactly the opposite -- it was at the height of Apple's success, during the period when they essentially owned the market, that Gruber got that obnoxious swagger and ill suited confidence. With Apple becoming a player instead of the player, Gruber seems to be maintaining relevance by removing the attitude, to very good effect.
Like the GP that bit about AJAX was just all wrong. Garrett is so astonishingly irrelevant in all of this, as is the AJAX me-too title. Google was very important, but only insofar as they legitimized the technique and made a lot of people realize that this crazy web thing was a lot more powerful than people often thought. And it wasn't gmail -- it was Google Suggests. That was an atomic bomb on webapps that proved that highly dynamic pages were possible and preferable.
Me - using XmlHttp(Request) since 2001.