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hvidgaard

3,256 karma · joined December 11, 2012

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hvidgaard··on Pharo 10
> But statically typed complied languages do not provide an inherently better programming paradigm than dynamic programming.

For any large long lived project with multiple contributors, statically type analysis definitely adds value by eliminating an entire class of errors at compile time.

hvidgaard··on Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania
The Russians knew of this rule, so I doubt they are surprised. If the new owners are approved they will get control back.
hvidgaard··on Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania
Did you even read the article?

> Germany's economy minister announced the seizure in a statement on Monday. The move came after the ministry of economic affairs learned that Gazprom Germania had been acquired by JSC Palmary and Gazprom export business services LLC — but it wasn't clear who the owners behind the two companies were, per the statement.

> Germany's economy ministry justified the takeover by saying it had not granted permission for the Gazprom Germania acquisition. Permission is required, the ministry said, if the investors are not from the European Union and "critical infrastructure" is involved.

hvidgaard··on Single-chip processors have reached their limits
It's a very simple example and knowing that addition is commutative, it's obvious that there is no ordering.
hvidgaard··on My guiding principles after 20 years of programming (2020)
I usually go about it differently than hold off coding. I do try to understand the problem fully before I implement anything. I try to figure out what abstractions make the most sense and what to optimize for. Then I write a preliminary implementation and almost without fail I learn something new that changes the parameters of the "problem". Scrap it and do it again just with more knowledge. No amount of analysing and understanding up front have produced a better or faster result for me.
hvidgaard··on I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears
> The less affluent citizens who didn't attend higher education are paying for us who did attend. This is usually motivated by the idea that society as a whole benefits from us educated people so much that they should pay for it. I find this idea a bit offensive.

The data supports the claim. A higher educated citizen generate more tax and in general use less money in the healthcare system. It's a net surplus to pay for the education, so the "less affluent" citizens are not paying for anything. At least that is what the Danish government claims.

> would actually prefer a system financed purely by student loans. It does put a lot more responsibility on the prospective student to judge the quality of an education programme and the opportunities it affords. Some programmes would no longer be sustainable if they were not given free of charge.

This is rather simple to correct for. If the unemployment is high for a given education it can be reduced. It is in Denmark.

hvidgaard··on Some discouraging anecdotes on how services handle account deletions
That would be infeasible for cold storage.
hvidgaard··on Why is it hard to buy things that work well?
Which is a very good way to cut down the money spend on things.
hvidgaard··on Some discouraging anecdotes on how services handle account deletions
You only need to state to what extend and period the information is stored in backups, and have a process in place to purge it again in case of a restore.
hvidgaard··on AVIF has landed (2020)
I agree, either compare at the same size or the same perceptual quality. I know the latter is subjective, but in this case the JPEG is significantly higher quality.
hvidgaard··on How to get the most out of your 1:1s
I will absolute do what I can to grow employees. But they have to want to do that. Not all employees want to climb the ladder. They do not want to become a manager, they do not want the responsibility that comes with lead or architect roles. That does not mean they cannot grow in their position. You can always improve your coding, automated testing, devops, not to say soft skills, learn a new framework etc.
hvidgaard··on Stainless steel leaches nickel and chromium into foods during cooking (2013)
Chemistry is complex enough that layman cannot make any assumptions. For all we know stainless steel and carbon steel have higher content than the cast iron, but leach less because it's far more stable.
hvidgaard··on How to get the most out of your 1:1s
I like growing employees, but I'd be lying if it said I didn't put immense value on the great employees that are content where they are with what they're doing. They're dependable and they mean I have some form of "old guard" that really knows a system inside out without going through documentation or experimenting. That is very valuable.
hvidgaard··on Elementary OS is imploding
Apart from invoking it in writing, I think such manoeuvres go through a lawyer, which a court will usually accept them as stating the truth about when an offer was send and received. I'm also sure the clause have some text about how long the other founder has to answer and how long they have to come up with the money if they decide to switch it around.
hvidgaard··on Elementary OS is imploding
That assumes that the founders have enough intimate knowledge of the other founders personal financial situation. They clearly risk becoming a victim of it them if the other founder can find enough money.

If a company is clearly worth more than the offer, finding outside investment or even traditional financing through the bank shouldn't pose that much of an issue.

hvidgaard··on Elementary OS is imploding
I've seen a few pair of founders with great success have an agreement that one could at any point for any reason, decide to buy out the other party. Catch is that if you invoke that the other party can switch it around and demand that you accept that pay for your share.

It's crystal clear what and how, and you're not going to try and low ball it because you can be forced to sell for that yourself. I don't think it's perfect, but it is simple, self correcting and crystal clear.

hvidgaard··on The Dirty Pipe Vulnerability
I think you missed my point. Attackers will go through commits regardless of a "Security Patch" tag.

But going about your normal patch cycle as normal for things not labelled "Security Patch", just means if the patch for some reason should have been tagged but wasn't, you're in the same situation.

I do see the value in your approach, but it just does not change anything for applications where security is top priority.

hvidgaard··on The Dirty Pipe Vulnerability
What should they do instead? You have to rush to patch in any case. If the maintainers start to label commits with "security patch" the logical step is that it doesn't require immediate action when the label is not there. Never mind that the bug might actually be exploitable but undiscovered by white hats.

If you do not want to rush to patch more than you have to, use a LTS kernel and know that updates matter and should be applied asap regardless of the reason for the patch.

hvidgaard··on How “latency numbers everybody should know” decreased from 1990–2020
At that level of optimization, the problem is not isolated. With Starlink the gain by using lasers is potentially lost with the additional processing that needs to happen when bouncing over multiple satellites.
hvidgaard··on How “latency numbers everybody should know” decreased from 1990–2020
If you could have responsive and rich UI/UX 30-40 years ago you don't need anything but a highly efficient core prioritizing the UI. No need to waste energy on a super fast core.
hvidgaard··on Audiblegate
Usually this is solved by including domain experts on the development teams. Their responsibility is not to program, but to document and verify that the test cases are adequate. This is well known, but often ignored because it's expensive.
hvidgaard··on Building for the 99% Developers
Anything done poorly and terrible is, well, poor and terrible.
hvidgaard··on Building for the 99% Developers
In a corporate environment I insist on treating warnings as errors. They are warnings for a reason and it will lead to hard to debug errors in a sufficiently large codebase/team. Enabling it after the fact is a chore, but once it working its not much extra work.

Linting I only use for adding/correcting a file header, order or methods or other things that it can fix automatically.

hvidgaard··on Building for the 99% Developers
I don't think you quite understood what (s)he wrote.

The problem is using JVM without understanding some basic properties of it. Scaling is a matter of how you programmed it, not the language used.

hvidgaard··on Newegg has a bit of a scandal on its hands
I think it's less nefarious than that. The vendor did not fulfil their end of the contract, so the contract is voided and the money is transferred back. If the bank starts to go into do partial refunding they could suddenly be spending a lot more on this service.
hvidgaard··on Ask HN: What made your business take off that you wish you'd done much earlier?
From your example the consultancy work wasn't the problem, it was mismanagement of the of the startup.

The only alternative to consultancy should be to close. If you can let go of 1-2 unproductive employees, that should happen before taking on consultancy work. It should happen in any circumstance anyway, but taking on work to pay for other peoples wage and not getting value for that is a recipe for failure. If on the other hand it was high performance developers that really made progress on the core focus on the business it's probably okay.

hvidgaard··on Ask HN: What made your business take off that you wish you'd done much earlier?
The main driver of consultancy is revenue. If you can survive without that, don't do it if it isn't core to your business, just like you wouldn't do in an established company anyway.
hvidgaard··on How to manage software developers without micromanaging
It's definitely not the scrum masters responsibility to decide on requirements.
hvidgaard··on Ask HN: What made your business take off that you wish you'd done much earlier?
Until your startup is a full on company with multiple hires, consultancy work is revenue and can be a source of other business ideas that you might hire people for and make into another reliable revenue stream.

I know a handful of people who started with creating websites, then took some consultancy work and now have an entire different software company. They used those two things as a bootstrap to get going with opportunities that presented.

hvidgaard··on Don't contribute anything relevant in web forums (2020)
I'm not saying that. What I am saying is that right now, it just works. And when it doesn't and something else "just works" people will use that.
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