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john_the_writer

315 karma · joined April 1, 2022

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john_the_writer··on Why is everything so scalable?
The only bit that I didn't agree with was the downsides. You can scale individual modules. You can set your load balancer to make all calls to specific endpoints go to specific servers. These can scale independently.

If you have background workers (ActiveJobs/Oban for example), these can be on different queues, that you can scale. It's actually really easy to build out a mono-repo system allow for scale.

If you organise your workers into folders based on their purpose (reporting, exporting, ... ), and you're careful about feature flags, you can drastically reduce git-conflicts and CICD issues.

john_the_writer··on Why Is SQLite Coded In C
Yeah.. I always remind myself of the netscape browser. A lesson in "if it's working to mess with it" My question is always the reverse. Why try it in Y new language. Is there some feature that Y provides that was missing in X? How often do those features come up.

Company I worked for decided to build out a new microservice in language Y. The whole company was writing in W and X, but they decided to write the new service in Y. When something goes wrong, or a bug needs fixing, 3 people in the company of over 100 devs know Y. Guess what management is doing.. Re-writing it in X.

john_the_writer··on Why Is SQLite Coded In C
Agreed. I rather dislike the idea of "safe" coding languages. Fighting with a memory leak in an elixir app, for the past week. I never viewed c or c++ as unsafe. Writing code is hard, always has been, always will be. It is never safe.
john_the_writer··on China's New Rare Earth and Magnet Restrictions Threaten US Defense Supply Chains
Yes.. that.. If you are against oil and plastics, walk your talk. If you are against rare earth, walk your talk. If you have a degree in chem-eng, and you're building low plastic solutions, and you're critical, then you're being honest. Saying "no no no" but doing it on a new cell phone you know was built on rare earth is like a vegan giving a talk while sitting on their new leather couch.
john_the_writer··on China's New Rare Earth and Magnet Restrictions Threaten US Defense Supply Chains
reminds me of the just stop oil protest that stopped the cooking oil truck. People who don't know enough, trying to stop what they don't understand.
john_the_writer··on China's New Rare Earth and Magnet Restrictions Threaten US Defense Supply Chains
If it's one thing the US gov has down, it's how to move super slow. No way it gets done in a 10 years.
john_the_writer··on The App Store was always authoritarian
Sounds like a right to repair argument. It will lose. Try putting linux on a windows-10 laptop. That BIOS is nailed down hard. It can be done but its a right PITA
john_the_writer··on Scammed out of $130K via fake Google call, spoofed Google email and auth sync
They might not.. But you'd very likely have their number saved on your phone. Might even have them as an un-mutable contact. My wife/kids and their school are all on the "never mute" list.
john_the_writer··on Scammed out of $130K via fake Google call, spoofed Google email and auth sync
This is awesome. Great job your bank..
john_the_writer··on Scammed out of $130K via fake Google call, spoofed Google email and auth sync
I mean. I have a little book on my desk with password hints. "2nd grade best friends phone number", "birthday of first dog". It also has a grid of random numbers/letters on the front page, so I can write "first_crush_b4*5". You'd have to have physical access to the book, and know what the hint leads to. It's un-hackable. I mean aside from social, or physically breaking into my house.
john_the_writer··on Scammed out of $130K via fake Google call, spoofed Google email and auth sync
My local medical clinic sent me an sms with a link, asking me to change my medical info. I called them to point out how they were training their patients to fall for sms scamms.
john_the_writer··on Scammed out of $130K via fake Google call, spoofed Google email and auth sync
I've had a few calls where they are from legit places (I confirmed later) and they ask me verify my identify. I counter, that they need to verify who they are. They were confused and we couldn't go forward, because I wouldn't answer their questions until they answered my question.
john_the_writer··on Safe C++ proposal is not being continued
Love this quote. An love the intent.
john_the_writer··on Safe C++ proposal is not being continued
I don't know that they don't care about safety. They just don't agree with the definition others have picked. I remember when managed code became a thing. I being an old c++ dev noted that memory was always managed. It was managed by me.
john_the_writer··on A love letter to the CSV format (2024)
Literally did this all day today. Took a csv file, parsed it in elixir, processed it and created a new csv file, then opened that in excel, to confirm the changes. At least 100 times today.
john_the_writer··on A love letter to the CSV format (2024)
Well I mean unless you're inspecting it with a hex editor, you're not looking at the csv file itself. Even then, I suppose you could say that's not even the file itself. An electron microscope perhaps? But then you've got the whole Heisenberg issue, so there's that.
john_the_writer··on A love letter to the CSV format (2024)
100%.. xml also worked here too..

YAML is a pain because it has every so slightly different versions, that sometimes don't play nice.

csv or TSV's are almost always portable.

john_the_writer··on A love letter to the CSV format (2024)
What are you talking about? Excel opens csv with zero issue. In windows, and mac. Mac you right click and "open with". Or you open excel, and click file/open and find the csv. I do the first one a dozen times a day.
john_the_writer··on Word documents will be saved to the cloud automatically on Windows going forward
Got to figure out how to block the url in the router.
john_the_writer··on Linux is 34 years old today
Just a few more years and it's time will be up :D
john_the_writer··on Well, it seems you just don't like programming
This is a fantastic article. Reminds me why I get up in the morning. Reminds me of why I fell in love with programming, and why after 25 years as a dev, I still mostly love it. (there are days)

AI will rob me of that practice.

john_the_writer··on Do Things That Don't Scale (2013)
Yeah, the other day a front end dev created a branch in some elixir code. They added a pile of tests, and asked a (new hire) back end dev to finish off the work. The tests were 100% vibe coded. I knew the code well, and after looking realized that the tests could never ever pass. The tests were rubbish. Crap part was, the new BE dev was totally lost for a long time trying to figure out how to make them pass. Vibe killed his afternoon.
john_the_writer··on EU data privacy laws are overly vague, poorly written and unevenly enforced
Because something is the best dog dookie on the market, does not mean I should be happy to eat it. Or that I should say nothing when it lands on my plate.
john_the_writer··on Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down
But what happens when the Gov decides they don't want to fund it anymore? Or the gov decides something shouldn't be funded.. Say truckers on strike, or wiki-leaks? Well then boom we have the same game, just a different player.
john_the_writer··on Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down
Nah.. Congress won't. When paypal stopped payments to wiki-leaks Congress was happy as to close their eyes.
john_the_writer··on The EU could be scanning your chats by October 2025
I've often countered the "if you've got nothing to hide" by taking out a bit of paper, and asking for their social and email passwords. "nothing to hide."
john_the_writer··on The EU could be scanning your chats by October 2025
As a parent, I can tell you it's insanely easy to manage allowing kids online. Don't.. or 100% supervised. Done
john_the_writer··on Show HN: I built an LLM chat app because we shouldn't need 10 AI subscriptions
Reminds me of the xkcd https://xkcd.com/927/
john_the_writer··on A software conference that advocates for quality
Yep.. They/we get miffed, and twisted, stalled. Then they get dispassionate, and leave.
john_the_writer··on Measuring the Impact of LLMs on Experienced Developer Productivity
I've found it starts bad, but it works into your flow, and eventually it gets a better. It's a minimal thing though. It's sort of like intel-i-sense.
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