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maximus1983on I do not use a debugger (2016)

Sure I’ve written some awful code in the past but I am at the point that when building certain application types I know exactly what I am doing.

If I was writing code in c++ I would probably create something awful because I wouldn’t know what I would be doing.

maximus1983on I do not use a debugger (2016)

I think their definition of terrible and mine are very different.

maximus1983on I do not use a debugger (2016)

> Doing “something else” means (1) rethinking your code so that it is easier to maintain or less buggy (2) adding smarter tests so that, in the future, bugs are readily identified effortlessly. Investing your time in this manner makes your code better in a lasting manner… whereas debugging your code line-by-line fixes one tiny problem without improving your process or your future diagnostics.

I've been a professional now for about 15 years and very, very rarely do I get to work on "my code". Almost all of the code I have to work with was written by someone else originally and I have to just modify the system for new requirements. Tests do not exist or if they do they are largely incomplete.

So the only thing to do is to step through find the problem, fix the ticket and move on.

Sure If I get to design the system I normally write it very simply / well structured with appropirate levels of abstraction and with enough tests to expose the bugs in my code. But very rarely do I get paid to work on my code, because my code doesn't need a lot of maintenance. I normally am asked to make changes to bad systems.

> Brian W. Kernighan and Rob Pike wrote that stepping through a program less productive than thinking harder and adding output statements and self-checking code at critical places. Kernighan once wrote that the most effective debugging tool is still careful thought, coupled with judiciously placed print statements.

Thinking harder when I have a project with millions of lines of code (this is normal in large financial systems) won't help me. A debugger will.

I think a lot of these famous programmers have never had to work with something terrible and probably never will and that is why they make such blasé statements.

maximus1983on Guardian records first operating profit since 1998

I totally disagree. The Guardian has outright lied about people I have personally spoken to. They also constantly call people Alt-Right. I actually emailed them about them calling people Alt-Right (which is a very specific meaning these days) and they wouldn't give me a definition, which means they don't know what it means.

There are events that I was either a part of that they have lied about by carefully omitting the truth or using the good old scare quotes. Their opinion pieces are written by awful hypocrites that constantly demand increasing censorship of the internet in the UK.

It looks like their e-begging has worked. I was hoping it was going to go under.

BTW. I generally hate all the press in the UK. This includes both left wing and the right wing rags. They all lie or misrepresent the truth when it suits their narrative.

maximus1983on Study finds Reddit’s ban of its most toxic subreddits worked (2017)

Lets get one thing straight. The Allies didn't go to war because of holocaust, they were dragged into a conflict by Hitler. In fact the only reason why the UK went to war against Hitler at the time was because Winston Churchill was determined to have another war because he was a drunken psychopath. Many of the newspapers at the time actually were against allowing Jewish Refugees into the UK. Also in the US the Nazis were popular enough that Coke Cola had adverts with the swastika on it.

maximus1983on Study finds Reddit’s ban of its most toxic subreddits worked (2017)

You obviously didn't read what I said.

> There are subjective things and there are objective things. What you're doing at this moment (trying to justify both sides) is intellectually dishonest.

Well you didn't really justify anything or understand what I said and then accused me of acting in bad faith. Lovely.

> A child might call their parents stupid for not letting them eat candy all day. Objectively the parents are not stupid, the child has a mistaken perspective.

Also the nanny state that you are promoting will have the opposite effect of what you want. Most of the places that have draconian rules are normally the places where most of the vice occurs ... it just happens out of sight of the authorities.

> I hope you realize you are justifying horrible, vile speech by trying to "see both sides".

I believe in freedom of speech. If people cannot say vile things they cannot be corrected by the rest of society, by silencing them you will just force it underground where it will fester. Well done you are making the problem worse.

maximus1983on Study finds Reddit’s ban of its most toxic subreddits worked (2017)

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4055162/Killing-hat...

If you don't allow them to be part of the world you end up alienating them forever and they can never redeem themselves and change.

Society has forgotten how to forgive.

maximus1983on Study finds Reddit’s ban of its most toxic subreddits worked (2017)

> Yes, society as a whole has a collective opinion that forms the mainstream and defines a) what's outside of that and b) what to do with those outside of it.

The Overton window (which is what you are referring to) changes over time. What is considered acceptable is transient (I've seen the term for ethinic minority change 5 times in my life time so far and the older terms are now considered racist). Homosexuality for example would have been outside of the Overton window in the past and would have been deemed outside of polite discussion.

People have lost their jobs or banned for comments on Facebook / Twitter etc that are literally years old. Most of these comments were made made over a decade ago.

There are many groups of people that conduct a witch hunter using "outrage archaeology". They will go through someone's tweets for something that is now considered inappropriate and they will demand an apology for things that were said decades before and the person probably doesn't even remember why they made that comment at the time. Bernie Sanders (who is considered from my understanding to be somewhat of a progressive candidate) had something he wrote in 1980 dredged up in an attempt to smear him.

I've was temporarily suspended on twitter because I posted a Death Threat to my friend as a Joke between us and some other friends that were following each other. My friend and I regularly trade racist remarks about each others race on whatsapp because it is a long standing joke. Should we be censored because of an inside joke between friends?

maximus1983on Study finds Reddit’s ban of its most toxic subreddits worked (2017)

You do realise that most of this language is from people that are deeply frustrated at the situation they live in and vent on the Internet. Yes they said mean words on the internet? Who cares? I don't.

> Pretty much any place on the internet that promotes itself solely on being a "free speech zone/place" is trash.

Twitter is equally trash and has plenty of Anti-White, Anti-Jew (mostly in Arabic but nobody talks about it) and Anti-Men rhetoric, Violent threats towards Children and people get a free pass because they have a blue checkmark by their name and the "right" politics.

Also the term Hate speech is an ill defined term, which is used when convenient if someone has the wrong politics (e.g. centre-right, libertarian, conservative or religious). The terms is soo badly defined in law that people in the UK are going to prison for posting offensive rap lyrics on facebook.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-43816921

> Proper places of discussion don't have comments like "gas the kikes isn't technically hate speech so we should be allowed to say it here".

Absolute garbage. This is snobbery and nothing more. I would argue that by just siloing people on the internet it is actually making discussion in general more problematic. In the past, we used IRC, AOL chat room and other things with no moderation. If someone was just being rude all the time, people just ended up ignoring them and they left ... I miss the old internet.

maximus1983on Facebook Bans Louis Farrakhan, Milo Yiannopoulos, InfoWars and Others

Far right is a dog whistle. It doesn’t really mean anything. E.g criticise the immigration policy, you will be labelled far right by some of the rags that are still somehow trading.

As for whether free speech benefits those in the far right. Sure maybe it does but it also benefits everybody.

maximus1983on Facebook Bans Louis Farrakhan, Milo Yiannopoulos, InfoWars and Others

I am sure there will be many people cheering. However people don't seem to realise that just because it isn't you getting censored now, it may well be you in the future.

What is deemed acceptable and what isn't deemed acceptable are quite transient. It wasn't long ago it was unacceptable/illegal to be a homosexual, but now it is at least (in the Western world) readily accepted. I wonder if facebook was around in the 1950s would they be banning prominent homosexuals?