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ronaldj

363 karma · joined December 28, 2009

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ronaldj··on We asked camera companies why their RAW formats are all different and confusing
For low light conditions my full frame mirrorless is way better than a phone.
ronaldj··on Toblerone to change design under ‘Swissness’ rules
Growing up Subaru had these Outback commercials with a guy that had an Australian accent. The accent plus the Outback name made me believe for my entire childhood that Subaru were Australian cars.
ronaldj··on Show HN: Pony – a messenger for mindful correspondence
I discovered Slowly just over a month ago. Really surprised about the lack of spam and the interactions I've had.
ronaldj··on Video game play is positively correlated with well-being
As the partner of someone who is addicted to a computer game this is 100% not true. The game takes over any non-working hours and eats in to sleep time.
ronaldj··on Ask HN: Is average code getting worse?
I'm not saying things are the best I think they can be. I'm saying the progress is amazing and overall has been positive.

If someone were to make you an offer to build a complex web app right now using current tooling vs traveling back in time to 2010 and building it using 2010 tooling, would you actually choose to go back to 2010?

ronaldj··on Ask HN: Is average code getting worse?
When I was a younger developer I used to believe things like this. There are tons of roles and different levels to fill. People come from all sorts of backgrounds. You shouldn't discount folks for following a different path. A passionate and curious developer can learn C, C++, Rust if/when they need to.

I would also argue that in the front end world frameworks have vastly improved code quality and developer experience. 10 years ago every team had their own homegrown build system, there were no libraries for type checking, you had write code or conditionals for the lowest version browser you support. Oh and app structure? Every team did something different.

Compare that to now: We have a handful of large open source build systems, so if you jump teams/projects there is consistency. We have things like TypeScript and Flow. We have Babel, which can transpile modern JavaScript in to older versions of the language, so you can support older browsers without even thinking about it. Finally, we have frameworks like React and Vue, which enforce a component based architecture. This is great because you can jump between different projects and for the most part will find code organized in the same way. All of this is amazing.

ronaldj··on Ford, Google form 'strategic partnership' on cloud services, Android
Ford Fiesta owners got this awful Sync 2 system and a poorly designed transmission. When I purchased, the Sync system seemed like something I could deal with at the time. It aged poorly. It seems like it is getting slower, but that's probably just in comparison to using newer systems with CarPlay.

I also have this added bug where sometimes (once every 6 months or so) the Sync system gets stuck on when I turn off my car and open the door. The screen goes off and the radio keeps playing. Only way to resolve it is to disconnect the battery.

ronaldj··on Amazon permanently shuts down Prime Pantry
It's so confusing and easy to create another cart... I've had groceries end up in the normal Amazon cart, then below that Amazon Fresh cart, and below that Whole Foods Market cart.
ronaldj··on Leaking silhouettes of cross-origin images
Pretty sure JavaScriptCore predates Chrome. V8 was Chrome only.
ronaldj··on The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire
I blame AT&T/Verizon. The power to stop scam calls is well within their control.
ronaldj··on The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire
This country's government is based on the idea that people aren't intelligent (or interested) enough to think about politics for themselves. That's what a representative democracy is.
ronaldj··on Pandemic sparked European cycling revolution
Fitness and confidence is easily overtaken by stupidity and resentment by car drivers on the road, at least around here. The white spray painted bicycles you see along the road can attest to that.
ronaldj··on Webpack 5
Configuring the modern JS toolkit (webpack, Babel, your framework of choice, Jest, etc) is such a pain. I’ve been doing front-end for 10+ years. You’re probably not a bozo.
ronaldj··on “A server hall draws as much electricity as half a nuclear power plant creates”
Sure. Do you know of any studies that analyze the power consumption of different languages on the backend? I'd be curious to see how they compare.
ronaldj··on “A server hall draws as much electricity as half a nuclear power plant creates”
You blame a client side programming language for data center power usage?
ronaldj··on Self-driving cars learn to read the body language of people on the street
3 days ago... https://electrek.co/2020/08/26/tesla-driver-autopilot-watchi...
ronaldj··on Visualising the amount of microplastic we eat
That’s awesome. I didn’t know about shampoo bars. Going to give them a try!
ronaldj··on The FCC Has Fined Robocallers $208M, Collected $6,790
And then they'll add on a monthly robocall prevention fee to your bill. :P
ronaldj··on New React DevTools
"There’s no hope of understanding the DOM with React"

This is false. I've been developing with React for over a year and a half and have never used the React dev tools. I've only ever used the browser's web inspector and it's fine. We don't write CSS in JS, so this could play in to that, but when we were evaluating those solutions it wasn't impossible to figure out what was going on, even if you had hashes for class names.

ronaldj··on Incomplete List of Mistakes in the Design of CSS
Wow. I've been writing CSS for 10+ years. I never knew that.
ronaldj··on Modifications to Google Chromium for removing Google integration
Evidence?
ronaldj··on Woman Rides Bicycle to 183.9 MPH, a New World Record
Post a video when you do it. :P
ronaldj··on Stopping the RSI pain that almost destroyed my programming career (2016)
For me it was rock climbing. I had been suffering for a couple of years. I had been to the doctor a couple of times, but I wasn't really getting much out of the exercises he prescribed or the medication. I happened to start doing indoor rock climbing and I noticed my symptoms slowly becoming less frequent. I climbed for about 2 years and during that time my symptoms got much better.
ronaldj··on Show HN: Faster.js – a micro-optimizing JavaScript compiler
On the demo page in Chrome, Faster.js is actually slower.
ronaldj··on I Watched All of the Chrome Dev Summit 2017 Videos
Service Workers creep me out, but maybe I'm in the minority. I don't want web pages to be able to execute code if I'm not actually on their page. To be honest, I don't even want most apps to background refresh on my phone.
ronaldj··on Transmit 5
Most of that is just three.js
ronaldj··on Airlines Phasing Out Screens Because Passengers Are All on Your Devices
I like being able to watch movies or TV shows on the plane. I don't keep that stuff on my phone and I don't own a tablet. I guess I can hope it'll lower the cost of the ticket, but that's not going to happen. :)
ronaldj··on Whole Foods is struggling
Checkout performance is key. It's one of the main reasons I shop there. Even at peak times, the wait time seems to be an order of magnitude less than checking out at Safeway. Also, the person checking you out at Whole Foods is usually happier and nicer than the person checking you out at Safeway.
ronaldj··on Apple, it’s time to move on from “OS X”
Agreed. Don't really know anyone who would say you are wrong for calling it X vs. 10. There are more important things going on in the world. :)
ronaldj··on Pencil
I thought it was cute.
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