HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

superbcarrot

1,079 karma · joined January 11, 2021

submissionscomments
superbcarrot··on Ask HN: Should I learn C++ in 2021?
> I’m hesitant towards C++ as it seems an ancient programming language and I don’t know for how long it will be around.

It will be around for a long time. This shouldn't be a reason not to pick up C++.

> I‘m currently part of a team that needs help with C++ development.

That might be a good sign that you should pick it up but the details matter a lot. Getting to the point where you're productive with C++ in an existing codebase takes a while even for people who are experienced with the language let alone someone who is just learning it. So I would invest the time to learn C++ for work only if it's a long-term project where you'll have the necessary support from the rest of the team and from your engineering management. You need to establish the expectation that you can't just jump in and immediately make meaningful contributions. If it's a case of "this old C++ repo runs a critical piece of our product and we need a person to make some changes and maintain it", then stay as far away as possible.

superbcarrot··on Zapier reached a $5B valuation with $1.3M of funding
Sometimes I get shocked by these numbers and it reminds me how little I know about business. Like if you showed me the wikipedia page for Zapier and asked me give it some value, I would be way off. Or if you pitched the business idea to me, I would tell you do something better with your time.
superbcarrot··on Ask HN: What is the future for Oracle DBAs?
> thank you AWS, Azure, GCP...

This might be your answer. She can look for ways to transition to being a cloud engineer. There is a lot of complexity there and plenty of work to be done for the foreseeable future. As a DBA she should find that switch easier to make than moving to data science.

superbcarrot··on Emacs org-mode examples and cookbook (2017)
I know. It's a figure of speech, not a reference to the demographics of emacs users.
superbcarrot··on UK 'Right to repair' law to come in this summer
How could it possibly? Is there a way to do this without requiring all open-source software?
superbcarrot··on Emacs org-mode examples and cookbook (2017)
This has been my limited experience with everything related to Emacs - fragmented tutorials on how to do x that work with someone's specific setup. And when you start looking around for fixes you get solutions for "this is how I do this with Prelude", "this is built-in", "my customized Spacemacs setup..." and at that point I throw my hands in the air, admit to myself that I'm not a real man and go back to VSCode.
superbcarrot··on Ask HN: Those who quit their jobs to travel the world, how did it go?
> My better memories were all from places I stayed for over 2 months, and all have more to do with people I met than the place itself.

How did you go about meeting people in the first place?

superbcarrot··on How to Kill Bitcoin (Part 2)
Is it just bitter people who missed out on making a lot of money? Or is it sober and relatively informed people who are assessing Bitcoin correctly? How do we tell the difference between the two?
superbcarrot··on Hertz, the original meme stock, is turning out to be worthless
Seriously, what are the possible outcomes (positive or negative) that we can see play out? By what mechanisms can the currently inflated markets end and how will that impact the rest of the economy?
superbcarrot··on A Year at Google Brain (2020)
Hotz is kind of doing his own thing at comma.ai. If I founded my own company, I'm sure they would hire me for anything that I applied for.
superbcarrot··on A Year at Google Brain (2020)
> It’s still not clear to me a person of this cadre need a PhD in a technical field in this day and age; they might contribute just as much faster if they chose any other route.

They might be able to contribute technically but they might not be given the opportunity to do so if they don't have a PhD.

superbcarrot··on Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet
> but it's hard to argue that Bitcoin isn't the best on many of those measures

Seems pretty easy to me. What is Bitcoin best at apart from having the largest market cap?

superbcarrot··on Ask HN: What supplements do you take?
Magnesium and Vitamin D - as far as I can tell there is plenty of evidence about the need for supplementation and effectiveness of both.

Currently experimenting with L-theanine to see if it helps me work better.

superbcarrot··on Julia: A Post-Mortem
> R is arguably easier for someone with little coding experience to learn, but Julia isn't that much more difficult, and it's much more intuitive to code in than Python.

Having some experience with all three of these languages, I find Julia much harder than R and less intuitive than Python. The relatively clean syntax isn't enough to make Julia an easy language.

superbcarrot··on Julia: A Post-Mortem
I did. I still don't get how the author's decision to not use the language is enough to declare it dead.
superbcarrot··on Julia: A Post-Mortem
Is the post only based on TIOBE? The same index that currently ranks JavaScript below Visual Basic and SQL below Assembly? That ranking is off by so much that anyone who takes it seriously loses at lot of credibility from the start.

I'm not entirely on board with the Julia hype train but they certainly got some things right and both the ecosystem and the community are healthy and growing. Julia doesn't need to replace a bunch of other languages immediately to be successful. Implying that the language is dead by using the word post-mortem is just demonstrably false.

superbcarrot··on Ask HN: Can you switch to a programming career despite nearing 40?
You can although the specifics depend a lot on what you're swtiching from. A mechnical engineer, an accountant, a history teacher and a blue-collar worker will need to approach this in very different ways.
superbcarrot··on Procrastination is flight, deadline is fight, freeze is staring at the screen
And you can also freeze when you should fight. With only 1 or 2 all-nighters to pull off before finishing my degree, I just froze and couldn't write a single word. I would stare at the screen not being able to type even one more character for those reports. Ended up submitting the incomplete versions knowing that they aren't good enough for a pass.

That's how I droppped out of university with only two days to go.

superbcarrot··on Ask HN: NFTs legit or mania?
People have been doing stuff like this for a long time - trading cards, the kid who was selling pixels on a web page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Million_Dollar_Homepage), astronauts were taking items in their personal kits with the intent to resell them later for high value etc.

I suppose that we'll see things like these get more weaponised as people look for easy ways to make money. I'm not interested in participating.

superbcarrot··on Hyperinflation Pushes Venezuela to Print 1M-Bolivar Bills
> is it a terrible idea to hedge that crypto is better or as good as gold during crisis?

Cryptocurrencies are still too volatile and untested. Maybe Bitcoin behaves like gold during a crisis, or maybe it's everyone's play money and when times get tough everyone will sell their Bitcoin first. We just don't have historical precedent for it.

superbcarrot··on Tell HN: I am doing online reading sessions on analytic number theory
> but where's all the love for analysis & PDEs?

That would be getting too close to stuff that's actually useful.

superbcarrot··on Ask HN: What tangible benefits did you get from spending time on HN?
> or met any wives on this site

The wife has negative ROI anyway. If she isn't getting me more money, a new job or another wife, there is no tangible benefit.

Also feelings, life satisfaction, love as benefits etc. don't count in this context.

superbcarrot··on Ask HN: What tangible benefits did you get from spending time on HN?
> Basically money, power etc..

None of those, personally. I'm sure that some people have benefited by finding business ideas and opportunities or new jobs but there are other ways to do this and it's hardly a good reason to spend time on HN.

> Also intellectual debate, I get more information, I feel smart as benefits etc. don't count in this context.

The largest benefit for me is being exposed to a mix of interesting ideas and being part of a corner of the internet that's quite a bit more civil. The effects that this has over the long run might be positive but they are also difficult to quantify.

It's okay (and healthy) to do things that can't be assigned a specific monetary value.

superbcarrot··on Ask HN: If you designed/edited College Majors, what would they include?
Speaking as someone from Europe - I would make the subject/major system much closer to the way it's done in American universities. Picking your subject before you even apply doesn't work nearly as well as the idea that you're going to university in the general sense and have some time to explore options. I admit that I could be biased because I personally would have benefited more from the American system.

This probably isn't what you're asking for but I wanted to highlight that even something simple like being able to pick your classes isn't an option in many places.

superbcarrot··on Do What Makes the Best Story
> If it turned out to be the wrong decision to have made, you'd at least be fun at dinner parties.

Or you'll regret it for the rest of your life.

This advice only works for easily reversible decisions.

superbcarrot··on The Two Classes of Software Engineer
I'm totally on board with learning a lot of deeper technical material by myself but I feel that it's because my background isn't in a technical field from a top university so I've been putting in extra work to compensate even after I got my first job in the industry. Knowing that you're somehow second-class is not a great position to be in even in an industry as open as software.
superbcarrot··on The Two Classes of Software Engineer
> Otherwise.the lesson is just a bunch of facts, as dry as memorizing a phone book.

Not in my experience. It's a system of interconnected pieces that often build on each other. With each piece you usually get some justification and relevant problems to solve. That's very far from being just a list of facts to memorize.

superbcarrot··on Ask HN: What services do you pay for every month?
I can anti-recommend Brilliant. It might be okay if want to pay for a subscription to solve puzzles but it's not a good environment for learning.

In your case I would start with Khan Academy - they have material from kindergarten level all the way up to undergraduate university level so you can pick things up from where you feel most comfortable. And Sal explains things in a very human way which is nice for people who have struggled with math before.

superbcarrot··on Ask HN: Do you think Agile/Scrum is beneficial for software delivery?
The topic is kind of broad but to focus on standups, I have a couple of firm beliefs:

- Standups don't need to be daily - it's too much. Twice a week is okay (this can be adjusted depending on team/product dynamics).

- They shouldn't consist of everyone telling everyone else what they're working on. This practice is boring and useless to anyone who is present. (If you want to check what I'm working on, log into the issue tracking system and look at the tickets against my name.) Instead, standups should focus on pieces of work that need to be delivered or that need to change status.

superbcarrot··on Ask HN: How to stay focused and motivated working from home?
Everything in your comment can be true and the advice can still be useless. People need specific, small, actionable steps that they can realistically take. Generic stuff like "you need purpose" is either completely meaningless or inspirational in the short-term but with no real consequences.
Page 1 of 7Next →