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I wish I had more than one upvote to give - what you just wrote is the truth of the matter.

It's not just you.

The only thing I'm confused about is why more C standards keep coming out. C is what it is. Work with the archaic parts of it as need be. You use C for ultimate cross-platform compatibility (every exotic platform and its mother has an ANSI-C/C99 compiler). If you're able to run on the most bleeding-edge C compiler supporting the most recent WG version of C... then why not just use another language? I say this as someone who loves C. If there are bits that feel old, you just create a DSL to get around these problems that compiles down to C... but you don't change C itself.. Just my perception working with all this for many years now.

vbtempon Software disenchantment

"I've turned down job offers because they were in C++"

Yep

vbtempon Serotonin booster leads to increased functional brain connectivity

It's kind of like how we all have our favorite podcasts to learn about new things. When it's a topic we don't know much about it's so interesting and we learn so much, but when it's a topic we're experts in, we get exasperated about how inaccurate or misleading it is.

vbtempon Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (June 2023)

  Location: DMV (DC, Maryland, Virginia)
  Remote: Hybrid preferred, but flexible for any arrangement.
  Willing to relocate: Probably not.
  Technologies: C, Rust, Python in Linux environment. Mostly do distributed systems, network protocol design and analysis, and related work. Worked in Aerospace flight software, embedded systems, space mission operations, etc. "Research Engineer" fits my ideal scope-of-work best. Other non-technical/management/leadership activities not mentioned here. I seek to avoid working in product-oriented "Agile" teams.
  Résumé/CV: On request
  Email: vb.temp@gmail.com
  Other: MS and BS in Computer Science. Security clearance (detail on request)

vbtempon Home Prices Fell in February for First Time in 11 Years

They are portraying the market exactly as it is. Reality is speaking for itself, not the realtors.

vbtempon Home Prices Fell in February for First Time in 11 Years

Solving for the equilibrium though, if the prices fall, more buyers will be available to compete, so it ends up right where it was before.

vbtempon Home Prices Fell in February for First Time in 11 Years

I observed that happening for about a 6-8 week period in Oct-Nov-Dec 2022, then the party returned like it was 2021 all over again.

vbtempon Home Prices Fell in February for First Time in 11 Years

No, which goes to say the price-escalations and white-hot housing markets are still a thing across North America, straight through the tech crash, bond crash, layoffs, and now banking crisis.

vbtempon Home Prices Fell in February for First Time in 11 Years

Many of the Northern VA counties and certain others in the DC metro area.

vbtempon Home Prices Fell in February for First Time in 11 Years

I think this is generally correct. This is the situation in my area: Prices can never fall, because if the situation was such that prices would fall, no one sells. So there's basically little to nothing available, so buyers are stuck competing no matter the macroeconomic situation.

vbtempon Home Prices Fell in February for First Time in 11 Years

The funny thing is, people were saying that in 2021... and then... interest rates doubled/tripled crippling affordability, people's net worth plummeted due to decrease in stock prices, and more people got laid off... And everything keeps on trucking straight through it. I visited my realtor when she was showing a house for sale, and it was astounding the traffic and people coming up whispering to her how they wanted to make an offer that moment. And then on top of that the offers that came in with escalation clauses, waiving of all contingencies, etc. And this is March 2023.

vbtempon Home Prices Fell in February for First Time in 11 Years

I just got an update from my realtor that, compared to 2021, houses are now getting 5-10 offers instead of 10-20. Every open house I go to is packed and has an offer deadline at noon the day after (they aren't bluffing - it goes straight to under contract the next day). It's impossible to have any contingencies - even home inspection. Most are going for $50-$100K over asking. This is even with 7% interest rates, the stock market down 20% and tens of thousands of layoffs in my relatively tech (and Amazon) heavy area. The rental market is so tight - there's basically nothing on the market and the few dilapidated homes that go for rent are between $5-7k/mo. And this is late-March 2023.

vbtempon Dropping the SAT requirement is a luxury belief

We have to remember that Rob Henderson is a performer running his shtick. At first I really liked him, and in general agree with his assessments of things.

But he's just another guy that has to turn tricks with some new variant of "durr hurr liberal plan for X is elitist and a luxury belief."

It's a little personal with him, because right before the 2020 election he posted something pretentious like "In 2016 I bet and won a lot of money on the outcome of the election, and I bet even more this time" (Implying his non-elitist background gave him the clairvoyance that Trump would win. I asked him who he bet on this time. Then the results came in and Trump was clearly losing in 2020, and then he blocked me.

In the end, even if we agree with him, he's just another culture warrior that whose livelihood depends on feeding the angry masses outrage at whatever Team Blue/Team Red is doing.

vbtempon Data Classification: Does Python still have a need for class without dataclass?

It's just unfortunately becoming clear Python is going the way of C++.

vbtempon Ask HN: I’m falling out of love with coding

I'm in a job now that mostly involves bare Linux network programming in C. The only dependencies are CMake, VS Code with C/C++ plugin, and the regular Linux libraries. No "sprints" or "Agile" or "tickets" or cruft like that - just delivering incremental value to customers at a reliable pace. Gosh I love it and it brings me straight back to my happy place. I once worked a job adjacent to modern web development and front-end stuff and man, that stuff just sucks and is not fun.

vbtempon C23 Implications for C Libraries

Interesting discussion, lots of good points all around. Thanks to you both.

vbtempon C23 Implications for C Libraries

I think the point by kazinator still stands. C11 is still a portability issue (which was the root of my original question above). ANSI C is the de-facto baseline everything has in common, using C11+ narrows which platforms you're able to build for. Even if C11 does provide the primitives for correct implementation of Peterson's Algorithm, what about the other platforms that don't have a C11 compiler - it does them no good. As to the point more directly, a lot of the C code I've seen is for real time and embedded systems that are usually time and memory partitioned, and do not have the same concerns regarding concurrency.

I guess if I could rephrase my original question: People who are going to adopt C23 - who are you and what field/industry/line-of-work are you in?

Asking because in my line-of-work, C is ubiquitous and I personally love coding in C, but anything beyond ANSI C (or C99) is "cool" but undermines the point of C as I've used it, which is its use cross-platform for a huge set of common and uncommon architectures and instruction sets. If something only needs to run on common, conventional platforms, C, however much I love it, would no longer necessarily be a strong contender in light of many alternatives. It seems like these standards target an ever shrinking audience (much smaller than the whole universe of software developers working in C).

vbtempon C23 Implications for C Libraries

That's very interesting. Thank you.

vbtempon C23 Implications for C Libraries

I have a question I've always wanted to know but too embarrassed to ask (Especially because I've extensively used C for well over a decade now and am intimately familiar with it):

Who exactly are these new C-standards for?

I interact and use C on an almost daily basis. But almost always ANSI C (and sometimes C99). This is because every platform, architecture, etc has at least an ANSI C compiler in common so it serves as the least common-denominator to make platform-independent code. As such it also serves as a good target for DSLs as a sort of portable-assembly. But when you don't need that, what's the motivation to use C then? If your team is up-to-date enough to quickly adopt C23, then why not just use Rust or (heaven forbid, C++23)?

I'd love to hear from someone who does actively use "modern" C. I would love to be a "modern C" developer - I just don't and can't see its purpose.

vbtempon Next steps for Rust in the kernel

> Either Rust is significantly better than C++ in his view

Do you remember the Paul Graham essay on the Blub programming language? (http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html)

C++ is kind of like the Blub language. If you know C++ well enough, you can do anything you need to do, so something like Rust just seems too esoteric and weird and pretentious.

Fortunately, I spent many years using Rust recently (coming from primarily a C background) and when I'm on a project using C++, it just feels too weird and rudimentary and horribly over-complicated.

To end with a quote from the PG article:

_But when our hypothetical Blub programmer looks in the other direction, up the power continuum, he doesn't realize he's looking up. What he sees are merely weird languages. He probably considers them about equivalent in power to Blub, but with all this other hairy stuff thrown in as well. Blub is good enough for him, because he thinks in Blub._

vbtempon Next steps for Rust in the kernel

To the OP: This is the correct answer.

vbtempon Supreme Court Overturns Roe vs. Wade

> ""A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

I think was this was meant to mean was: Any citizen has the right to join their local/state militia, and keep their service rifle and uniform with them at home.

vbtempon Words known better by males than females, and vice versa

Fascinating. I could explain, in detail, every single much-better-known-by-men word. I did not recognize a single better-known-by-female word, with the exception of doula.

vbtempon Walking America: Washington, DC (Anacostia and Alexandria)

I read this with the same pleasure one would read a well-written short story. The author's English teacher would have given him an A.

However, no one should confuse this with actually being some kind of analysis. This piece is entertainment to be enjoyed by white folks in Alexandria cozy on their couch with their cafe-au-lait.

Source: Decades-long resident of DC who walks and bikes those routes every month.

vbtempon IBM unveils 127-qubit quantum processor

It seems like IBM has blown their credibility so many times. As soon as I saw IBM mentioned in the lead of the title, I knew what was to follow is almost entirely actual-content-free marketing spin.

vbtempon Why do companies spend so much on recruitment but not retention?

This is an incredibly important contributor to all of this.

At a prior company, in order to be promoted from associate to senior staff, you had to demonstrate and be evaluated performing at senior level while associate for a year. In order to get hired as a senior, you just talked with a hiring manager and an HR rep, checked off some boxes based on a few blurbs about what you did at prior jobs, and boom, you were a senior. Same thing with getting a raise. To get a raise to 150K (just as a randomly selected round number), it was an enormous bureaucratic process going up 5 levels of management that would take months with lots of aggravation - and unlikely to really pan out. To get hired at 150K for the same role, it was a couple phone calls with an HR rep and hiring manager - about 15 minutes in total.

vbtempon Are daily standups hurting your team?

Agile is exactly the corporate management hellscape that, circa 2000, the Agile Manifesto authors explicitly sought to subvert. Things from Office Space (1999) have come exactly full circle.

vbtempon Are daily standups hurting your team?

Agile, "SCRUM", and daily "stand ups" are the worst thing to have happened to me during my career. In the mid 2010s they started to become a serious thing, and my career/work satisfaction really steadily declined.

Now, I only work in teams and projects that are pointedly non-Agile, non-SCRUM, without anyone holding a title of "SCRUM Master". My love of software development is coming back, and it really feels great.

Every time I interview for a job, the only time I permit myself one foul-language word, is when I make the point that "I'm not going to work in an Agile team, I'm too old for that shit". When what follows is an awkward, silent few moments, I know it isn't going to work out. When what follows is enthusiasm and agreement (happening more and more these days) I know we're on the right track to do great work together.

vbtempon You Already Know Formal Methods

Galois is a bit of an interesting and unique company I've followed for some time. Really interesting work in trusted and formally verifiable systems. But I can't shake the sense that there's a lot of bark but little "bite" -- Many of the utilities they release as open source seem half-baked; requests for more information (not even tech support) went unanswered; got rejected email notifications for listed email addresses. I've been wanting to incorporate their tech, but often feel their goal is to mostly to satisfy DARPA program managers, rather than be used in-the-field.