Deebster @ Deebster @programming.dev

New account since lemmyrs.org went down, other `@Deebster`s are available.

---

Read more

Posts

57

Comments

963

Joined

2 yr. ago

I wasn't saying that unit tests replaces readability, I was saying that back in the 60s they'd reason and debug using their brains (and maybe pen and paper), with more use of things like formal proofs for correctness. Now that we write more complicated programs in more powerful environments, it's rare to do this (we'd use breakpoints, unit tests, fuzzing, etc).

For such an influential letter, I don't find his arguement all that compelling. I agree that not using go to will often lead to better structured (and more maintainable) programs, but I don't find his metric of "indexable process progress" to satisfyingly explain why that is.

Perhaps it's because at that time people would be running the programs in their heads before submitting them for processing, so they tended to use more of a computer scientist mindset - whereas now we're more likely to use test cases to convince ourselves that code is correct.

There's the idiom "return to the fold" which means come back to a group, but aside from that I don't think many non-farmers know that meaning of fold.

This was my face when I foolishly asked my maths teacher what pi was - he spoke for a long time, I understand nothing and I was late to my next class.

I'm not a teacher, but I'm so ready for a kid (or anyone) to ask me this so I can do a better job. Ideally somewhere I can get hold of coins because who carries those any more?

In Foobar2000, Shpeck allows you to run those old Winamp vis plugins - I have Milkdrop 2.2 with all those old classics. They still look great on modern tech!

I've been building my music collection since I was ripping CDs by hitting play, recording in Win95 Sound Recorder and running the .wav through LAME (nowadays EAC to flac, of course). I see no need to pay a subscription to listen to my music, when I can just use that same money to buy and own the albums* and not worry about them disappearing.

also means more money goes to the artist

Also Navidrome + Symfonium means I can still stream to my phone so the only benefit Spotify etc has is new music, but YouTube (+ uBlock) gives me that.

Also mixing crops (or non-farmable plants) has big benefits, but it's currently cheaper to use chemically-derived fertilisers and go the monoculture route.

Is your point that this source doesn't back up the Mary Somerville etymology or just an FYI?

Either way, the quote taught me about the word sciolist - a person who pretends to be knowledgeable and well informed so thanks.

I used to have some with e-ink displays that showed how full they were, but I always wished I could use them to show a label instead.

Do you also attack dictionaries for explaining offensive words? The person I'm talking to never used the term, they merely explained the meaning behind the number.

What you are doing is shooting the messenger. Please target your outrage more carefully in future.

That blog's such a treasure! I've ended up on there several times over the years for completely disparate reasons like solving Countdown numbers games, etymology and explaining mathematical paradoxes.

Yeah, it's probably shooting the messenger. Reminds me of once on Reddit where someone had asked a similar question and I'd replied with a sourced quote from the dictionary and got complaining replies and downvotes.

Thanks for explaining it, not sure why you've collected those downvotes.

I missed the news that K-9 was becoming Thunderbird for Android. I used to use it before switching to FairEmail, I think because development had stalled. It's a solid choice, hopefully they don't add too much in like they have with the desktop version.

What's this kind of thing called in linguistics? Where you parse the sentence wrong (for comedic effect in this case), something about dangling modifiers, maybe?

CNLabelContactRelationYoungerCousinMothersSiblingsSonOrFathersSistersSon

The label for the contact’s mother’s sibling’s younger son or father’s sister’s younger son.

I thought it was just a male cousin, but it doesn't include a cousin who's your uncle's son. Which culture needs this?

So was he writing backwards, or did they print a custom flipped t-shirt?

Maybe his analysis considered this, but the article doesn't mention real-world factors like the climate crisis, the cost of living crisis, and what feels like the resurgence of fascism and the spectre of World War 3. It's noted that liberal families seem more susceptible - perhaps it's because right-wing families are more likely to believe these things aren't real, or aren't a problem?

The country

Which country?

aluminum

Never mind.

It's a weird time to be alive.