Hacker News: dblotsky

New comment by dblotsky in "Greppability is an underrated code metric"

dblotsky — Tue, 03 Sep 2024 03:57:18 +0000

Hard agree with the idea of greppability, but hard disagree about keeping names the same across boundaries.

I think the benefit of having one symbol exist in only one domain (e.g. “user_request” only showing up in the database-handling code, where it’s used 3 times, and not in the UI code, where it might’ve been used 30 times) reduces more cognitive load than is added by searching for 2 symbols instead of 1 common one.

New comment by dblotsky in "Predictions Scorecard, 2021 January 01"

dblotsky — Mon, 11 Jan 2021 21:43:58 +0000

Aren't these effectively lab tests of robots that can navigate a home?

[dancing] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fn3KWM1kuAw [cleaning clutter] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8-w9eF24gU

New comment by dblotsky in "Getting rid of NPM scripts"

dblotsky — Fri, 01 Jan 2021 07:13:42 +0000

Those all sound plausible! But...

1) I suspect GNU Make will be installed on any system where node code will run.

2) You don’t have to .PHONY anything that will never be a real file.

3) My bet is the Makefile will be shorter and clearer, but I am of course biased since I’m used to the syntax.

New comment by dblotsky in "Getting rid of NPM scripts"

dblotsky — Fri, 01 Jan 2021 07:09:51 +0000

Is there any design decision of Make that makes it not suitable for executing programs?

New comment by dblotsky in "Getting rid of NPM scripts"

dblotsky — Sat, 26 Dec 2020 22:05:12 +0000

The `./make` shell script kills me. Why not just use Make?

New comment by dblotsky in "Please – A cross-language build system"

dblotsky — Wed, 02 Dec 2020 19:32:05 +0000

Yeah, that tradeoff between generality and correctness really seems tyrannical.

It kind of feels like the best trajectory is to start small with a general build system, and upgrade as needed? And then if you are confident the project will grow, starting with the specific build system fine too.

New comment by dblotsky in "Please – A cross-language build system"

dblotsky — Sun, 29 Nov 2020 10:14:01 +0000

I am personally not convinced that any build system can be correct and general, but perhaps that’s my lack of experience speaking.

On that 30 minute note though: so, how big does the project need to be in order for Make not to be enough? And at that size, why wouldn’t the project invest the extra week it takes to get the Makefile correct?

New comment by dblotsky in "Please – A cross-language build system"

dblotsky — Sat, 28 Nov 2020 21:06:12 +0000

How big does the project have to be in order for this system to have benefits over Make?

New comment by dblotsky in "E. B. White’s “Plain Style” at 75"

dblotsky — Tue, 27 Oct 2020 03:36:07 +0000

It sounds like the last point, about disobeying the rules when appropriate (my reading of it), was meant exactly to cover these corner cases.

New comment by dblotsky in "E. B. White’s “Plain Style” at 75"

dblotsky — Tue, 20 Oct 2020 04:50:18 +0000

Reminds me of Orwell’s Politics and the English Language: https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel....

New comment by dblotsky in "Baumol Effect"

dblotsky — Sat, 17 Oct 2020 21:03:21 +0000

Can this all be explained by the cost of labor being uniform (since humans are humans in all industries)?

So if one industry demands more labor, all others will feel the rising price of labor?

New comment by dblotsky in "Programming trick questions"

dblotsky — Sat, 29 Feb 2020 15:55:50 +0000

This looks like the Post Correspondence Problem at first glance: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_correspondence_problem.

New comment by dblotsky in "Programming trick questions"

dblotsky — Sat, 29 Feb 2020 15:51:38 +0000

They inserted spaces though, between characters and words. In this problem, all spaces are removed.

New comment by dblotsky in "Comma Two Devkit"

dblotsky — Wed, 08 Jan 2020 05:48:40 +0000

You’re missing the huge “works incorrectly” space of outputs.

New comment by dblotsky in "Parcel – Fast, zero-configuration web application bundler"

dblotsky — Tue, 07 Jan 2020 07:13:11 +0000

Facetious answer: Are there any good examples of projects using Parcel for a web app? ;)

Real answer: probably, but a ton of production code is closed-source.

But why restrict to web apps? Most influential software projects in the world use Make.

New comment by dblotsky in "Parcel – Fast, zero-configuration web application bundler"

dblotsky — Tue, 07 Jan 2020 07:03:12 +0000

Make can run all the tools like babel, uglify, etc.

New comment by dblotsky in "Parcel – Fast, zero-configuration web application bundler"

dblotsky — Sun, 05 Jan 2020 19:24:01 +0000

Just use Make.

Takes just as long to learn, and is transferrable everywhere.

New comment by dblotsky in "Powerful Statement of Resistance from a College Student on Trial in Moscow"

dblotsky — Tue, 10 Dec 2019 08:37:43 +0000

He’s called for some disciplines (e.g. women’s studies, anthropology) to be boycotted by students and ultimately removed.

New comment by dblotsky in "Powerful Statement of Resistance from a College Student on Trial in Moscow"

dblotsky — Mon, 09 Dec 2019 16:46:14 +0000

I find objectionable his “slippery slope” argument about pronouns and his calls for silencing disciplines with which he disagrees.

New comment by dblotsky in "Powerful Statement of Resistance from a College Student on Trial in Moscow"

dblotsky — Mon, 09 Dec 2019 02:28:21 +0000

Peterson said many other things that are objectionable. If he only said what Zhukov said, Peterson would also be in a more favourable light.