Some phones actually have quite fast lenses. The iPhone 11 pro wide lens is f/1.8.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21513261

Points: 195

# Comments: 33

The important distinction is that "manual mode" is being discussed and compared to "aperture mode." So it's about the PASM setting and not specifically about "true manual mode" (auto-ISO or not). The clear (and in my view incorrect) assertion of GP is that manual priority/mode is not for use outside the studio. It is said three times:

> I know almost no professionals who shoot on manual mode outside of studio settings.

> The only time manual mode is used is when you're in a studio...

> Leave manual mode for the studio.

> "I know almost no professionals who shoot on manual mode...Instead, shoot on aperture mode...Use ISO setting to adjust further for light..."

With auto-ISO, "manual" camera mode (which refers to manually setting aperture and shutter speed) becomes an automatic exposure mode because the camera is metering the scene and adjusting ISO automatically. It is also possible and practical for certain applications to use "full manual" mode which also involves setting ISO, especially for something with a mostly-fixed scene such as astrophotography.

While camera-adjusted ISO and post-processing lightening (moving the exposure slider up in lightroom) are similar, the reason post-processing alone is not enough is because of dynamic range. Each camera sensor has a certain number of stops of light it can capture. If you're within that range, you can adjust in post and arrive at an image similar to what you would've got had you exposed in the camera. If you aren't within that range, you clip the highlights or shadows.

There are a few reasons why manual mode is beneficial. They mostly relate to speed and accuracy of control. First, aperture and shutter speed have different effects on the result of the image (depth of field, and motion-stopping capability respectively).

For example, I went to the shoreline on Monday and photographed birds. There were terns flying around protecting their young, the young wandering and gaping for food, while osprey were fishing just offshore. For terns and fast-moving birds, shutter speeds in excess of 1/2000 sec are necessary and there are many times when 1/3200 sec is not enough. Meanwhile, the tern chicks being about 25ft away mean that depth of field is shallow because the subject is near (minimum focusing distance on that lens is about 19ft). So an aperture of F8 for chicks is helpful but F5.6 is better for the further subjects and faster motion.

There's no good way to have a camera adjusting multiple settings (ISO and either aperture or shutter speed) because it doesn't understand the circumstances. In order to do this with aperture or shutter priority camera modes, you would be constantly switching the dial between aperture and shutter priorities which requires a button press and command dial turn, as opposed to ONLY adjusting the desired setting using one of two command dials.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19847938

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

It still suggests Gitlab's infrastructure (internally) was compromised: "Suspicious git activity detected on Gitlab"

Something like "Gitlab users' repos held for ransom" seems more appropriate.

Time is notoriously difficult for many reasons which have been discussed at length [1].

The trend now is that the number of programmers doubles every 5 years [2]. This rapidly expanding group of potential users and creators means features just on the fringe today might become available at any time.

1. https://infiniteundo.com/post/25326999628/falsehoods-program...

2. https://blog.cleancoder.com/uncle-bob/2014/06/20/MyLawn.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18553468

Points: 2

# Comments: 1

(Sorry to be the bearer of bad news about their recent closure if you didn't already know)

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17298980

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

I saw someone who was very clearly depressed streaming the other day. They weren't responding to chat. Crying. Fetal position on the floor for 7+ hours. Very depressing social media posts, etc.

But I did not know this person. I did encourage them to call, however it was a difficult message to compose. You don't want to make them feel like they're a burden or weak ("call if you need someone") and some people may need encouragement to actually pick up the phone.

So in a situation with a stranger online, who may not see or respond to your message, what would you say?

For example, if you're trying to teach TDD strategy then pairing might be best because there's a lot of nuance to how things are done. Environment setup. Tests come first. Make sure all the tests pass before moving on. Refactor between. So for TDD it would be difficult to provide a big list of dos and don'ts and expect someone to navigate them.

Some skills are contextually less rigid than TDD. Debugging a problem for example: if a developer is trying to use an internal API but they are getting a timeout response instead of any actual output. You could simply tell them to see if the HTTP server is running, but it's probably better to ask questions and explore the problem vicariously. "What do you think the problem could be?" Then you can arrive at gaps in their understanding about how the system or HTTP servers work.

Asking questions when there's that too-familiar "we've gotta get this stuff done" atmosphere can be challenging. It's tempting as a senior developer to just provide the answer without slowing down and exploring the problem with your junior counterpart.

There's also institutional teaching. Is the junior developer asking questions which should be addressed in documentation? If so, you should probably commit those answers to the documentation and have the developer act as a litmus test for the completeness of the information.

So teaching can be showing, sometimes it's a matter of explaining, and other times it's more important to just ask the right questions. I think one of the most important parts of teaching is perspective-taking. You want to explore the areas just adjacent to the person's knowledge.

Also, blameless postmortems. It's easy to point fingers when shit goes wrong. Don't.

Developers junior to me ask questions which I find border on alarming sometimes but I suppress that reaction because I would rather fill those dangerous gaps than have a developer be too scared to ask.

Programming language for what exactly? When you know what the intended use case is, you'll probably have a reasonable idea of what you need.

Some projects might warrant all kinds of different programming languages. If you're looking at server-side security for a website then maybe it's Python, PHP, or Ruby. Embedded systems are probably not running PHP. If you're talking about reverse engineering an application then maybe learning IDA's C-like scripting language is best.

Being able to understand syntax and nuance of a language reasonably quickly are probably more important than programming in any specific language, unless you're pursuing a career specializing in one type of system. In that case you would likely know which programming languages are appropriate.