Hacker News: neverartful

New comment by neverartful in "Ask HN: Struggling with Anxiety as a Developer – What Are My Options?"

neverartful — Wed, 02 Apr 2025 15:19:13 +0000

Have you discussed this with your doctor? If not, I would schedule an appointment ASAP. It's possible that medication might be able to help significantly. If it does help, it could be that it helps you enough to turn things into a more manageable situation at work. This might not be your long-term optimal solution, but it could make life less miserable until you do find your long-term optimal.

New comment by neverartful in "A look back: WordPerfect on DOS (2023)"

neverartful — Tue, 01 Apr 2025 21:27:22 +0000

It was the best of times (WP5.1) and the worst of times (first versions for Windows). I used WordPerfect for DOS 5.1 extensively and it was a joy to use. It was not WYSIWYG, but it was fast, stable, and very capable. A couple of years later I used one of the early versions of WordPerfect for Windows (I don't recall the version number) and it was a complete disaster. It crashed very often. Hence, my love/hate with WordPerfect.

New comment by neverartful in "Ask HN: What are you working on? (March 2025)"

neverartful — Mon, 31 Mar 2025 14:37:45 +0000

2 things: (1) trying to find a job, and (2) continuing work on my software.

I've been working on a new software product (native Windows) that is for analysis of SQLite databases. It's geared towards non-technical and slightly technical who may not know anything about SQL. The software includes an ER diagram, ability to browse table data, query building, and charting (bar, column, histogram, line, pie, scatter). Trying to get it finished up so that it can be released (hopefully in next few weeks).

New comment by neverartful in "Ask HN: What are you working on? (March 2025)"

neverartful — Mon, 31 Mar 2025 01:45:00 +0000

Very nice on both! I've long had an affinity for non-mainstream programming languages (mostly those with Wirth lineage). I wish there were more projects that used them.

New comment by neverartful in "A Few of the Birds I Love"

neverartful — Mon, 03 Mar 2025 12:28:46 +0000

Nice list. I also delight in having purple martins nearby. They're such a joy to watch.

New comment by neverartful in "Ask HN: Former devs who can't get a job, what did you end up doing for work?"

neverartful — Wed, 26 Feb 2025 13:23:26 +0000

Consider writing your own software. Maybe something that scratches an itch, related to one of your hobbies, or a need you've observed in the market.

New comment by neverartful in "Ask HN: Former devs who can't get a job, what did you end up doing for work?"

neverartful — Wed, 26 Feb 2025 13:20:31 +0000

I voluntarily left the corporate world in spring of 2024. I already had a part-time handyman business going so I just took it full-time. I also started developing my own software product (soon to be released).

New comment by neverartful in "Ask HN: Former devs who can't get a job, what did you end up doing for work?"

neverartful — Wed, 26 Feb 2025 13:19:02 +0000

In the US the laws vary considerably by state on what electrical (and plumbing) one is allowed to do without a license.

New comment by neverartful in "Ask HN: What are you working on? (February 2025)"

neverartful — Mon, 24 Feb 2025 07:52:23 +0000

I'm still working on development of a native Windows application for data analysis of SQLite databases. It's geared towards non-technical (or only slightly technical) users and allows queries to be easily made without knowing SQL. Additionally, it easily lets the user quickly create charts from the queried data (bar, column, histogram, line, pie, scatter). Development is nearly complete and hoping to put in the hands of testers within the next couple of weeks. Also trying to decide on name for the product so that I can start development of website for it.

New comment by neverartful in "Delta offers $30k to passengers in Canada plane flip"

neverartful — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 00:13:58 +0000

My cynical take is that it's a let's buy off these folks before they sue us.

New comment by neverartful in "Delta offers $30k to passengers in Canada plane flip"

neverartful — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 00:13:03 +0000

There's a big difference between physical injuries and mental/emotional injuries. I can't imagine that all (or even most) of the passengers can shrug the whole thing off with "oh, well. i wasn't hurt".

New comment by neverartful in "I coded a Pascal compiler for transputer as a teen in 1993"

neverartful — Thu, 06 Feb 2025 00:04:26 +0000

"SQL had (and maybe still has) its own C compiler"

Oh? Are you referring to something different from a database's precompiler?

New comment by neverartful in "State Farm seeks 22% emergency rate hike"

neverartful — Tue, 04 Feb 2025 23:25:31 +0000

I'm genuinely surprised that California hasn't figured out fire risk management decades ago. The Santa Ana winds are nothing new and have been in the southern part of the state forever. I remember seeing news reports about catastrophic fires in southern California as far back as the 1970s (when I was a kid). Doesn't everyone know that strong winds (which are guaranteed to come) can make wild fires exponentially worse? No one can control the wind though.

The 3 necessary components for fire are: oxygen, fuel, and ignition source. No stopping the presence of oxygen. Ignition sources are present with lightning strikes (among other things). That leaves fuel as the thing that can be controlled. If you can't reduce the fuel load around your dwelling, it doesn't make any sense to live there. I live in a forest that has experienced a tragic wildfire in the past, so I'm in a similar boat (but without the Santa Ana winds). Keeping fuel away from my home is something that I think about a lot -- and ACT ON a lot.

I have a neighbor who does practically nothing to reduce his fuel load. It's his legal right, but I think it's foolish. He's told me he likes to keep his property "undisturbed". It sounds like there's much of the same thinking that drives policy in California.

The combined practice of: (1) put out any fire immediately, and (2) do nothing to reduce fuel load, makes for a bad combination in the long run. It would seem to me that Californians should have figured these things out decades ago and be the experts on fire risk management. What am I missing?

New comment by neverartful in "The origin and unexpected evolution of the word "mainframe""

neverartful — Sun, 02 Feb 2025 14:33:06 +0000

Intel also had the 80860 (aka i860) that was hyped up as a "Cray on a chip".

New comment by neverartful in "Intel slashes prices of Xeon 6 CPUs by up to $5,340"

neverartful — Tue, 28 Jan 2025 15:10:35 +0000

I have an Apple Mac Pro Late 2013 (aka trashcan) with an Intel Xeon 8 core cpu.

New comment by neverartful in "Kronotop: Redis-compatible, transactional document store backed by FoundationDB"

neverartful — Wed, 22 Jan 2025 02:51:58 +0000

"sometimes as a queue"

Oh? I'd be interested in hearing more about that. Is this common?

New comment by neverartful in "Ask HN: Is anyone making money selling traditional downloadable software?"

neverartful — Tue, 21 Jan 2025 00:03:10 +0000

In my experience they are not nearly as fast.

New comment by neverartful in "Ask HN: Is anyone making money selling traditional downloadable software?"

neverartful — Tue, 21 Jan 2025 00:01:19 +0000

To be fair, you have to pay the Apple tax to use Apple Numbers. It's not monthly (or even a subscription), but it's not a one-time payment if you want the ability to use it over a long period of time.

New comment by neverartful in "Ask HN: Is anyone making money selling traditional downloadable software?"

neverartful — Mon, 20 Jan 2025 23:52:58 +0000

Qt is competition (perhaps not direct in many cases) and it's not the only one. Also wxWidgets, Lazarus, Delphi, C++ Builder, WinForms, WPF, Xojo, etc.

New comment by neverartful in "Is XYplorer really written in VB6?"

neverartful — Sat, 11 Jan 2025 14:47:31 +0000

Have a look at their github repos. They have a fair bit of sample code sprinkled about.