Hacker News: willtim

New comment by willtim in "Learning Squeak (2019)"

willtim — Sun, 04 Jul 2021 08:34:03 +0000

Any statically typed language allows one to use dynamic types when it is necessary. I don't see the problem. If you need a map of string keys to variants, this can be done. At least one can still put some static constraints on the types when necessary.

New comment by willtim in "Learning Squeak (2019)"

willtim — Sat, 03 Jul 2021 16:39:43 +0000

The attraction of "functional programming" to academics and many others, is that the paradigm is underpinned by established and well studied mathematical logics. For example, the lambda calculus or more recently linear logic. You can view this as "fashion" if you like, but by making programming more formalized and less adhoc, it's probably better recognised as progress.

New comment by willtim in "Learning Squeak (2019)"

willtim — Sat, 03 Jul 2021 15:46:17 +0000

> one of the places where computer science has gone backward, preferring more clunky systems and less elegant paradigms

I respectfully disagree. Smalltalk has had its time. OOP has had plenty of investment and exploration, but it's fundamentally non-compositional and is a poor fit for modern hardware. Other paradigms, for example statically typed functional languages, are just as expressive (the expressive parts of Smalltalk were functional features anyway) and have much more to offer in terms of building reliable software that does not crash and is secure.

Programming is hard, there is no silver bullet, but computer science is moving forward.

New comment by willtim in "Functors and Monads for People Who Have Read Too Many “Tutorials”"

willtim — Sat, 26 Jun 2021 13:09:42 +0000

When BASIC e.g. redefined what "variables" are and what the equals operator means, it did cause a generation of programmers to drift away from the long established mathematical definitions. This persists to this day in languages like Python. I have had to explain to my daughter that Python variables and equals are not like those in her maths lessons. Dijkstra was right to call out the bad decisions that were made, although I do concede his methods of doing so were not ideal.

New comment by willtim in "Functors and Monads for People Who Have Read Too Many “Tutorials”"

willtim — Sat, 26 Jun 2021 13:02:45 +0000

> the phrase "avoid success at all cost" in a certain context which may have had some role in making Haskell seem Ivory Towerish.

This phrase is often misunderstood, it's "avoid, success at all costs", not "avoid success, at all costs". In other words, don't optimise for mass market adoption at the expense of everything else. Languages that have arguably done so, have ended up as extremely complex and ridden with corner cases.

New comment by willtim in "Microsoft announces Windows 11"

willtim — Thu, 24 Jun 2021 22:28:19 +0000

> Specifically, I have a problem with any operating system that will update itself in arbitrary ways without our consent and at a time we have not chosen.

I was sitting in a keynote talk at a conference once and mid-presentation Windows decided it was time to update. Very embarrassing for the speaker and for Microsoft.

New comment by willtim in "State of the Windows: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 10?"

willtim — Sat, 19 Jun 2021 07:32:22 +0000

The global menu bar is great for laptops and small screens. I'm less convinced it makes sense for big cinema displays or dual displays.

New comment by willtim in "Google Wants Rust in the Linux Kernel"

willtim — Fri, 18 Jun 2021 09:17:04 +0000

Or maybe it's because people want to build software that is more secure and reliable (something which C does not have a great track record for)? Google are not the main instigator of this initiative, they are adding their support for it.

New comment by willtim in "Is Sony's 140MB MiniDisc Drive the Next Betamax? (1996)"

willtim — Sun, 13 Jun 2021 17:35:44 +0000

I have lots of hybrid SACDs and I cannot extract the high-res content for playback on computer/phone without my clunky Sony Blu-ray player. This is of course by design, but I do wonder if it also helped to kill the format before it even properly landed.

New comment by willtim in "Microsoft support page says Windows 10 “retirement date” is 2025"

willtim — Fri, 11 Jun 2021 22:37:04 +0000

KDE looks really good too, but I mostly prefer the minimalism/simplicity/aesthetic of Gnome.

New comment by willtim in "Microsoft support page says Windows 10 “retirement date” is 2025"

willtim — Fri, 11 Jun 2021 19:51:17 +0000

I agree that the reason does not matter and is irrelevant to the end-user. I was just speculating as to why they have not "just fixed it". However, I disagree that Windows is more polished. Windows is made up of a mixture of UI frameworks/controls/apps, some going back decades. Much of this legacy is poorly integrated and even basic things like drag-and-drop doesn't work consistently. At least Gnome is consistent and they have a vision.

New comment by willtim in "Microsoft support page says Windows 10 “retirement date” is 2025"

willtim — Fri, 11 Jun 2021 18:14:04 +0000

Is that relevant to Gnome? It's used the same file manager "Nautilus" for years. Apple and Microsoft are also quite capable of killing software projects.

New comment by willtim in "Microsoft support page says Windows 10 “retirement date” is 2025"

willtim — Fri, 11 Jun 2021 18:09:55 +0000

Ah yes I used "Files" and not the file picker. I guess the file picker is part of GTK and therefore cannot use the rest of the gnome infrastructure?

New comment by willtim in "Microsoft support page says Windows 10 “retirement date” is 2025"

willtim — Fri, 11 Jun 2021 17:48:36 +0000

Yep, shows thumbnails for pictures, videos, pdfs etc. More formats than Windows in fact. Windows has been standing still, the rest of the world hasn't.

EDIT: I used "Files", not the file picker.

New comment by willtim in "Microsoft support page says Windows 10 “retirement date” is 2025"

willtim — Fri, 11 Jun 2021 17:35:45 +0000

Windows definitely needs improving. I tried the Gnome 40 desktop recently and it's much more polished, consistent and refined.

New comment by willtim in "Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors"

willtim — Mon, 07 Jun 2021 10:38:46 +0000

Hopefully more durable products means less landfill and digging up the planet looking for more raw materials. This ultimately benefits everybody.

New comment by willtim in "Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors"

willtim — Mon, 07 Jun 2021 10:22:58 +0000

The flipside to this, is that there is perhaps no longer an incentive to sell hardware with a limited lifespan.

New comment by willtim in "Microsoft Irish subsidiary paid zero corporate tax on £220bn profit last year"

willtim — Thu, 03 Jun 2021 12:11:08 +0000

In case you are unaware, tax is needed to pay for schools, universities, research, health care, social care, police, civil infrastructure, environmental agencies, regulators, defence, bank bailouts, pandemic bailouts, etc.

The Big tech firms benefit from all of the above, but are not contributing anything back. The system is broken and needs to be fixed, so let's not pretend there is no problem.

New comment by willtim in "History of the Nautilus loudspeaker"

willtim — Wed, 02 Jun 2021 11:17:42 +0000

Agree with everything you say, but I would also add that the interactions with compression and other lossy signal processing that is frequently performed is not well studied. For example, when using Bluetooth headphones, it is likely that the music will be equalised/normalised, resampled to 48Khz (for mixing) and then re-encoded to a bluetooth codec e.g. LDAC. It is much safer to start with FLAC, if you cannot avoid such a signal chain.

New comment by willtim in "Amazon refused to refund $7k after shipping an empty box instead of a Sony A1"

willtim — Sun, 30 May 2021 13:59:50 +0000

Yes I still do and I FLAC them. I've been collecting CD's for 35 years, so it's difficult to stop. I am sometimes envious of the high-res downloads, but whenever I hear digital clipping in the 16-bit CD version, the clipping has always been present in the 24-bit version too.