For instance, California has a handgun roster. If a citizen buys a handgun, it needs to be on a special list. The last time a model was added was 2013 [1]. Supposedly it's to make sure pistols are safe. But if you are a police officer, go ahead and buy a 2019 model! In fact, go ahead and buy a 2019 model, and then sell it for 2X to a normal citizen, if you want. A good side business!

How does any part of that make sense?

I guess the theory is that officers are well-trained and responsible, but where is the evidence of that? And why can't anyone else take the same magical steps to show their worthiness?

[1] Due largely to the "microstamping" requirememt, which is impractical to meet, but required for new models (some very minor variants are still allowed without microstamping). See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microstamping

A standard library for a language with a purpose (like Go) should include a lot of stuff related to that purpose. That avoids the need for an intricate web of dependencies and specialized third-oarty code, but ties the language to its purpose a bit more.

A standard library for a use-for-anything-and-everything language (like rust) might be smaller because it relies more on third-party libraries for the specific purposes you have in mind.

Obviously I am not taking in information without skepticism, otherwise I would not have asked the question.

But if I can't read something like that and refute it, then obviously I don't understand the issue very well. The best way to remedy that is to ask (not ignorant silence), so I'm a bit disappointed with the other replies who ridiculed me for asking.

If you want your language to be suitable for any purpose by using an intricate web of libraries depending on each other, you need those language features and deep theory. Think haskell, lisp, rust, etc.

If you kind of know what people will use your language for, and you build in the most important functionality, you aren't nearly so dependent on libraries. You just make the language accessible and as productive as possible. Think Go, erlang, PHP, SQL, javascript, VB.

Some random person told me that the parts of the spectrum that are absorbed by CH4 are already absorbed by H2O, which is way more prevalent, so the CH4 doesn't matter much.

Is that true/valid/scientific?

Basically it's saying that the spectrums absorbed by CH4 are already being absorbed by H2O. What part of that is not correct?

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/04/11/methane-the-irrelevant...

Can someone who knows better tell me if that's good science or not?

I suggest more people read the first few chapters of Specifying Systems by Lamport. Maybe the rest is good also, but that's as far as I got.

It works through a trivial system (display clock) and combines it with another trivial system (display weather).

Nothing Earth-shattering, but it really stuck with me. Thinking about it at that level gave me a new appreciation for what combining two systems means.

I looked specifically at Ada, and for my use case macros are quite important. If I were to use Ada, I would need a separate code gen step.

I also need concurrency without making new threads. I know Ada can do async but it doesn't have something like tokio.

A shame. I wanted to give Ada a try, but didn't get very far before losing hope.

I need a language with minimal runtime, good support for the C ABI and structure formats, decent macros, good ecosystem and community for mainstream programming needs, and support for async.

Where else can I find that whole package?

Go has too much of a runtime, GC, and doesn't support C structure formats very well (i.e. best case you need to copy/translate them to Go; you can't operate on them directly).

C++ can do it, but the details are ugly and the result unsatisfying.

Ada lacks macros and a mainstream ecosystem.

So... what do I use if not rust?

See my example where a pure-rust postgres extension can start a background worker, listen on a port, and handle concurrent network requests, multiplexing them over a single backend calling a non-thread-safe internal postgres API.

That's possible because rust has no runtime to get in the way, it can use C structs natively and seamlessly, tokio offers the CurrentThread runtime (which doesn't spawn new threads), and a bunch of other details that need to be done right.

Try doing that in a pure-Go postgres extension.

I can't imagine doing that project it any other language.

Rust is the first language that is both truly good as a low-level systems language and also truly good as a high-level modern labguage at the same time.

To me, it's amazing to finally have another option aside from just C/C++.

Technically, I might have had some other options before, but rust gets it right.

For instance, I use the CurrentThread runtime in tokio, because I'm using the rust code as a plugin to Postgres, and it accesses non-thread-safe APIs.

What you are asking for is essentially for the futures runtime to be hidden from you. That's fine for some languages that already have a big runtime and don't need the flexibility to do things differently, but doesn't work for rust.

Not exactly insightful.

Go ahead and point out whatever bad policies you think lead to this outcome, and why you think they should be changed. But calling people hypocrites on a tangential topic (social services) doesn't add anything.

That reasoning is shallow. They can't opt out of paying the taxes that support those programs; so what sense does it make opting out of the benefits?

[1] https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-1466_2b3j.pdf

This isn't limited to movies. Economic stimulus is ever-present, eliminating the business cycle and creative destruction. Our modern conception of politics (at least before Trump was elected) was to be boring and risk-free, moving along the same paths even if a course correction might make more sense.

And as for personal safety, we are amazingly safe, but terribly frightened (I assume becasue we lost all calibration for danger).

As for life in general, everyone seems compelled to go to college because it's the safe life plan.

I'm not suggesting that we give up the gains we've made. But I can't help but wonder what we've lost in terms of true creativity and freedom.