Hacker News: z0ltan

New comment by z0ltan in "How to complain (2024)"

z0ltan — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 08:59:06 +0000

What a stupid non-article.

New comment by z0ltan in "George Soros: Facebook and Google are a menace to society"

z0ltan — Fri, 26 Jan 2018 18:56:10 +0000

Found the shill.

New comment by z0ltan in "George Soros: Facebook and Google are a menace to society"

z0ltan — Fri, 26 Jan 2018 18:55:42 +0000

You must be demented.

New comment by z0ltan in "Rust in 2018: easier to use"

z0ltan — Sun, 14 Jan 2018 17:05:04 +0000

Excellent. Thanks for the detailed answer - that really helps. To be honest, I want to use OCaml for writing some toy compilers to begin with, and I'm sure that that'll require only the core language, but I would like to use it for more serious projects after that!

I'll start off with "Real world OCaml" and see how it goes!

New comment by z0ltan in "Rust in 2018: easier to use"

z0ltan — Sun, 14 Jan 2018 14:38:00 +0000

I did consider it seriously (especially after watching Scott Wlaschin's Parser Combinators video), but it seems a bit too MS-centric for my liking. Who knows, maybe if learning OCaml doesn't pan out that well, it might be F# for me! :D ... the community seems to be focused, so that's one big advantage.

New comment by z0ltan in "Rust in 2018: easier to use"

z0ltan — Sun, 14 Jan 2018 14:35:56 +0000

Thanks for the reply!

Mostly wondering how people ship stuff if there are different variants of std libs? Say you write your code entirely using one std lib and then try to share it (the code that is) with somebody who uses a different std lib, then the onus of learning the new std lib is entirely on him, right? How does that work for teams then? I know that Jane Street is a big user and so they have considerable influence. That being said, does the std lib (the one bundled with the distro) have enough features (like all the necessary data structures, for instance) to make using it viable in a non-trivial project (off the top of my head, say writing a very simple web server)? If so then, I suppose that's good enough.

Any recommendations for learning material? I have a copy of "Practical OCaml", don't really like it. INRIA's materials seem quite substantial, but more like reference.

New comment by z0ltan in "Rust in 2018: easier to use"

z0ltan — Sun, 14 Jan 2018 09:11:19 +0000

Upvoted for Jim Blandy's book. That man can teach!

New comment by z0ltan in "Rust in 2018: easier to use"

z0ltan — Sun, 14 Jan 2018 09:10:32 +0000

I have always been interested in OCaml, but I have a genuine question though - last when I looked at seriously at it, the standard library seemed to be a bit of a mess lacking a lot of features. A lot of modern resources seemed to focus on using Jane Street's Core(?) which I would not like to use - I'd rather depend on the standard language for standard features. Is this still a thing, or am I mistaken, or both? Please help! I really would like to use OCaml for a variety of hobby projects, including toy compilers. Which books/resources would you recommend?

New comment by z0ltan in "Rust in 2018: easier to use"

z0ltan — Sun, 14 Jan 2018 09:03:36 +0000

Agreed.

New comment by z0ltan in "Is Your English Accent British or American?"

z0ltan — Sun, 14 Jan 2018 08:56:49 +0000

Here's the trick - the "r" is not as important as that ghastly "o" sound that becomes like an "aaaaaaaa" in General 'Murrican.

New comment by z0ltan in "Is Your English Accent British or American?"

z0ltan — Sun, 14 Jan 2018 08:55:47 +0000

Are you from Melbourne or Adelaide?

New comment by z0ltan in "Is Your English Accent British or American?"

z0ltan — Sun, 14 Jan 2018 08:55:19 +0000

Nonsense. Aussie sounds a lot like a lot of estuary accents, especially if they try to "posh" it up.

New comment by z0ltan in "Is Your English Accent British or American?"

z0ltan — Sun, 14 Jan 2018 08:54:16 +0000

58% 'Murrican 42% British. So, like Irish?

New comment by z0ltan in "NSA’s top talent is leaving because of low pay, flagging morale, unpopular reorg"

z0ltan — Thu, 04 Jan 2018 13:55:36 +0000

LOL.

New comment by z0ltan in "Improving my productivity using Pomodoro: takeaways after 2 years of practice"

z0ltan — Tue, 19 Dec 2017 09:04:26 +0000

Well, if you can't make do without a Pomodoro-style tecnnique, nothing can really help you in any case. People who are motivate from within do it anyway.

New comment by z0ltan in "Firefox is on a slippery slope"

z0ltan — Sun, 17 Dec 2017 07:33:00 +0000

This is what happens when you mix SJWism with technology. I hardly ever use Firefox, but I am uninstalling it pronto anyway.

New comment by z0ltan in "How to Learn New Things as an Adult"

z0ltan — Mon, 20 Mar 2017 12:19:11 +0000

All these are basic Common Sense, aren't they though? In fact, structuring them like this appears to take all the fun out of the process of learning, reducing it to a mere mechanical algorithm.

My take is this - you learn best when you are curious or can get curious about something. That kind of learning sticks. Or maybe I'm just different.

New comment by z0ltan in "How to Learn New Things as an Adult"

z0ltan — Mon, 20 Mar 2017 12:17:34 +0000

It's more about drive than anything else. If one is able to maintain one's sense of curiosity and inquisitiveness, then one can always continue learning as effectively (albeit a bit more slowly) throughout one's life.

New comment by z0ltan in "How to Learn New Things as an Adult"

z0ltan — Mon, 20 Mar 2017 12:16:42 +0000

In other words what the smart folks already do. Heh.

New comment by z0ltan in "Practical Common Lisp (2005)"

z0ltan — Sun, 04 Dec 2016 12:28:16 +0000

I like the core Scheme language, but I never could get used to its macro syntax. I prefer Common Lisp macro syntax for that, and Clojure's macro system being very similar to that of Common Lisp is an added advantage!