People are allowed to write fiction. The page is clearly labelled as such (the fourth word on the page is "fiction"!) and qntm is a relatively well-known fiction author. If anything, posting it to HN is the issue.
Is fiction not allowed on HN?
Readit Newsamptorn commented on Does anybody remember Google People qntm.org/person... · Posted by u/prakhar897
amptorn commented on “Clean Code, Horrible Performance” Discussion github.com/unclebob/cmura... · Posted by u/rinesh
I am not fond of Clean Code, but I am fond of Clean Architecture. It's a much smaller set of ideas, for a start.
I gave up on Clean Architecture after about one chapter. There's a section where he's graphing the number of lines of code in a hypothetical company's codebase over time - it grows rapidly at first and then it levels off, and he points at this like it means anything, specifically like it's a bad thing and it means the software has become difficult to work in. Also this isn't a line chart, it's a bar chart, and the X axis isn't time, it's unlabeled - eventually, in the text, you find that there's one bar per major release of the software, if that tells you anything about how retro this conception of software development is. Another bar chart shows the number of developers growing rapidly, as if that means anything either... It was just baffling.
amptorn commented on It's probably time to stop recommending Clean Code (2020) qntm.org/clean... · Posted by u/flykespice
I'm still amused by claims that the book is dogmatic when these paragraphs are in the opening chapter:
> Consider this book a description of the Object Mentor School of Clean Code. The techniques and teachings within are the way that we practice our art. We are willing to claim that if you follow these teachings, you will enjoy the benefits that we have enjoyed, and you will learn to write code that is clean and professional. But don’t make the mistake of thinking that we are somehow “right” in any absolute sense. There are other schools and other masters that have just as much claim to professionalism as we. It would behoove you to learn from them as well.
> Indeed, many of the recommendations in this book are controversial. You will probably not agree with all of them. You might violently disagree with some of them. That’s fine. We can’t claim final authority. On the other hand, the recommendations in this book are things that we have thought long and hard about. We have learned them through decades of experience and repeated trial and error. So whether you agree or disagree, it would be a shame if you did not see, and respect, our point of view.
Generally dogmatic people don't say, in short, "We could be wrong, we don't think we are, but go see what other people have to say, too.".
This is kind of like a recipe book opening with a disclaimer saying "Some of these recipes might make you ill."
amptorn commented on Bing: “I will not harm you unless you harm me first” simonwillison.net/2023/Fe... · Posted by u/simonw
If you think these systems are going to be no more capable than a magpie, then I think you're making a very big mistake, the sort of mistake that in our lifetime could plausible kill millions of people.
ChatGPT can already write code. A magpie cannot do that.
Can it execute code?
The story's name is "Lena", not "MMAcevedo".
amptorn commented on It’s time to leave the leap second in the past engineering.fb.com/2022/0... · Posted by u/mikece
Your article is from 2003 [1], so when they say "by 2028" they don't mean six years from now.
Since the article was published we've gone from positive leap seconds every so often to looking like we may get the first ever negative leap second: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fb/Leapseco...
Which means the article's estimates on how long it will be until we're off by a given amount of time are very much obsolete.
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20030801000000*/https://www.ucol...
I think that observation just lends further weight to the argument that the relationship between atomic time and universal time is a dynamic and unpredictable thing, which we need to handle correctly rather than pretending it doesn't exist.
amptorn commented on Twitter Deal Temporarily on Hold twitter.com/elonmusk/stat... · Posted by u/palebluedot
Twitter would pocket a billion dollars - ~5x its net cash flow for last year - why on earth would it sell for _less_ when it can invest that cash in just about anything? He'd be buying the company years of runway to build... whatever it wants - at that point I'd invest in twitter as soon as Musk's check cleared.
This isn't a renegotiation, this is him paying points on his mortgage for a lower rate - but where the points paid go towards the previous owners either way.
The offered price to buy Twitter is ~220 times its net annual cash flow? Something about that does not compute.
amptorn commented on JavaScript quiz that may confuse you pitayan.com/posts/8-javas... · Posted by u/pitayanblog
TIL Array.sort sorts integers lexically by default. I wonder how many bugs that has caused over the years.
As a side-comment, often I see JavaScript learning channels and Twitters focusing a lot on JS gotchas and stuff like the prototype chain. I’ve worked on production JavaScript apps for years and have never needed to touch the JS prototype system. Time could probably be spent better elsewhere, as fun as the gotchas are. NB: I’m not necessarily saying the author of this blog is guilty of this - for all I know this is the only post like that they have written; but I have seen many channels/Twitters where this kind of stuff is post of what they discuss - possibly because of interview questions in their areas).
The more surprising thing about `Array.prototype.sort` is that it both sorts the array in place and returns the (now-sorted) array. You can go a long time writing `const arr2 = arr1.sort()` without realizing that what you're doing is wrong, and the code you're writing is misleading readers about what it does.
Dead Comment
Increasing global energy output isn't a negative, provided that energy output is clean energy. In fact, developing our ability to produce and use energy is virtually synonymous with the development of human civilization.
Yes, actually it is negative, due to the emissions and waste involved in setting up energy production in the first place. That negative has to be offset by using the energy to do something useful.