ashkante (u/ashkante)

ashkante commented on Riot is now Element element.io/blog/welcome-t... · Posted by u/J_tt

izietto · 6 years ago

I don't like the new name, is too generic. I think an original alternative would have been better, like Trello, Slack, ...

ashkante · 6 years ago

Agreed. Generic names are difficult to find help on, especially in the software world. Like that modelling tool which was mentioned a while back - "Hash". Imagine googling for "Hash syntax error".

What's next, an ITIL-enabled accounting system called 'IT'?

ashkante commented on Microsoft Support of PHP on Windows news-web.php.net/php.inte... · Posted by u/sirwitti

me551ah · 6 years ago

Do people really use Windows as a production server for PHP? Most people I know use Windows as a dev machine, which I guess will still be supported.

ashkante · 6 years ago

Yes. In my experience, it usually comes down to "Our Windows admins don't know Linux, so it'll be easier for them to manage a server if it's running Windows!"

Except they never do, because they don't know PHP on Windows either and are afraid of breaking things, and the customer ends up with a PHP/Wordpress installation that is 4 years out of date. Luckily, most of those are internal-only apps, but it still sucks.

ashkante commented on Moving from TypeScript to Rust / WebAssembly nicolodavis.com/blog/type... · Posted by u/nicolodavis

blub · 6 years ago

They've "won" so far because static types languages were cumbersome and unpleasant to use, but this is changing and dynamic languages are learning some type tricks too.

The issue here is with Rust: its strengths are mostly irrelevant for the web and its weaknesses (particularly slow development compared to the competition because of having to pacify the type checker) are really important.

Op is painstakingly beating around the bush, but what they're getting at is that Rust + webdev = mismatch.

ashkante · 6 years ago

I am currently writing a hobby project in Rust with Rocket and Diesel. I could bang out a working prototype very quickly with either Python or something like ASP.NET, but I picked Rust because I want to get better at it.

Many of the things you say are true - Rust libraries in general need some love and polish before they can be beginner-friendly, but some are getting there. The difference between Diesel and Rocket, for example, is quite stark. The former has only the barest minimum 'examples' and 'guide', if they may be called that, and I feel like I'm expected to read and understand its source code to become really proficient with it. It takes a lot of experimenting and trial+error to do anything beyond the basics. Rocket, on the other hand, has a very comprehensive guide with useful examples and, so far, has been enjoyable to work.

That said, there are still a lot of "convenience" features missing. My current notable example is forms. As I'm doing it (I haven't looked into any addons to Rocket for this), I have to write out the HTML for the form myself, along with any Javascript I might require for validation, etc, then write the server-side methods for GET/POST, making sure to maintain the state myself. In this regard, something like Django's effortless ease to get a form on screen and store its data into a database really showcases where Rust (Rocket) still has a long way to go.

Hopefully, with more people using it, the tools and libraries will improve and mature, particularly the documentation.

When all is said and done, I enjoy "slogging" through Rust a lot more than I did working with Django, even with the slower progress. Something about this language really speaks to me.

ashkante commented on Fig: Visual Apps and Shortcuts for Your Terminal withfig.com/... · Posted by u/DanielKehoe

laumars · 6 years ago

So this is basically just an Electron terminal emulator with some shortcuts included? You can already do all this in a fair few existing terminal emulators, not to mention shell aliases et al. I mean I get the problem space they’re trying to solve but the landing page is so hyperbolic I’m put off investing any time to see if this actually has usability gains over what the team already do use

ashkante · 6 years ago

Not to mention, it being Electron could[1] mean a memory hog. Granted, not all Electron apps are, but after seeing a GUI git client which ate up 800MiB+, I'm very skeptical about this technology. I don't want a shell, a chat client, a git client and an editor to take up 3-4GiB of my RAM...

[1] I can't claim that without testing, but it's a good possibility when it comes to Electron.

ashkante commented on Systemd: Don’t fallback to Google NTP and DNS github.com/systemd/system... · Posted by u/throw_faar_away

wrkronmiller · 6 years ago

Could someone explain why systemd needs DNS/NTP fallbacks to begin with? Why aren’t these both runtime configs?

EDIT: I assumed there were also runtime configs based on the name "fallback."

My question is primarily why you need compiled-in fallbacks, and secondarily why the fallback configs aren't pulled from config files.

ashkante · 6 years ago

If I want my systems to fail in DNS resolution if the DHCP server doesn't give them a DNS server address (by design), I'm essentially SoL then? My option then is to block outgoing TCP/UDP 53 on my firewall, except from my forwarders. Or maybe I should just suck it up and start building systemd in-house an give it a bogus default, with all the maintenance and overhead that involves?

So, in a few months to a few years, when systemd silently switches to DNS over HTTPS, what then? Maintain a (growing) blacklist of public DoH servers?

I'd much prefer my software to fail (and let me know), rather than assume some default someone, somewhere, somewhen thought a good idea.