biztos (u/biztos) - Readit News

biztos commented on Go is still not good blog.habets.se/2025/07/Go... · Posted by u/ustad

masklinn · 2 days ago

> Suppose it were lexical scope and you needed it function scope. Then what do you do?

Defer a bulk thing at the function scope level, and append files to an array after opening them.

biztos · 2 days ago

That seems like more work, and less readability, than sticking in the extra function.

Would be nice to have both options though. Why not a “defer” package?

biztos commented on AWS CEO says using AI to replace junior staff is 'Dumbest thing I've ever heard' theregister.com/2025/08/2... · Posted by u/JustExAWS

rkomorn · 2 days ago

Most of what I remember of my high school education in France was: here are the facts, and here is the reasoning that got us there.

The exams were typically essay-ish (even in science classes) where you either had to basically reiterate the reasoning for a fact you already knew, or use similar reasoning to establish/discover a new fact (presumably unknown to you because not taught in class).

Unfortunately, it didn't work for me and I still have about the same critical thinking skills as a bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau.

biztos · 2 days ago

I’ve heard many bad things said of the Beaujolais Nouveau, and of my sense of taste for liking it, but this is the first time I’ve seen its critical-thinking skills questioned.

In its/your/our defense, I think it’s a perfectly smart wine, and young at heart!

biztos commented on Zedless: Zed fork focused on privacy and being local-first github.com/zedless-editor... · Posted by u/homebrewer

fastball · 3 days ago

What interests you about Zed that is not already covered by Sublime?

biztos · 3 days ago

For me, it's always interesting to try out new editors, and I've been a little frustrated with Sublime lately.

Upsides of Zed (for me, I think):

* Built-in AI vibecodery, which I think is going to be an unavoidable part of the job very soon.

* More IDE features while still being primarily an Editor.

* Extensions in Rust (if I'm gonna suffer, might as well learn some Rust).

* Open source.

Downsides vs Sublime:

* Missing some languages I use.

* Business model, arguably, because $42M in VC "is what it is."

biztos commented on Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy theguardian.com/film/2025... · Posted by u/nemoniac

lyu07282 · 9 days ago

The criterion collection being the one noteable exception, and they have their own standalone streaming service that is pretty good:

https://www.criterionchannel.com/browse

biztos · 6 days ago

I'm a subscriber, but the Criterion apps do downloads right some of the time if you're lucky, the choice of subtitles is usually English or English, discovery is Netflix-level bad, they can't be bothered to create any interactive info, and most of the actual Collection is not available for streaming.

I still pay them every month because they have the goods but it's so frustrating that the people with the most film-buff oriented catalog and their hearts (presumably) in the right place have so little ability to deliver on UX.

(I used to subscribe to MUBI as well, which is stronger for new indie films, but didn't have time for both, and MUBI app was so bad it could have been a fork of the Criterion app.)

biztos commented on Did California's fast food minimum wage reduce employment? nber.org/papers/w34033... · Posted by u/lxm

handoflixue · 14 days ago

Humans have certain fundamental maintenance costs. $100/hr vastly exceeds maintenance. However, if you pay below those maintenance costs, then society effectively picks up the tab via other social costs and programs. For instance, if employers don't provide healthcare, then we either pay more for emergency medical treatments and other publicly-subsidized healthcare programs, or we accept being a country with a bunch of people dropping dead at age 40 of entirely preventable problems.

This is very different from most other goods, because no one really cares if you break your chair, the chair's parents didn't spend 18 years of their life on it, etc.. If you break a chair, you bear the full costs of replacing it.

Also, the full cost of replacing a human is vastly higher than the maintenance wage.

biztos · 14 days ago

I wonder how the “replacement cost” of a human should be calculated in light of the low birth rates in so many countries.

> Also, the full cost of replacing a human is vastly higher than the maintenance wage.

biztos commented on Beyond Meat fights for survival foodinstitute.com/focus/b... · Posted by u/airstrike

santoshalper · a month ago

I think the idea was that Beyond Meat would be a "transitional" product that would provide an ever growing vegetarian/vegan population an option that was familiar to them. For example, if you do not care about celebrating vegetables, and just want to end animal cruelty, but you miss the taste of meat, then a beyond burger was supposed to be for you.

The biggest problem they have is the exhorbinant prices, which relegate it to niche status.

biztos · a month ago

> just want to end animal cruelty, but you miss the taste of meat

Does that actually describe a commercially relevant segment of the population?

Intuitively, having known a lot of vegetarians, I'd expect the people whose primary concern is animal cruelty to be specifically turned off by realistic fake meat.

biztos commented on Self-taught engineers often outperform (2024) michaelbastos.com/blog/wh... · Posted by u/mbastos

austin-cheney · a month ago

As a self taught developer who has spent most of their career in the big corporate world surrounded by computer science graduates my experience is this:

The self taught developer will eventually figure it out, if they are intelligent enough to approach the given problem.

The computer science graduate will generally not even try to figure out a problem in completely unfamiliar territory. Of course this varies by personality, so this is probably only true for about 85% of the computer science graduates. They cannot proceed in the face of high uncertainty.

What that ultimately means is that the computer science graduate is way more compatible in the big corporate world where they are an interchangeable cog that can be replaced at any moment. They operate in a world on known patterns just like their peers. The self taught developer, however, is constantly innovating and doing things in somewhat original ways because they have learned to not waste their personal time on unnecessary repetition, and that cavalier lone gunman attitude scares the shit out of people. Yet, those self-taught people tend to deliver vastly superior results.

Most developers don’t seem to care about superior code. They care about retaining employment and lowering anxiety in the manner that emphasizes least disruption.

biztos · a month ago

While I broadly agree with you, and am a self-taught (and occasionally mentored) software engineer, I have often thought that to “care about retaining employment and lowering anxiety” is by far the more rational approach in the corporate-dominated software world of today.

Over a long enough career I think we all see that a high percentage of interchangeable cogs at the BigCos end up with a lot of wealth and very little job-induced stress. Whereas among those who chafe at cogdom and “care about the code,” a tiny fraction make it big while most carry more stress than they should, shoulder more day-to-day responsibility for making things work, and do it for less reward.

I don’t regret being wired for creativity, but the boring people are doing great in this business. Maybe AI changes all that soon, but I wouldn’t dare to bet on which direction it splits.

biztos commented on I'm switching to Python and actually liking it cesarsotovalero.net/blog/... · Posted by u/cesarsotovalero

ajkjk · a month ago

you'd be crazy (senior or not) not to use Go for Go stuff and Python for Python stuff

biztos · a month ago

I use both, with a preference for Go but I feel like I should be doing more Python just to keep it fresh.

It seems like two of the main entries under “Python stuff” are “working with people who only know Python” and “AI/ML because of available packages.”

What are some others?

biztos commented on I'm switching to Python and actually liking it cesarsotovalero.net/blog/... · Posted by u/cesarsotovalero

leptons · a month ago

I have no problem with dynamically-typed languages, my main problem with Python is the significant whitespace. I really do not like it. I can deal with everything else in Python, or any other programming language, but significant whitespace is what kills it for me.

biztos · a month ago

Having gotten back into Python for a project after some time away, I found the solution (for me) is to automatically fix the whitespace every time I run the code.

I just have a line in my Justfile that does this. Probably would be better to format on save but I use different editors and haven’t gotten around to it.

Still doesn’t fix the creeping doubts about everything in a language conceived by people who made that whitespace call, but it removes the specific pain point.

biztos commented on Overtourism in Japan, and how it hurts small businesses craigmod.com/ridgeline/21... · Posted by u/speckx

timr · a month ago

> So, much like every restaurant that becomes popular, anywhere in the world?

No, but thanks for the spot-on imitation of an entitled foreign visitor. The insinuation that somehow it's the local people's fault that they don't want their quaint neighborhood restaurants to become McDonald's is indeed part of the problem.

Many restaurants in Japan (my friend's included) are quite obviously one-man, standing-room only operations. They weren't designed or intended to accommodate big groups of people, pulling huge rolling suitcases, ordering off menu, getting offended when the proprietor doesn't offer vegan/gluten free/snowflake options, and tons of other nonsense that goes along with serving tourist hordes.

I realize that you can't un-make the baby, and that Japan's government asked for this, but a lot of locals are still upset about this kind of stuff and I have empathy. Tourism inevitably turns anything authentic into a high-volume, Epcot-center version of itself. That might be fine if you're visiting, but it sucks if you live there.

biztos · a month ago

Indeed, I’ve seen a lot of “visit Japan” ads lately.

But the thing I worry about, having never been there, is that I might get some good recommendations for out-of-the-way spots where there would be few if any other tourists, and take the time to go find them, only to be denied entry because I’m a foreigner.