foerbert (u/foerbert)

foerbert commented on I’m a productive programmer with a memory of a fruit fly hynek.me/articles/product... · Posted by u/nalgeon

timr · 3 years ago

I have the same problem (i.e. terrible short-term memory, though my long-term memory is fine), and I've picked up a number of compensating behaviors over the years. By far, documentation is my #1 go-to strategy. I document code extensively, even if I'm the only person who is ever going to read it again. People have mocked me for this, but I believe it's a superpower.

Most programmers believe a number of blatant falsehoods about documentation, with the most prevalent being "comments go out of date quickly, so there's no point in investing in them". Maybe I'm just hyper-aware of it because my short-term memory sucks, but code comments have saved me on so many occasions that they're simply not optional.

You can document your code. You can keep it up to date. It isn't that hard. You just don't want to.

foerbert · 3 years ago

Same issue here. It's one of the reasons I've become so enamored with Ada.

With Ada, it's not only easy, but encouraged, to encode so much information in about how things are modeled into the program itself. Not only does it function somewhat like documentation, it also lets the compiler helpfully yell at me when I still manage to forget how things actually work. It's saved me so much stress and debugging time.

Now if only any of these 'safer' languages would add even just strong typedefs. Even if they don't particularly encourage their use, it'd be something.

foerbert commented on The collapse of cryptokitties, the first big blockchain game spectrum.ieee.org/cryptok... · Posted by u/cycomanic

dmitriid · 4 years ago

> It's also possible for a third party to create their own server to implement the game

No, it wouldn't be possible because the concept of IP and copyright exists regardless of blockchains.

foerbert · 3 years ago

Neither apply to game mechanics.

Even if all the WotC IP ends up with the most determined patent troll ever, the game itself could still be implemented.

As for the card art... who knows what the legal situation would end up being. But even if it's totally legally off limits, the ability to load custom art would render it practically moot anyway.

foerbert commented on The collapse of cryptokitties, the first big blockchain game spectrum.ieee.org/cryptok... · Posted by u/cycomanic

largepeepee · 4 years ago

What is this mysterious demographic that were never interested in the decades old proven track record of wotc but suddenly interested in digital marketing bullshit that don't actually last forever(links go dead all the time without a caretaker, nfts aren't an exception)

Ah, wild short term speculators while depending on another foreign caretaker with no interest in your products?

No thanks. Enough with the stupid ideas.

foerbert · 3 years ago

I don't get the hostility, nor why you keep trying to shove words in my mouth.

I never said anything about new customers, nor even old customers.

I've also been very explicit that I'm just talking about seeing a plausible possibility, and not made any claims about it's probability. Nor said I think any person or entity - WotC included - should actually do anything or not.

And I've absolutely not made any particular judgements on the intrinsic value of NFTs.

I get you don't like the whole crypto thing, but this reaction is way beyond the point of reason.

I'm really not much of a fan either, honestly. That doesn't mean we should demonize our own thoughts if they point towards a hypothetical possibility that some other people might find value in it.

foerbert commented on The collapse of cryptokitties, the first big blockchain game spectrum.ieee.org/cryptok... · Posted by u/cycomanic

largepeepee · 4 years ago

Your words are contradictions.

You say they will see benefit.

Yet all you mention is how the blockchain might usurp the faith wotc relies on.

Why would wotc ever fund their potential demise or depend on people that never had faith on their product in the first place?

foerbert · 4 years ago

WotC doesn't care if a potential consumer trusts their long-term business model, but they sure do care if the potential consumer trusts their purchase won't poof out of existence one day.

By throwing it on the blockchain, WotC could market it as the digital card being basically as safe from vanishing as a physical card. "Even if we go bust in 50 years, your digital cards will all still be yours! You'll still be able to prove ownership of all your cards, and will still be free as ever to trade coughsell for incredible profitcough them!"

I have no idea if the market as a whole would bite, or how deeply. But there is a not-insignificant number of people who count on Magic cards gaining significant amounts of value over time. Some use it as a way to justify the purchases, while others have turned it into an outright investment strategy.

I can only imagine that digital cards reliant on WotC's active involvement to exist would suffer significant discounts.

But maybe being digital is such a huge hit in the first place that it doesn't ultimately matter. I have no idea. Hence, why I said it seems possible.

foerbert commented on The collapse of cryptokitties, the first big blockchain game spectrum.ieee.org/cryptok... · Posted by u/cycomanic

mumblemumble · 4 years ago

If gameplay is also mediated through WotC's servers, though, then the cards would lose any intrinsic value when/if WotC goes under or stops supporting the game.

And if others are allowed to create their own servers so that the game can live outside of WotC's auspices, that would also undermine the value of the NFT cards, since anyone who is able to create their own implementation of the game could just as easily start creating non-NFT versions of the cards that people can use.

foerbert · 4 years ago

I don't think that's the case. It's also a tabletop game so the rules are all out there in public and not even inhumanely complex.

Even if WotC's servers go down, you could use the blockchain to prove ownership of a card for use in a live tournament. It's also possible for a third party to create their own server to implement the game, and then refer back to the blockchain for ownership.

As for non-official cards, I mean, yeah? That's the case with physical Magic cards too. Not even actual counterfeits have held the MTG secondary market back from astounding prices. Meanwhile non-NFT cards would be the equivalent of proxy cards - cards that aren't X, but both players agree to treat as X - which haven't been any more successful than counterfeits in holding Magic prices down.

I'm not claiming there would be greater faith in a blockchain than WotC, I'm just saying I see it as possible.

foerbert commented on The collapse of cryptokitties, the first big blockchain game spectrum.ieee.org/cryptok... · Posted by u/cycomanic

rideontime · 4 years ago

> They already do this sort of thing with MtG Online

Exactly. They can track all this stuff in their own database. WotC doesn't stand to benefit from putting anything on a blockchain.

foerbert · 4 years ago

I think it's possible they might see some benefit. It would basically hinge on people's faith in WotC vs a blockchain to administer that data. If the blockchain was more trusted - say because of concerns WotC might go out of business one day, etc - then using it might entice people to put more money in.

foerbert commented on A personal list of Rust grievances gist.github.com/brendanza... · Posted by u/todsacerdoti

alpaca128 · 4 years ago

> just to make the whole "you don't need to say return in the last statement" look clever.

I sure prefer `let x = if foo { 0 } else { 1 };` over `let x = if foo { return 0; } else { return 1; };`. Which raises another potential dilemma: do you break consistency and allow returning values without `return` in if-blocks, or do you make it impossible to return from a function early within them, instead making the returns exit the if-expression early for ultimate confusion?

No, please don't take away my semicolons unless you provide an actual alternative, even if it's just a Lisp-like flood of parentheses.

foerbert · 4 years ago

There are other options out there. Ada, for example, has extended return statements and - more directly - expression functions.

foerbert commented on A Review of the Odin Programming Language graphitemaster.github.io/... · Posted by u/gingerBill

tayistay · 4 years ago

> I don’t buy into the rhetoric that memory safety solves everything

I haven’t heard that rhetoric, only that memory safety is a really good thing. If I can pay up front with some static analysis and eliminate entire classes of bugs, that’s just such a great thing, even if it doesn’t solve everything.

I want to like and use Odin, because the guy behind it seems really cool, and it’s pretty indie, like zig. But the strong guarantees of rust are just so compelling.

foerbert · 4 years ago

I'd probably agree with that characterization. It's not that people are out there specifically claiming memory safety solves everything, but rather that the 'public consciousness' seems to have utterly forgotten that any other kind of safety exists.

As a result, you get languages like (and mainly) Rust being held up as the paragons of program correctness and safety in general. Any discussions of program safety end up being entirely about memory safety.

It's just an endless hoard of comments/blogs/posts/etc of people conflating memory safety with correctness and not even acknowledging - or possibly even knowing - there are other kinds of safety out there.

So the rhetoric being referenced there is largely implicit. Anybody who actually mentions memory safety in specific terms is already ahead of the curve.

foerbert commented on The Next Chapter for Learning on YouTube blog.youtube/news-and-eve... · Posted by u/nassimsoftware

cillian64 · 4 years ago

The justification some youtubers (LTT comes to mind) use for clickbait video titles/thumbnails is that they feel that so long as the content itself is good then it doesn’t matter what techniques they use to get people to watch it. Their logic is that there’s nothing wrong with lying to get someone to watch your video so long as they enjoy it once they do.

To me it the race to the bottom of clickbait video titles/thumbnails feels dishonest and harmful but it’s hard to see what to do about it other than manual curation and/or alternative platforms which don’t use recommendations to exponentially amplify click rates.

foerbert · 4 years ago

It's a hard line to walk. And I'm sure not everybody draws the same line.

The part I think LTT and many other folks with a similar philosophy ignore is that even engaging with their title/thumbnail isn't free. Clickbait forcefully grabs attention which requires every potential viewer to spend time and energy evaluating that option. A less forceful title/thumbnail makes it much easier to quickly and easily find the things you actually want to spend your time and energy on.

To make matters worse, most/all clickbait does it's damnedest to make it as hard as possible to decide a video isn't worth the time. Even when you know it's not worth it, the clickbait can make it extremely hard to actually skip.

So yeah, it has a real cost, even when the video itself is good. It's not equally good for everybody, and figuring that out has a cost too.

(And LTT in particular really pushes the boundaries, far more than most that actually try to not be dicks. LTT will sometimes draw the line at 'merely' technically not saying a lie, and blame you for hearing one anyway.)

foerbert commented on Cursorless – A spoken language for structural code editing github.com/cursorless-dev... · Posted by u/yewenjie

lunixbochs · 4 years ago

> unofficially not much more than a few paragraphs

There's a lot more than a few paragraphs on the wiki (which is linked right after the setup instructions in the official docs), including ~30 pages about the scripting system alone: https://talon.wiki/unofficial_talon_docs/

> As for Slack, I don't really consider that documentation

I think you should try asking questions on this particular Slack before you write it off and recommend that I do something else. It is my official support channel and I am extremely active and helpful there.

> Having the option to try to figure things out by looking at the code could be very helpful

One thing to try - Talon has good Python type annotation coverage and the type information is shipped with Talon. If you point VSCode at Talon's Python interpreter (at `~/.talon/bin/python` on Linux/Mac or `%appdata%\talon\.venv\scripts\python` on Windows), the language tooling in your editor should then know about Talon's API and types.

foerbert · 4 years ago

> There's a lot more than a few paragraphs on the wiki

You're right, I wasn't very fair to the wiki. I would have failed out way quicker without it. It wasn't intentional, it's just been a bit since I was looking at all this. My memory had dropped the details and left me with just my overall impressions.

That said, the wiki still was a bit short on some of the deeper details. I remember a fair number of places I'd feel like the wiki had just enough to tantalize the possibilities but not provide some of the important pieces to put it together into something useful.

And being community driven, I was a little wary of taking it as gospel. Even popular and stable software often has some niggling issues with community documentation.

> I think you should try asking questions on this particular Slack before you write it off

I'm not writing it off. I have no doubt it - and you - would be very helpful. I just don't consider it documentation, in the same way I don't consider a knowledgeable friend documentation.

Part of the reason I didn't pop in was that I was stuck doing a slow one-finger hunt-and-peck on a blank keyboard at the time. Searching the web was more than frustrating enough to make it real tempting to ignoring the cost of typing, never mind Slack. And partly I admit I just don't like asking questions in that format unless it seems like a reasonably complex/detailed/weird question.

> point VSCode at Talon's Python interpreter

Yeah, that probably would have helped. My setup at the time didn't have much for Python, so I was mostly using the REPL and basic searching.