markc (u/markc) - Readit News

markc commented on The Liberating Experience of Common Lisp ds9soft.com/blog/2024/06/... · Posted by u/_19qg

> Maybe because it's easy to decouple data from operations on that data, even if stateful

You can use objects in C++ and Java without mixing code and data (by having data-only and code-only classes for example).

I haven't fully read it, but there's a book from a clojure developer about about this: https://www.manning.com/books/data-oriented-programming

The book itself uses Java, not Clojure.

markc · a year ago

>The book itself uses Java, not Clojure.

Almost all of the code examples in the book are in JavaScript (not Java) though a significant feature of Sharvit's approach is that it decouples Data Oriented Programming from any specific language. As a Clojure geek, I highly recommend the book as the way to achieve some of Clojure's core virtues in other languages.

markc commented on The Origin of Emacs in 1976 onlisp.co.uk/On-the-Origi... · Posted by u/rhabarba

ggm · a year ago

EDT had rubber condom overlays for the Vt100 so you could know what numberpad key to use for magic edit, and the "gold" key which I thought was a superbad name for Meta.

markc · a year ago

I still have my cherished VT125 EDT rubber overlay from when I worked at DEC '82-'85. Great editor. And the amazing thing was that there could be 50 people time-sharing on a single 1 MIPS Vax 780, and EDT was very responsive, virtually no lag.

markc commented on What makes a translation great? scroll.in/article/876969/... · Posted by u/ignored

Smaug123 · 2 years ago

I enjoyed Hofstadter's _Le ton beau de Marot_, which is precisely about this question; it studies many people's different translations of one particular obscure poem, and asks what properties of the original should be preserved.

markc · 2 years ago

I came here to mention this book also. I learned a lot. He explores a mind numbing number of properties which are potentially in the mix. They depend in turn on the properties of the source material. (Authors play all kinds of games with meter and structure and arbitrary constraints - and preserving some can come at the cost of deprecating others.)

One warning: among the genuinely deep insights, Hofstadter can occasionally come off as smug and self-congratulatory about his own poetic genius. I found this rather off-putting - and surprising since I found the tone of G.E.B. rather more like enthusiastic play.

markc commented on Cyc: History's Forgotten AI Project outsiderart.substack.com/... · Posted by u/iafisher

shrubble · 2 years ago

Back in the mid 1990s Cyc was giving away their Symbolics machines and I waffled on spending the $1500 in shipping to get them to me in Denver. In retrospect I should have, of course!

markc · 2 years ago

Probably could have driven round trip for under $500!

markc commented on Let's Kerberos imperialviolet.org/2024/0... · Posted by u/tatersolid

markc · 2 years ago

Shout out to attendees of the Nov. 1996 MIT Kerberos Workshop!

http://web.mit.edu/pbh/www/workshop.html

http://web.mit.edu/pbh/www/krb-attendees.html

markc commented on Let's Kerberos imperialviolet.org/2024/0... · Posted by u/tatersolid

lukeh · 2 years ago

cryptonector and I also specified a Kerberos-like protocol [1] based on Mozilla’s defunct BrowserID protocol. I demonstrated it as a drop-in replacement for Kerberos with Exchange, having built a Windows SSP and credential provider as well as a GSS-API implementation (the latter which is open source [3]).

Unfortunately after Mozilla cancelled Persona, this never went anywhere.

[1] https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-howard-gss-brows...

[2] https://hacks.mozilla.org/2013/04/mozilla-persona-for-the-no...

[3] https://github.com/PADL/libbrowserid

markc · 2 years ago

Very cool. Back in ancient times, shortly after Kerberos for GSS-API came out I was tasked with achieving interoperability between Hewlett-Packard's GSS-API implementation (based on MIT's) with popular commercial ones (Cygnus? Microsoft?). It was my introduction to subtle art debugging crypto protocols, handy when SSL came along. Implementing to the spec doesn't necessarily mean they'll interoperate. This brings back some memories: https://web.mit.edu/kerberos/krb5-devel/doc/appdev/gssapi.ht...

markc commented on An interactive exploration of Boston's subway system mbtaviz.github.io/... · Posted by u/parksb

kibwen · 2 years ago

Worth noting that the bicycle infrastructure in Cambridge, Somerville, and the adjoining parts of Boston has also skyrocketed in quality relative to its pre-pandemic state, it's extremely heartening to see. I don't take the T much anymore just because it's so easy to bike anywhere that I need to go. Shout out to the new path parallel to the green line extension, which makes it feasible to get from downtown to Somerville (and out to the Minuteman and 20 miles beyond!) without needing to navigate that viaduct and nightmare highway overpass east of Union.

markc · 2 years ago

True. I chose my neighborhood in Somerville with proximity to the T as a top priority because I assumed I'd be taking it to work in Kendall every day. Then I bought a bike and found it better in almost every way: free, enjoyable (much of the time), healthier, and much faster. So much so that I biked nearly all of the time, year-round. I had dedicated lanes for most of the trip, and quiet almost car-free neighborhoods for much of the rest.

An unexpected pleasure was the schadenfreude of passing scores of cars on Hampshire/Beacon on my way home during rush hour.

An unexpected annoyance was the fair weather bikers who don't seem to know their bike has gears, and take f.o.r.e.v.e.r. to get going at a green light.

markc commented on An interactive exploration of Boston's subway system mbtaviz.github.io/... · Posted by u/parksb

getoffmycase · 2 years ago

Technically two or three of the silver line buses are also considered to be subway, too. I believe SL1, SL2, and SL3. They’re subway fare and they go underground at some point

markc · 2 years ago

And free outbound from Logan! Though I must say, the last time I did this it was a bit of a nightmare. The SL1 was very late and we were packed in like sardines.

markc commented on How to Solve It (1945) math.utah.edu/~alfeld/mat... · Posted by u/GamerUncle

markc · 2 years ago

Rich Hickey (creator of Clojure) references Polya several times in his classic talk "Hammock Driven Development". Here's a transcript:

https://github.com/matthiasn/talk-transcripts/blob/master/Hi...

I've long been impressed by Hickey's problem solving skills, so I took much of this talk to heart, and even bought a copy of HTSI. Can't say it really helped me any more than Rich's talk (as a programmer) but I'm thinking I'll give it another look.

markc commented on Gen Z are turning to delusional thinking to cope fortune.com/2023/06/27/ge... · Posted by u/Dudester230602

soco · 2 years ago

I cannot picture having a path to wealth as an employee. I mean I'm struggling to even conceptualize this. Do you have actual expectations to get on this path? Or maybe we define differently "wealth"... You can definitely have a fine life as an employee (although that gets eroded too, inequality growing everywhere and former middle class gets pushed down), but to be wealthy that was always another category altogether.

markc · 2 years ago

There is a viable path from (upper?)-middle class to early retirement that is built mostly out of hardcore discipline, willingness to delay gratification, and some luck. The idea is to live well below your means, be "frugal", and pound every spare dollar into tax advantaged retirement accounts (first) then your own aggressive growth equities. Get a bonus? The whole thing goes to your brokerage, have a stock plan at work? Max it. Since this mild form of FIRE may take 30+ years, you should invest aggressively in equities (risk decreases with longer time horizon) and possibly buy some rental properties along the way. IMO this gives the best probability (though no guarantee) of retiring financially independent before age 60.