wmwragg (u/wmwragg) - Readit News

wmwragg commented on Old Timey Code and Old Timey Mono Fonts github.com/dse/old-timey-... · Posted by u/dsevil

dsevil · 4 months ago

Based on Reproducing Typewriter, a letterpress typeface from c. 1906 used to create fake typewritten letters for promotional material. Where other monospace typefaces replicated actual typewriters, Reproducing Typewriter had improvements for better readability at smaller point sizes and/or where poor quality reproduction was an issue.

I thought its features would make it the basis of a good coding font, too. Old Timey Mono is much closer to the original while Old Timey Code makes it an even better typeface for writing source code.

It was the coding font used in the Turbo Pascal 3.0 user manual. I've not seen it elsewhere except old patents' cover pages.

Enjoy and if you have any comments or questions, comment or enquire away.

https://github.com/dse/old-timey-mono-font

https://webonastick.com/fonts/old-timey-mono/

wmwragg · 4 months ago

Looking at the examples, they look good, though one thing stands out, the "w" seems to be bolder than the other letters. The "m" seems fine, as do the other letters and symbols, just the "w".

wmwragg commented on Isolating complexity is the essence of successful abstractions v5.chriskrycho.com/journa... · Posted by u/chriskrycho

timewizard · 8 months ago

> Complexity has to live somewhere. If you are lucky, it lives in well-defined places.

This whole section makes me think of construction which has similar abstraction and hidden complexity problems. It strikes me that they solve it by having design be entirely separate from implementation. Which is usually the corner where all our luck as software developers inevitably runs out.

Our methods are still rather "cowboy." We have cool "modernized cowboy" languages that make it hard to shoot your foot off, but at the end of the day, we're still just riding old horses and hoping for the best.

wmwragg · 8 months ago

I've often thought this. It feels like there should be two languages, one for the implementation of the parts, and another to design/architect the software using the parts, allowing the design/architect language to focus on the high level architecture of the software and the implementation language to focus on the parts. We currently use the same language for both, and mix the two areas as we program

wmwragg commented on Mozilla becoming active in online advertising blog.mozilla.org/en/mozil... · Posted by u/brentjanderson

lovethevoid · a year ago

Interesting the Mozilla board interpreted "ease off the Google reliance money" to mean "become Google"

The core of the problem is really in this very paragraph:

> Right now, the tradeoffs people are asked to make online are too significant. Yes, advertising enables free access to most of what the internet provides, but the lack of practical control we all have over how our data is collected and shared is unacceptable. And solutions to this problem that simply rely on handing more of our data to a few gigantic private companies are not really solutions that help the people who use the internet, at all.

There is no solution to this. You can't advertise effectively and profitably without personal information. No matter how much you try to chop up and anonymize data, it's still personal and even in the absence of information you can wind up collecting a lot of data about someone (as browser fingerprinting does often times). The more information you have, the more is paid. Not even Apple avoids this, despite their privacy claims, and they too see there's far more money to be made as an ad network than letting Google gobble up the space.

But as much as I personally dislike this, my guess will be that this is the most successful (financially) change Mozilla enacts.

wmwragg · a year ago

It used to be completely normal, and profitable, to effectively advertise without personal information. The idea that this is now required for advertising is just wrong, and shouldn't be accepted as such

wmwragg commented on Computer scientists invent an efficient new way to count quantamagazine.org/comput... · Posted by u/jasondavies

bzuker · a year ago

any particular one you'd recommend?

wmwragg · a year ago

I think the classic is "Lateral Thinking: A Textbook of Creativity"

wmwragg commented on Computer scientists invent an efficient new way to count quantamagazine.org/comput... · Posted by u/jasondavies

akamoonknight · a year ago

I don't know a word or phrase for this, but I really enjoy any examples of "thinking outside the box" like this because it's something I struggle with in my professional career. Learning not only the right ways to solve problems, but figuring out the questions to ask that make solving the problems you have easier or even in some cases possible. In this case, it's hey, we don't need exact numbers if we can define a probabilistic range given defined parameters. Other problems are gonna have other questions. I guess my hope is that if I see enough examples I'll be able to eventually internalize the thought process and apply it correctly.

wmwragg · a year ago

I think it's generally thought of as "lateral thinking", Edward de Bono has written a few books about it you might find interesting.

wmwragg commented on Cylindrical Slide Rules americanhistory.si.edu/co... · Posted by u/Kye

_qua · a year ago

I thought about buying a slide rule just for fun to learn how they work. I couldn't find any regular sized traditional slide rules on Amazon. Does anyone sell them for a reasonable price?

wmwragg · a year ago

I believe Concise[1] in Japan still make circular slide rules. I bought a No. 300 and No. 270N from them a few years ago.

[1] https://www.sliderule.tokyo/products/list.php

wmwragg commented on When Work Didn’t Follow You Home calnewport.com/when-work-... · Posted by u/keyboardJones

jader201 · 2 years ago

I’ve been working from home 100% for going on 10 years. I’ve had a mix of experiences re: disconnecting from work, and three things that I believe are key:

1. Work out of a separate office, ideally with a door. Don’t go in that room except when you’re working. If you work from a laptop, (mostly) never take it out of that room. Obviously some don’t have this luxury, but if you do and you’re not doing this, I highly suggest trying it.

2. Remove work communications from your phone. If you have a separate email account for work (highly likely), remove it from your phone. If you have Slack or some other chat app installed for work, remove it or remove your work account. If your company truly cares about a healthy work-life balance, this shouldn’t be an issue. If you need it for oncall, only install it then, then remove it.

3. Stick to a schedule. Log on and off about the same time each day. Don't jump on work for an hour or two here and there throughout the whole day. Log on, put your time in, log off. Don't work on weekends. There are times when you may need to put in extra and/or odd hours, but this should be the exception, not the norm.

With these three things in place, I am — quite successfully — able to get the pre-smartphone feel of disconnecting from work while working from home.

wmwragg · 2 years ago

Yep point 1 I think is the most important, but if you don't have the luxury of an office at home, having a start of work process, and an end of work process is really important e.g. at end of day, close laptop, put away in a drawer, and tidy up work paraphernalia, then sit down and have a cup of tea while reading a book. It mentally bookmarks the start and end of work, and allows your mind to reset from work mode.

wmwragg commented on The Awk Programming Language, Second Edition awk.dev/... · Posted by u/0x54MUR41

ahalbert · 2 years ago

I love using Awk, the only thing I miss is that it can't handle complex csv files. Does anyone know how to handle quoted CSV strings like

> "foo","bar,baz"

wmwragg · 2 years ago

I usually use this awk function to parse CSV in awk:

    # This function takes a line i.e. $0, and treats it as a line of CSV, breakin
    # it into individual fields, and storing them in the passed in field array. It
    # returns the number of fields found, 0 if none found. It takes account of CSV
    # quoting, and also commas within CSV quoted fields, but doesn't remove them
    # from the parsed field.
    # use in code like:
    #   number_of_fields = parse_csv_line($0, csv_fields)
    #   csv_fields[2]  # get second parsed field in $0
    function parse_csv_line(line, field,   _field_count) {
      _field_count = 0
      # Treat each line as a CSV line and break it up into individual fields
      while (match(line, /(\"([^\"]|\"\")+\")|([^,\"\n]+)/)) {
        field[++_field_count] = substr(line, RSTART, RLENGTH)
        line = substr(line, RSTART+RLENGTH+1, length(line))
      }
      return _field_count
    }

It's not perfect but gets the job done most of the time and works across all awk implementations.

wmwragg commented on “Considered Harmful” Essays Considered Harmful (2002) meyerweb.com/eric/comment... · Posted by u/doodlesdev

jeppester · 2 years ago

> I've seen "the best programmers" adopt tools and patterns that cannot survive their departure because they are too complicated and too specialized for anyone else to own.

That was not the kind of developer I was thinking about.

> But as I've become an advanced programmer, some of my opinions have become much stronger

I don't mind strong opinions at all. What I mind is extremism, and how terms like antipattern and code smell contributes to it.

You called the singleton pattern you described a "pretty much 100% bad pattern", then went on to explain your experience and opinion in a humble way. I think that's a great example of a strong opinion which was not "extreme".

wmwragg · 2 years ago

I tend to like the phrase "Strong opinions, weakly held" to describe that sort of "best programmers". Through experience they have come to hold certain ideas, and will express them strongly, but are willing to describe why, and also accept that they aren't universal, mostly rules of thumb i.e. they aren't dogmatic.