adekok

A few things things:

* any non Javascript / ruby / go languages don't have standard packages, package names, etc.

* any non Javascript / ruby / go languages may be using one of many build systems. It's just too hard to troll through random build systems to see what dependencies are used

* therefore, a simple text file is what will work, and is what will be trivial for everyone to use

* if you find it too hard to update one line in a text file when you add (for example) a new dependency on libldap... you shouldn't be programming

Text files?

If people get value from it, editing a simple text file once or twice a year wouldn't be difficult.

I ran into a GCC bug years ago. (1999-2000). It would put "static" variables into the "text" section of ELF binaries.

i.e. into the read-only portion of the binary.

The result, of course, was that writing to the variables caused a core dump.

So yes, 99% of the time, stupid programmer errors are stupid programmer errors. But compilers do have bugs.

e.g.

https://github.com/practicalswift/swift-compiler-crashes

> Crucially, Jayne's definition of "consciousness" is basically introspection.

With language as a key portion. See any discussion of deaf people who aren't taught language until late in life, such a Helen Keller. The stories consistently have them emotionally overwhelmed when the first learn language. They want to know the names of everything.

And also, they consistently talk about "before" and "after". Before language, they were a collection of emotions, fears, desires, etc. After language, they existed for the first time. They could name things, including themselves.

This looks a lot like the transition to self aware consciousness. Which means Jayne isn't entirely wrong.

Neal Stephenson's novel "Snow Crash" depended entirely on this theory. I'm not sure if I believe it, but it made for a good novel.

> I really wonder if non-programmers think the same or is it just like any other profession they're not knowledgeable of?

There is a large difference between competence and ignorance. They're qualitatively different, and different in each field.

e.g. programmers do magic things like read the error messages on the screen. Non-programmers not only don't do that, they can't comprehend why it's necessary. (Without exaggerating too much)

The same applies for mechanics, carpenters, etc. I've seen good people work, and they do things that I just don't get. I'm not sure any amount of training will result in the same intuitive understanding.

It's why I went into programming, and not anything else...

So we should trust the government with encryption back doors, right?

Right?

I'm surprised there wasn't more investigation of SQLite and LMDB:

https://github.com/LMDB/sqlightning

The performance there shows either little to no performance difference, up to substantial speed increases.

If you think that's bad, I've seen presentations to angel investors where the CEO repeats things like "we do big data analysis to help our customers synergise and analyze..."

Q: OK, that's nice, what do you do? What value do you offer the customer

A: Big data analysis! Synergise!

<sigh>

Bad emails are one thing. Bad presentations to investors just reeks of incompetence.

Even when I was in 25 years ago, universities were replacing full-time professors with sessional lecturers. And bloating the administration budget.

It's only gotten worse since then.

If universities are institutions of higher learning, then the people doing the teaching should have a larger say. Right now (as with many companies), the accountants are in charge.

IIRC, that was the complaint at Digital. The company was doing well when run by engineers. And then the MBAs took over... soon the good engineers left, and the company started building crap.

It's similar in other countries, too:

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29765623

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/a-history-of-residential-schoo...

The people who thought the referendum was illegal and didn't matter, didn't show up. In part because of fears of violence from police (shall we say) "enthusiastically" enforcing the law.

The people who wanted the referendum to go through were motivated to show up despite the violence. Because they believed in their cause.

So no, the "yes" voters were likely not discouraged from showing up. Or, the "soft" yes votes were discouraged.

FTA The Catalan government said that of the 43% of potential voters who took part in the referendum, 90% were in favour of independence.

In a referendum where people who wanted to vote "no" didn't show up, because of fears of violence.

This just isn't a reflection of the will of the population.

> Someone posts this glib comment every time academic careers are discussed. It's true, and yet harder than you'd think.

I asked around during my MSc (25 years ago), and got told this by everyone.

> Very few grad students get any kind of personalized career advice or discussion of their prospects.

They're adults. No one else is responsible for their life. If they refuse to take responsibility for their life, that's their choice.

They can ask. It's not difficult.

Note that "better infrastructure" != "more highways", as traffic grows to saturate the available roads.

If you want better infrastructure, invest in light rail.

http://www.iwillride.org/what-200-people-look-like-driving-c...

I spent ~10 years living in Europe. While there was still a lot of traffic, huge numbers of people took rail. To me, the cities were much more livable than the average NA city.

Systems do NOT "strive for equilibrium". The only reason we see multiple systems at (roughly) equilibrium is that the ones not at equilibrium destroy themselves and their environment.

I'm not denying that negative feedback exists. I'm saying that without such feedback, systems always run out of control, because that's the biological imperative.

And no, growing systems are not cancer. That's just a ridiculous statement to make. Don't straw-man me FFS.

> Healthy ecosystems strive at equilibrium.

Nonsense.

The only reason systems are in equilibrium is because of negative feedback. Predators eat prey. Diseases kill plants / animals, etc.

Remove the negative feedback, and you get un-checked growth.

This is basic biology...

For all my dislike of capitalism, there aren't many better systems. Perhaps capitalism leavened with some socialism (public roads, police, health care, etc.)

i.e. what most rich western societies have.

Because in nature, organisms don't grow to the limits of their environment, right? They willingly limit their growth so that all enlightened organisms can share equally in a workers paradise, amidst songs of empowerment and fraternity, while marching collectively towards a bold new future!

Yeah... no.

Evolution shows us that organisms do grow to the limits of their environment. A "capitalist" system is no different. Making thinly-veiled religious statements about the evils of capitalism means rhetoric is more important to you than understanding.

Edit: for the nay-sayers, who seem to have missed my point: These behaviors aren't a result of capitalism. Blaming capitalism, or using ideological rehetoric, is wrong. These behaviors are a result of reality. Of evolution. Of the Dariwnian struggle for existence.

Blaming capitalism for these behaviors makes no more sense than blaming capitalism for a disease like malaria. Malaria was around long before capitalism, or even people, existed.

> Torture obviously works. It just also creates a lot of false information

Which means it doesn't work.

> Have you tried this lately - in the last 10 years?

I'm wondering what it is about HN that lets people be condescending know-it-alls.

If you look, there's only one of me online. I write between 10K and 20K lines of C a year.

So yes, I have tried this in the last 10 years.

Having written multiple RFCs, violating the RFC is not always a bad thing. Some of the MUSTs are a result of the committee process, and follow the lowest common denominator.

If the recommendations don't make sense, don't follow them.

> Rather, it would be better to devise perceptual experiments and back fit a mathematical model to the results.

We already have those results: thousands of existing fonts.

The fonts have all been manually optimized. It should be possible to back-fit the optimization process.

Using -Werror in development is annoying too. It works if everyone is running exactly the same OS, header files, and version of the compiler.

If not... different developers have different errors.

I try to build with all of the warnings turned on, multiple static analysis tools, and with multiple OS / compilers. Yet every time a compiler or OS is upgraded, there's a whole suite of new build warnings.

When you do your work, do you share awards and raises with the cafeteria staff? Does the cafeteria staff understand the work you do? Do they contribute materially to it? i.e. technical contributions which are meaningful in the field?

No? Then the analogy is false.

The difference with physics (for example) is that when a paper has 160 co-authors (as in my experience) all of those people contributed materially to the result. They are all experts in the field, and they all understand the contents of the paper.

I was a collaborator on the SNO project. I worked with Art McDonald, who co-won the 2015 Nobel prize in physics for the project.

There were hundreds of people involved. We couldn't have done it without the hundreds of people. While Art was a fantastic guy and a tireless worker, a good chunk of his contribution was management.

i.e. A competent manager. He not only understood all of the physics involved, but a good chunk of the engineering, along with having decent managerial skills. No one with skills solely in an MBA, or theoretical physicist, or civil engineer could have done it.

Even if he didn't win based on something he mathematically proved, there's no question he's one of the top physicists around.

If you look at the Nobel prizes as the "best of" awards, and not "the guy who invented something all alone", it becomes a bit more palatable.

On top of that, the Nobel committee is limited by the rules of their foundation. Even assigning Nobels for something done 5 years ago is arguably outside of the directions of the trust.

So yeah, the article isn't theoretically wrong, but it's wrong for practical purposes.

> Clearly that person has never read the GPL,

It's not about "reading the GPL". It's about power.

If the only people allowed to decide morality / ethics / legality are lawyers, then they have power, and you don't. This is fantastic for the people in power. Less so for you.

The main issue there is that Ikea isn't owning the installation process. They should be making sure that they know who's doing the work, when they're showing up, etc.

And then tracking that, so if one group of contractors has consistent problems, they can be fired.

i.e. my DMCA'd videos may no longer be accessible on Cloudflare. But people can still go directly to my site outside of Cloudflare. I just have to pay the bandwidth charges. :(

On top of that, I suspect there's no "3 strikes" rule, either. A cache is a cache. Entries in the cache expire for a lot of reasons, including legal ones. Lots of cache expiration has no impact on ongoing caching of new data.

That's nice.

Do these people have any competence in the field before they're hired into an executive position?

> Steaknap Sleepchew @treelzebub Android Tech Lead here. Was a Religious Studies major, then a cook/chef for 12 years.

Not relevant.

> Richard Bejtlich @taosecurity Undergrad degrees in history, pol sci, French, German. Masters in public policy. Wrote 4 #cybersecurity books, was CISO.

Not relevant.

> Joe Uchill @JoeUchill Peter Thiel majored in 20th centrury philosophy. Now he harvests the blood of the young.

Not relevant.

> About 85 percent of Duo Security's hires do not have a formal background in information security,

Do they have experience in information security?

a) yes, therefore they have some qualifications, and the comparison is not relevant

b) no, therefore the employers are hiring people who are manifestly incompetent at their jobs

> Wendy Nather @wendynather I don't have a degree; if I'd gotten one, it would have been in liberal arts. But I've been in tech for 30 years, so their logic is flawed.

i.e. she has experience, and the comparison is not relevant.

> And a CISO is as much about risk management as CS and tech

So you're honestly saying that a widget company can hire a VP of widget manufacturing, who knows nothing about widgets or manufacturing? This is not just false, it's patently absurd.

The point isn't "OMFG she has a music degree". It's that there is no reason to believe she has any experience or competence in the field.