begriffs

That's really interesting. I used Delphi back in the day to build little Windows GUI programs for personal projects, and it seemed fine. Subsequently haven't thought of Pascal much, so I guess I simply overlooked it while making The List. :)

Am I in a bubble, or is it true that C has become much more popular than Pascal? If so, why did it get popular?

(Author here) sorry, I should work on my tone. Sometimes it feels fun to write strong statements, knowing in your own mind that you're just trying them on. Then when other people read the stuff I realize it doesn't sound daring, it just sounds arrogant. Realized this a few days ago when some podcasters covered an OpenBSD article I wrote, and when they read some of my statements out loud it sort of made me wince.

You're right, I made a mistake. Just reviewed the table of contents on Amazon and it looks pretty short, and not particularly theoretical. Also poorly reviewed. I don't remember how it got on my list but I'm removing it.

I think the book you're talking about is Axler's "Linear Algebra Done Right." I worked through the problems in this book with some friends, and it is a very good presentation.

After doing that book I wanted to see what other books were out there, which ones were the good ones, and sort of classify them. I came up with this list: https://begriffs.com/posts/2016-07-24-best-linear-algebra-bo...

I classify the books as Generalist (like Axler's), Theoretical (starting from e.g. modules rather than vector spaces), Numerical (matrix normal forms and algorithms), Practice (books full of problems), and a few other categories.

You can jump to it by typing /EXAMPLES<enter>

Or if that seems like a lot of keystrokes, /EX<enter> will probably jump to what you want most of the time too.

That's a good distinction. Yeah, GNU.

When people think of manpages, they tend to think of Linux. At least that's what I thought of, until a few months ago when I discovered OpenBSD. Their manual is concise and coherent, unlike the rambling hodgepodge on Linux.

Of course it's always nice to have a bunch of curated examples like TLDR or "bro" pages, but just wanted to point out that the manpage situation isn't universally grim.

Fair point about the docs, I've been putting reference information in them over time, but it could use more guided tutorials.

Last week I began working to improve that, by writing a series of tutorials. Here's the first: https://postgrest.com/en/v4.1/tutorials/tut0.html

More to come, including tutorials about row-level security and authentication.

Many views are "auto updatable" in Postgres, meaning the db knows how to seamlessly pass updates down to the underlying relation. https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/rules-views.h...

For more updates to more complicated views (such as some joins), you can use a trigger as also described in the linked docs above.

The link Ruslan shared explains how to use row level security with application users as opposed to db users.

Basically PostgREST translates cryptographically signed JWT claims from the client request into local SQL variables accessible by postgresql's "current_setting" function. The additional claims can identify the user beyond their db role. They can specify, for instance, the user's email address.

Row level security policies can use current_setting to refer to the extra claims. So multiple users can share a db role and connection pooling works fine.

For GnuPG I use this hardware: https://begriffs.com/posts/2017-05-17-linux-workstation-guid...

For U2A two-factor auth I use a little Yubikey that is dedicated just for that and fits comfortably on a keychain. https://www.yubico.com/products/yubikey-hardware/fido-u2f-se...

You can trigger external actions by connecting PostgreSQL pubsub (LISTEN/NOTIFY) with an external job queue. https://postgrest.com/en/v0.4/intro.html#external-notificati...

A NOTIFY SQL command can be sent out from either a stored procedure or a table trigger. (The docs could use some examples of this, but that's the idea.)

I use Github email notifications to keep on top of issues. GH lets you use different email addresses for each organization you belong to, and then you can use an email filter rule to separate issue traffic from the rest of your inbox. Admittedly far less powerful than this desktop app, but also simple, free, and native (via my native mail app). It handles a lot of my needs.

Nice, that's the spirit! I recently wrote an article about this concept, https://begriffs.com/posts/2016-07-08-returning-original-soc...

Are there any good references online about how to switch from Github-based collaboration to one based on email and patches? I'd like to give it a try and see how it feels.

OP has certainly nailed Hacker News psychology. My old coworker called the technique "inferiority porn." Titles like "the secretly terrible developer" or the closing statement of this particular article: "Go away from me, I am too far beyond your ability to comprehend."

As many people have pointed out there are faster methods of static hosting through a CDN, and many of the techniques of this site are inapplicable for larger sites. But A+ on the marketing.

Reminds me of these desiderata from an essay by Wendell Berry:

-----------

To make myself as plain as I can, I should give my standards for technological innovation in my own work. They are as follows:

1. The new tool should be cheaper than the one it replaces. 2. It should be at least as small in scale as the one it replaces. 3. It should do work that is clearly and demonstrably better than the one it replaces. 4. It should use less energy than the one it replaces. 5. If possible, it should use some form of solar energy, such as that of the body. 6. It should be repairable by a person of ordinary intelligence, provided that he or she has the necessary tools. 7. It should be purchasable and repairable as near to home as possible. 8. It should come from a small, privately owned shop or store that will take it back for maintenance and repair. 9. It should not replace or disrupt anything good that already exists, and this includes family and community relationships.

I was on the fence about that one and ultimately took it off the list. It seems to be fairly numerical, sort of in defiance to Axler's "Done Right" book. But then as a numerical book how does it compare with the others in that category, or with the old Russian books? I ask quite honestly because I haven't gone through Treil's book. Does it hold its own?

I own that book and have worked through a few chapters. It is one of the first linear algebra books in a "modern" style, being published in 1958. The reason it's not on the list is I just didn't see what it had to offer that isn't covered in later books. Happy to be convinced otherwise though.

I do have Halmos' linear algebra problem book on the list because it's quite good.

Haskell is a nice language and you can build regular stuff with it. I wish people shared more prosaic Haskell rather than shock-value postdoc thesis material. I know this article is a joke, but it plays into that stereotype.

There's this helpful site that suggests libraries for various things: http://haskelliseasy.com Someone should make a companion site listing snippets of code for common tasks showing plain ways of doing things.

Can you tell me more about how it breaks? If that video is misbehaving it probably means other videos on my site are as well.

Here's a direct link in case it helps https://player.vimeo.com/external/152389902.hd.mp4?s=ec96813...

How about storing plain text files on a cloud server with Syncthing? https://syncthing.net/ (I'm not affiliated with them.) I think it works on mobile and looks like it exposes a rest api too.

So you can have local scripts that affect the files and the changes will be synced for your other devices to see.

I guess we know our place socially don't we?

"The upper-class kitchen, designed to be entered only by servants, is identifiable at once: it's beat-up, inconvenient, and out-of-date, with lots of wood, no Formica whatever, and a minimum of accessories and labor-saving appliances like dishwashers and garbage disposals. Why tolerate these noisy things when you can have a silent servant do precisely what they do? The upper-class kitchen does have a refrigerator, but so antique that it has rounded corners and a big white coil on top. Neatness and modernity enter as we move down toward the middle class, and the more your kitchen resembles a lab, the worse for you socially." -- Class, a Guide to the American Status System

You would love this novel. http://www.amazon.com/Independent-People-Halldor-Laxness/dp/...

My favorite work is writing open source software. The variety of people interacting helps make the project more general purpose. Creating software for strangers enforces better docs. You get to work with people around the world whose programming ability and knowledge is humbling. Everyone is intrinsically motivated by the project and puts their best effort into what will be publicly visible code.

I'm currently working on PostgREST, an open source server that turns any PostgreSQL database into a RESTful API. http://begriffs.com/about.html

If the big files are in git history then I think the only way to remove them is to do a full git filter-branch.

https://git-scm.com/docs/git-filter-branch

But this will sever history with all cloned copies, much like rebasing master would.

Wendell Berry's criteria for technical progress:

1. The new tool should be cheaper than the one it replaces. 2. It should be at least as small in scale as the one it replaces. 3. It should do work that is clearly and demonstrably better than the one it replaces. 4. It should use less energy than the one it replaces. 5. If possible, it should use some form of solar energy, such as that of the body. 6. It should be repairable by a person of ordinary intelligence, provided that he or she has the necessary tools. 7. It should be purchasable and repairable as near to home as possible. 8. It should come from a small, privately-owned shop or store that will take it back for maintenance and repair. 9. It should not replace or disrupt anything good that already exists, and this includes family and community relationships.

At Wagon we use Haskell as our main language. And we are hiring. :)

http://www.wagonhq.com/jobs/haskell-engineer

You can turn a Postgres db into an API with PostgREST, and it supports jsonb to retrieve json properties.

https://github.com/begriffs/postgrest

Reading things like this make me reflect that more people should go into medicine. Medical advances are way more profound than new apps or web pages.

What are some good ways for a programmer to help the field? Maybe learning data science would allow me to help researchers while not knowing medicine myself.