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bogomog

30 karma · joined January 21, 2025

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bogomog··on Casey Muratori – The Root of the Root of All Evil – BSC 2026 [video]
In the early 90s I was doing IT type C with SQL database software. There was one pattern of goto usage common: clean up at the end of a function if something went wrong (close db cursor, log something, return error code, and the like). When that space went to Java and to some extent C++ (and later C#) exceptions could be used instead. A defer statement would have been a more direct replacement for the pattern, though.
bogomog··on Google Maps Showing 'Lake America' in U.S.
Corporations are extensions of the government? I think an argument can be made for the opposite view (lobbying, the military-industrial complex, regulatory capture, DOGE) but I suspect the reality is tentacles of influence going in both directions.
bogomog··on Emacs, how it all started for me
I was mildly disappointed the other day when I did a <C-h a>, and instead of "apropos" I saw "search for command". Apropos was one of those killer features that was, as far as I know, unique to emacs (until the "command palette" appeared in one of the newer editors).
bogomog··on Even more batteries included with Emacs
20 or 25 years ago it almost never crashed. Now I might see a crash or freeze once a week or so. And slowdowns several times a day. Of course I'm running more modes now in a more customized environment. Hopefully this new version with more in it will improve the situation.
bogomog··on Laws of Software Engineering
A modernization, really.
bogomog··on How Tube Amplifiers Work
My favorite, kind of ironic, advantage of tubes over transistors is that it's easier to source replacements.
bogomog··on How Tube Amplifiers Work
But capacitors may hold high voltage DC, if there's no path to discharge them.
bogomog··on Big business and capitalism are becoming less and less popular with Americans
The arc of the U.S. economy over the last 80 years contradicts your position. There has been reduced regulation since the Reagan administration, and also reduced competition. A few blips when internet companies "disrupted" an existing industry, but those industries fairly quickly consolidated on a small group of players.
bogomog··on Formatting code should be unnecessary
And to add to this, you rarely need to read a log message when just visually scanning code, its fine going off the screen.
bogomog··on Formatting code should be unnecessary
That's why Python should have gone all-in on significant spaces: tabs for blocks, spaces after tabs for line continuation
bogomog··on Formatting code should be unnecessary
I find it jarring compared to commas after the words, making the commas unnecessarily prominent.
bogomog··on Formatting code should be unnecessary
+1 to this. Why throw away an extra dimension of expression available by choices in formatting in the name of consistency? I find it helpful to use blank lines to separate code into "paragraphs". A complex conditional may be made more readable by extra space in some places an not others. A series of single line if statements might be clearer formatted lined up vertically, like a table.
bogomog··on Nyxt: The Emacs-like web browser
yes
bogomog··on Nyxt: The Emacs-like web browser
Aye.
bogomog··on Dev Compass – Programming Philosophy Quiz
Yeah, that stood out to me as a virtual tie also. When I got pretty good at debugging was when I began to recognize which of these approaches would likely be most effective in a given situation, and when to back out and use another approach, or mix approaches.
bogomog··on The Grug Brained Developer (2022)
I think graphical debuggers are a big help: 1. It separates the meta-information of the debugger into the graphical domain. 2. It's easier to browse code and set/clear breakpoints using the mouse than the keyboard.
bogomog··on What makes code hard to read: Visual patterns of complexity (2023)
That's why I gave the caveat that if using a language with the ternary operator, one should know that operator. Python tried using English words for a ternary, but I think that's awkward from a readability perspective. A limited set of symbolic syntax improves readability over using words in my opinion, there's less text to scan.
bogomog··on What makes code hard to read: Visual patterns of complexity (2023)

  function getOddness(n: number):
    return (n % 2 === 0)
      ? "Even"
      : "Odd";
Lowest boilerplate makes it the most readable. If working in a language with the ternary operator it ought to be easily recognized!
bogomog··on The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
Exactly. And a certain amount of maga are still in favor of a coup, and then a certain amount of blissfully ignorant new voters.
bogomog··on The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
How is not a big deal that a few thousand citizens were various levels of conscious and unconscious participants in an organized coup attempt?
bogomog··on The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
Stopping payments authorized by congress, for one.
bogomog··on The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
Arguably, they aren't government officials, because DOGE isn't a legitimate part of the executive branch.
bogomog··on Find the oldest line in your repo
I forgot it existed, was using it at a couple of jobs circa 1989-1992. Completely blocked it out of my mind.
bogomog··on Using 2 Editors Because Xcode Is Dumb
I never felt real comfortable with Xcode. Working on a medium sized c++ project now, and mostly using emacs. Xcode only for the debugger, which I much prefer in a GUI. CMake sets up the project, so low pain there. If on Windows, I would do the same but with Visual Studio. Usually I close the project when not debugging so I don't have 2 language servers running at once.