Hacker News Reader

dmh2000on Should I choose Ada, SPARK, or Rust over C/C++? (2024)

Do you want mainstream (rust) or relatively obscure (ada). Yes I know it's been around since 1980 when it was a cash grab for defense contractors.

dmh2000on AI coding

I'm 72, a dev for 40 years. I've lost a step or two. It's harder to buckle down and focus, but using AI tools have enabled me to keep building stuff. I can spec a project, have an agent build it then make sure it works. I just code for fun anyway.

dmh2000on Claude Code is a slot machine

I'm a 72 year old dev. Ai and Claude specifically are great because I can't focus on code like I used to. Ai has extended my viability for a few years.

dmh2000on Everyone wants to do the model work, not the data work [pdf]

isn't it typical for data engineers to be paid less (way less?) than the modelers?

dmh2000on Kalman Filter

"The trick was to use a Cholesky factor of the covariance matrix as the dependent variable in an equivalent Riccati equation. "

I'm going to use that as my next pickup line

dmh2000on Giving Ada a Chance

I took my first university course in Ada in 1981. I also worked for a company that provided an Ada runtime in the mid 80's.

Ada was sabotaged early on because it was 'mandated' by the DOD for new programs. That meant that all the usual suspects, like Lockheed, GD , TI (I don't remember exactly which ones) came up with Ada compilers and runtimes that cost on the order of $10K per seat. The typical military contractor ripoff. So it was impossible for individuals or small companies to use Ada on their own dime. It was only feasible if the cost was rolled into a larger (bloated) defense contract. So it couldn't get a following. Of course much later on free versions became available but it was too late.

That said, Ada was absolutely no fun to program with. It was awkward and verbose. I hated it from the get go, compared to the alternatives. If it is so super why is rarely used.

dmh2000on Who Is Still Buying VHS Tapes?

since I can't get past the paywall, I'm guessing its the government and military. They have lots of legacy systems running on ancient hardware and the cost to upgrade is too high.

dmh2000on Companies must stop requiring people to link their phone numbers

I use and like Google Voice, but I do find that some sites won't accept a google voice number for text messages. usually for 2factor. I would like to know what the difference is?

dmh2000on Controversial Programming Opinions (2012)

I can't believe #18, developers should be able to write code and the summary saying that he got some/many? candidates who couldn't. Its not that developers can't code, its that recruiters paid on commission will send any warm body to an interview.

dmh2000on There are only four billion floats, so test them all (2014)

'The most common way to force an SQLite database to exist purely in memory is to open the database using the special filename ":memory:".'

dmh2000on They're deleting my channel, but they don't know why? [video]

I smell the irony

dmh2000on [dead]

I saw a headline about this on google news "Google to allow work from home until July". I thought, wow July is almost over. ...oh

dmh2000on Sailor pictured with laser rifle on board USS Minnesota nuclear sub

apparently the difference is between temporary and permanent blindness.

dmh2000on We Have Become a Police State, and None of Us Should Be Okay with That

So anyone who wants the federal government to take over direct action on the coronavirus situation should think twice about having a federal police force running things.

dmh2000on Hydroxychloroquine Update for April 6

that wouldn't explain why Gov Cuomo is also a fan

dmh2000on Hydroxychloroquine Update for April 6

isn't it the azithromycin that causes the arrhythmia and i heard it is recommended to use doxycycline instead for anyone vulnerable to that side effect.

dmh2000on Sweden's unusual response to coronavirus

Sweden's mortality rate (2.97) is significantly higher than Germany (0.78), South Korea (1.59) and the US (1.75) among others. As of 3/29/2020 https://www.statista.com/statistics/1105914/coronavirus-deat...

dmh2000on Postmortem of the failure of one hosting storage unit on Jan. 8, 2020

After a glance I thought, 'why a storage unit?, where do they get power, how do they cool it, its not physically secure, etc'. Then, oh, that kind of storage unit. Yes, I'm dumb.

dmh2000on Ask HN: My company wants my side project. What can I do?

If that's in the Google employment agreement, I salute them for using plain understandable wording, so one can agree or not. instead of EULA-ish doublespeak.

dmh2000on Airships could return to our crowded skies

And helium is getting expensive. I worked on an airship project in the early 2000's and it cost $100,000 to fill it. And there is always leakage from diffusion.

dmh2000on Do pro software devs memorize language syntax?

it would be interesting to know the frequency of bugs that are due to mistakes about operator precedence. even by experienced programmers. a lot? do use of parens reduce the frequency?

dmh2000on Ask HN: What is your passive income 2019?

Social Security + about $100 a year from an oil royalty i inherited

dmh2000on Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

its a good question : could the dictator get the support of the military? Would the people in the military from the top down be willing to, say, decimate a resisting US city with artillery and bombs?

dmh2000on The 2002 mandate for internal communication systems at Amazon

here's an article about how the idea of AWS came about. the main takeaway is that it evolved and the article has a lot of 'we' in it, not only 'jeff'

https://techcrunch.com/2016/07/02/andy-jassys-brief-history-...

dmh2000on Storm Area 51: The joke that became a ‘possible humanitarian disaster’

https://www.fema.gov/news-release/2019/04/18/fact-sheet-fema...

'FEMA is not a first responder'.

dmh2000on Storm Area 51: The joke that became a ‘possible humanitarian disaster’

there will be feces everywhere if more than a few hundred show up. there are only a few toilets in the area and they will be overloaded immediately.

dmh2000on Introduction to Algorithms (2011)

https://www.coursera.org/learn/algorithms-part1

dmh2000on Medical equipment pricing is completely broken when a sling costs $200

Where does she get insurance for 1500 annually? 'And that doesn’t include the nearly $1,500 she pays in annual insurance premiums.'

dmh2000on The hellish future of Las Vegas in the climate crisis

if Vegas becomes like this, then Phoenix is in big trouble.

dmh2000on Google patents application: Batch normalization layers

the theory and original paper was developed at google (according to Wikipedia). my guess is that if they had the original tech, then they can patent it. but by publishing the paper in 2015 they created prior art that stops others from claiming it. anyone please correct me if this isn't right.

http://proceedings.mlr.press/v37/ioffe15.pdf