passive

I'm glad you have a system that works for you and your collaborators. :)

But you've also pointed out a cost to what you are doing. If everyone adopted one or the other, you wouldn't need an .editorconfig setting. You've increased the burden of collaborating with you by requiring a particular configuration setting.

This seems fairly straightforward to me.

If you're collaborating, spaces are a much better default. If you're collaborating, your job is harder than coding solo, so you should get paid more.

I've been writing mostly small python projects for 15 years, starting with 2.2.

I've had no issues in the migration to 3.

I did some building with it around 3.3, starting to commit around 3.4, and with 3.5 I build everything in it.

I don't have the performance challenges Instagram has, but my experience with application development in general is that 98% of performance challenges can be solved with (not-too) clever engineering. This applies to projects in every language.

There are a vanishingly small number of scenarios where the performance of your runtime actually dictates your performance limits.

If you're working on something and are worried about Python's performance, or which Python to use, don't. Use 3, optimize later.

Fix people's problems.

Whatever level of expertise you have in any area, there is someone you should be able to find quickly who can benefit from it.

I've got 8 in my SP3, and Chrome by itself is usually eating 3+. My development work isn't that heavy (but is very dockerized). I'm usually around 85% utilization, and then if I have a video call I may need to shut other things down. Mostly I'm just hoping to reduce the amount of trading like that I need to do.

Then there's the fact that I expect to keep it for another 3 years, and I doubt memory usage will go down.

From what I've heard, certain types of memory are only supported by certain CPUs/chipsets up to a certain size, and even though other types of memory are supported, those are a more power-hungry variety that laptop makers tend to avoid.

But in spirit, yes, this. The upgrade in RAM should be $80 in hardware, but I have to pay $900 for it because of the configuration options.

It does make this blanket statement at least somewhat incorrect:

"Support is limited to the country you purchased the device in"

But it certainly doesn't invalidate your poor experience, which sounds very frustrating.

That said, your video looks familiar. Does it go away if you disconnect and reconnect the keyboard? Every once and a while I have to do that.

Well, I have found performance to be a little choppy over the last few months, but a fresh Windows install would probably help there at least some, though it wouldn't surprise me if the Creators Update isn't quite as smooth on older hardware.

Somewhat more concerning is the half dozen times in recent months where it has crashed and then had some kind of trouble starting up. Two such times I was convinced that it was the end for it, but leaving it for a while always allowed it to recover.

But mostly, battery life. SP3 wasn't a champ to start with, but I could get 4+ hours of work done easily without charging. At this point it's less than 2 hours before I'm hunting for a charger, which does change how I use the device.

It's a laptop* 90%+ of the time. It's a tablet when:

- Reading, watching, or gaming, particularly if I'm walking around frequently

- Taking notes (principle reason I got the Surface was my attachment to handwritten notes)

*I often use the Surface with the keyboard attached, but in positions that no ordinary laptop could support. Laying on the couch with the hinge hooked between my knees and the keyboard on my thighs, or with the hinge hooked over the steering wheel and the keyboard more or less dangling (not while driving, of course).

Even though it's a small amount of my usage, having that capability available to me means I can avoid carrying other things.

I think this makes sense, and is likely largely true, in terms of how companies budget for laptops.

That sounds plausible. I've never needed support off the continent.

I would recommend Python 3 for sure. I just use the installers from https://www.python.org/ and don't tend to have any problems.

I prefer lightweight tools, so I use Visual Studio Code. It won't hold your hand, but neither will it get in your way.

When working on projects, get in the habit of using virtualenvs. It's a small amount of overhead, but will save you a ton of frustration in the long run. A primer on windows:

From project directory, initialize it:

> python -m venv .env

(I put my virtualenvs in .env out of habit. Virtualenvwrapper, itself a useful addition for managing virtualenvs, puts them in your home directory, which can be fine too.)

Activate it:

> .env\Scripts\activate.bat

Use "pip" to install your dependencies. Also use "pip freeze" to record those dependencies for installations elsewhere. I'm currently following this for dependency management: https://www.kennethreitz.org/essays/a-better-pip-workflow

I've got 256GB currently, and I definitely couldn't go smaller, but it only becomes limiting every few months. 8GB RAM on the other hand, is 85% full nearly all the time, so I actively make decisions to work around that.

Enjoy your SP4!

Most of what I do is python, but I've done a fair amount of JS, some PHP, Java and others, as needed.

I have run VMs on this, but 8GB RAM gets tight, so it's not something I do regularly. I do use Microsofts version of Bash on Ubuntu for things where I am more comfortable with standard linux tools.

I use the type cover for almost everything, but I've got a more traditional keyboard hooked up to my dock.

The display is excellent. It's glossy, so direct sunlight is problematic, but otherwise it gets plenty bright and looks very good to me, though I suspect my tolerance for colour inaccuracy is pretty high.

Every laptop in existence, up until quite recently, used a proprietary power connector. The fact that Surface also uses it as a dock connector doesn't erase this fact.

But it does point to the fact that many of us have such a dock, and are very happy to not have to buy a new one to use with our new Surface Pros. It also won't hurt that our old power adapters should still work.

One particular gamble of the Surface line was that it relies on accessories to really meet your needs. Microsoft has done a commendable job in this area, allowing me to "upgrade" my Surface Pro 3 with a new keyboard and pen, and now allowing me to continue using all my accessories with the latest device.

I agree they have to break compatibility at some point, but I don't think there's much value yet in doing so. Maybe in a year or so, USB-C will be standardized and reliable enough to really make it advantageous to use as a power supply for all my devices. But it's not there yet.

I've been using a Surface Pro 3 as my one-and-only for almost 3 years, and it really feels like time to upgrade, so I've been looking forward to this one.

My workload is probably something like 40% reading, 30% writing, 25% coding, and 5% running code, and the Surface has been a nearly ideal form factor for this.

The new "Surface Pro" ticks a lot of boxes for me:

- Supports my existing keyboard, pen, dock, and power adapter

- Improves battery life substantially

- Offers improved keyboard and pen for when I get around to it

- Fanless options

- Improved performance (not that I need much more)

Unfortunately, the configurations are weird. My ideal machine is an i5/256GB/16GB. The closest I can get is i7/512GB/16GB, which nearly doubles the cost, and requires a fan. I just don't get how they can make the floor for 16GB RAM $2200. Is there any professional workload where 8GB isn't constricting today, let alone in another 3 years? My only thought here is that maybe the RAM increases the thermal envelope enough to require the fan, but that seems unlikely, and I would still happily make that sacrifice if I didn't have to also pay for the processor and disk upgrades.

I'm going to harangue them on Twitter, and also look into clearance SP4s with 16GB.

I don't know what kind of laps other people have, but I'm decidedly average in every way, physically, and I use my SP3 on my lap every day.

Usually it's on a table or desk, but it's fine on my lap too.

This is not correct.

My employer is in New Jersey, I'm in Canada. They purchased me a Surface Pro 3 at my request, and I've never had a problem getting support directly from Microsoft, including 2 48-hour replacements.

Internet services. We had one of the first ADSL deployments in North America, and while we are still stuck with two real providers, speeds and prices are pretty good, and they have mostly given up on caps.

C'mon Alphabet, bring this to Halifax!

The land will be much cheaper, we've got a huge problem with students fleeing for greener pastures, and we have one of the best connected cities in the country.

Maybe it's poor phrasing, and the incredulity was about Google's ability to accomplish such a goal?

Pruitt has stated he would like to see officials from the industries being regulated taking these positions.

I don't entirely get your point, so I'm sorry if my comment is not related, but this has happened before.

In the 1980s, during the Lebanese civil war, the US under Reagan blocked Lebanese immigration, which led many of them to Canada. I believe we took in tens of thousands.

As a teenager, ignorant of this, I never understood why we had so many Lebanese restaurants and other businesses (Japanese and Chinese were literally the only other "ethnic" cuisines). I have no idea how their experience was compared to the Syrians in this article, but I know they have thrived, maintained their culture, and contributed greatly to our country.

As other comments have noted, Canada is far from perfect, but I believe as a whole we have embraced pluralism as the path to success as a nation.

Source? My understanding is that particularly in the US, we can keep unhealthy people going for a very long time, for a lot of $$$.

Fascinating. Maybe I'm misinterpreting your units, but I have no related health condition (other than living in Canada), and I take 3x1000 every day (in months with an R in them).

Maybe you're somewhere particularly sunny?

I had a brief panic at just reading ALSA. I haven't used the linux desktop in years, but audio was always such a pain. I hope things have improved.

You suggested that they were only coping to the improper use now, rather than being upfront about it at the time. That's misleading.

This is misleading.

They admitted at the time they knew it was being used improperly, they were just attached to the usage.

They are now following up to say they have detached themselves from this usage. This seems like very responsible behaviour that should be applauded.

In my rush to get this out, I forgot to mention we can only hire people who can legally work in the US.

Insight Catastrophe Group | https://www.icg360.com/ | Quality Engineer | REMOTE preferred | full-time

Insight's vision is to innovate and modernize property insurance solutions through technology, risk management and consulting from industry experts. Insight uses sophisticated modeling to deliver value to clients and policyholders nationwide.

We have a mostly-remote software organization, developing a RESTful web-services platform the supports HTML and Flash (for now) front ends. We are looking to add an engineer to our QA team, focused primarily on automation of tests against our HTML interfaces. There's a lot of low-hanging fruit here right now, we just don't have the resources to pick it yet.

Our ideal candidate has some experience with Selenium and testing, but is hungry to learn more about the best way to produce and maintain high-quality software.

If this interests you, send me a note: alec<dot>munro<at>icg360<dot>com