I was at that talk. Having not done much C since college 6 or 7 years ago and only really starting Python about 3 months ago, it was very approachable and I got a lot out of it. I highly recommend it.
I've been writing Python for maybe 3 months now and as I started digging into the OO stuff, I commented to a few developers about how it 'felt' a lot like javascript and they nearly took my head off. Is there any material you (or anyone for that matter) can point me to that might help solidify my argument?
That IS my setup at work. I've recently discovered mutt and irssi which I use for email and chat, respectively. All development happens in tmux sessions with vim. My dock contains finder, iterm2, chrome and the trashcan. If I could remove finder and the trashcan I would...
On a slightly related topic, I've started investigating writing a console based email client recently in Python using Urwid for curses stuff that's a little less archaic than mutt.
My biggest desire to learn a language like Haskell or Scala would be the total shift in thinking required to grasp the language (the author mentions this). I've started playing with clojure lately and even though I've barely scratched the surface (primarily poking around 4clojure.com) I could already feel my brain twisting in ways I've never experienced before. I firmly believe once you turn that corner and really start to get it, you start seeing and attacking problems in such a different light that there's no going back. The big problem I've had recently is finding the motivation to learn anything outside of work (programming/engineering related at least); once you start getting paid to do something its really hard to do it for free, haha.
This was a really bad comparison/argument for git. Anyone actually trying to decide between the two should just forget everything you've read and start with a different source.
That aside, I've used both over the last 3 years (2 in git; 1 in hg) and although I prefer git, hg is a fantastic tool. I think the largest difference between the 2 is usability. I do believe hg is quite a bit easier to pick up. It does a really good job of, by default, making sure you don't shoot yourself in the foot and also keeps you further away from the 'nitty-gritty'. Git, on the other hand, allows you to do whatever you want and generally makes the assumption you always know what you're doing. The details are not very far down from the surface and it's easy to get yourself in trouble if you don't know what you're doing.
Personally I prefer git because I feel so close to the metal, but there's certainly a perfectly valid argument to choose hg over git.
I immediately thought of Python's context managers when I read this. What the article appeared to describe, which shouldn't be lost on any programmer, is "do stuff then clean up after yourself".
> You want to pay money to watch NBA games, but you can't.
This is what frustrates the shit out of me about EVERYTHING related to TV/Cable. I HAVE MONEY THAT I WANT TO GIVE YOU FOR A GREAT PRODUCT. I know I'm not the only one. WE have money we want to fork over, PLEASE take it. You know it just blows my mind. Everything I've ever heard about capitalism/business/economics/etc. that if there is demand, someone is supposed to step in and provide. Why is it taking SO long for this to happen in this particular space?
Slight rant, I know, but goddamn does it make my blood boil thinking about this stuff.
It's like everyone figured out how hashes work just a couple of days ago. What happened to spark all of this conversation? I also keep hearing that this problem is solved with randomized hashing functions, but my best guess is that this doesn't eliminate collisions. It just then becomes roughly impossible to generate a set of keys that would cause enough collisions to actually be a problem. Hooray for data structures.
It's interesting that you bring up Javascript. I've just started working in Python full-time recently and have noticed the OOP stuff "feels" a little like working with objects in Javascript. Specifically around how the built in super works and more generally how methods are defined on classes to begin with. In Javascript you can do interesting things with call and apply on function objects to share functionality between two objects that work the same. Similarly in Python, since the methods defined in a class are also available on the class object itself, you can use them outside of an instance and simply give them a self to operate on. The class object almost acts like the prototype object on the function object you're using as a constructor. I know the two systems are different, but they do "feel" real similar. Most people I mention this to seem a bit surprised and have that "never thought of that" look on their face. Anyone else witness this?
So, there's definitely been a few discussion recently about the quality of Hacker News articles and their relevancy to the community. Is this post an indication that LOLCats are of high priority for discussion?
This has come up A LOT more than it should. There's a line immediately before the first example explaining exactly what you're looking at. It's slightly absurd to assume that's how you'd actually write those examples in javascript. The compiled javascript is rather approachable, though.
The 'occupywallst' project's description reads: 'Stomping out capitalism, one line of code at a time'. Is that truly the goal; to eradicate capitalism?
We'd love some feedback and, who knows, maybe some pull requests! We do have this running in production with no major problems to report. It is, however, under pretty light load. Thanks!
Sarcasm aside, the fact that this sort of thing is being developed at what, I'm pretty sure, most people would consider a newspaper company is pretty fascinating in and of itself.
I think you're slightly off here. As I understand it, what these states are trying to do is consider Amazon's independent affiliates a physical presence for Amazon in that state. What that means is that Amazon then becomes responsible for collecting sales tax on items purchased by residents of that state; how they found their way to Amazon and made their purchase isn't relevant. In your example, no sales tax would need to be collected because you're a resident of Oregon and, presumably, Amazon does not have a physical presence there.