zvrba · HackerTrans

I've seen a set of SQL tables designed to mimic "flexible classes". There's a table for the "class", another table defining its "fields", and two other tables defining class instances and related field values (all as varchar).

Flexible, yes. You can store anything. The downside is, that I've also found "anything". Stuff attached to the wrong "class", wrong datatypes, missing "obligatory" fields, etc, etc.

It's a PITA to work with. If I could design it from scratch, it'd be a single table with JSON payload.

zvrba

há 5 mesesdiscuss

I usually don't watch videos, but this one captured my attention.

zvrba

há 6 mesesdiscuss

Similar story here. C64 was amazing, even to load a game, you had to learn some commands. (Unless the game was in a cartridge.)

Then I got a PC, and learned structured programming with Borland Pascal and later Turbo C. These were great IDEs for the time.

zvrba

há 7 mesesdiscuss

What'd I tell to Bjarne:

- In the future, you'll carry in your pocket a computer more powerful than the sum of all computers currently present at the university

- The unchecked flat memory model of C will cause numerous security issues with sometimes grave consequences in the "real world"

- Follow the design of Standard ML (SML) and adapt it to systems programming (yeah, it appeared in 1983, but surely papers have been published before that)

- Do not even think about using unsigned types for sizes and get rid of implicit numeric conversions: if (v.size() - 1 < 0) fails on empty vector in today's C++

- Deterministic resource management is still important and is _the_ feature that C++ gets praised for.

- Lack of standard ABI will cause a lot of headaches and lost time.

- I would tell him about LLVM IR, .NET assemblies, metadata and encourage him to first standardize an intermediate format which the compiler could read and write. That'd ensure seamless interoperability between compilers and even other languages.

- Related to the above point: the header/source split will become a burden.

zvrba

há 8 mesesdiscuss

Because with POST you have a RPC (remote procedure call) with arbitrary semantics and HTTPS is just a convenient transport.

That's also why I only use a couple of status codes: Ok, Created, NoContent, BadRequest, Forbidden, Unauthorized an InternalServerError (the latter two generated automatically by the framework).

GET, PUT, DELTE, etc. seem to be tailored towards entities, but as soon as the endpoint is not an "entity", the semantics get vague and break down.

zvrba

há 9 mesesdiscuss

It just works without any tweaks. Also, Visual Studio, One Drive, One Note, (office apps in general).

zvrba

há 10 mesesdiscuss

Oil and gas extraction is "invisible", platforms far, far away on the sea. Nothing to complain about. :)

zvrba

há 10 mesesdiscuss

By "nature" i mean e.g., mountains. Not necessarily managed park. IIRC, the people have also protested against high-voltage lines because... dunno, they "ruin the view" across the fjord I guess.

> reindeer herding areas

There was recently a case in the highest court, Sami people vs state where they wanted newly built wind park in Finnmark to be torn down because... reindeer, native land and rights. They (Sami) won. Funnily, some researchers have shown that reindeer got used to the windmills quickly with seemingly no adverse effects. (Truth to be told, Sami are also internally divided on many issues. There's also a bitter (relatively recent) history between Sami and the state where the state had suppressed Sami culture over decades.)

After the verdict, some lower-ranked politicians said that Finnmark is about to become a museum, no development will now be possible there. I jokingly once thought: give the whole area to Russia so Sami can demonstrate in front of Kremlj.

I don't think the windmills will get torn down, and what happens next, I have no idea.

(For reference: the area is about 48000 km2 and population is around 75000 people. Which gives about 1.5 person per square kilometer.)

> eradication of native species like wolves

Not eradication but controlled number reduction. I'm personally opposed to it, but farmers somehow have a strong-hold on the government there. ATTACKS ON THE LIVE-STOCK! I don't know how much financial damage they suffer yearly, but that's the official explanation.

zvrba

há 10 mesesdiscuss

Nuclear has the highest energy density (kWh produced per km2). "Renewables" need much larger areas to produce equivalent power. This means that habitats for many species are negatively affected or destroyed.

This is an ongoing debate in Norway where local people are strongly against wind turbines because they want to preserve the nature as it is.

EDIT: Relevant poster in the picture. I once was approached by Greenpeace activist on the street who was collecting money. While I would gladly donate to WWF, I said sharp "NO" to him and explained that it was because Greenpeace opposes nuclear.

zvrba

há 6 anosdiscuss

For me it's both about the privacy and vulnerabilities in the Bluetooth stack such as https://www.armis.com/blueborne/

According to the article, you need Sep 9 2017 security patch level, but my 5 year old phone is on Sep 1 2017 level. No way I'm going to have Bluetooth turned on in untrusted areas. While I'm unlikely to get hacked on the street or in a store, it gets more likely in places like a bus or a train (while commuting).

zvrba

há 7 anosdiscuss

There are some nifty apps, like Grapholite (Visio "lite") and it's reasonably priced as well.

zvrba

há 9 anosdiscuss

More importantly, it also switches stacks so user-mode code cannot modify the return addresses on the kernel's stack.

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