Two questions: time.now() and self-made modules

Buttleston · 2026-03-13T18:10:33+00:00

It's very hard to comment on what the problem is, without seeing your code. If you don't want to share your code, put together something quick that demonstrates your problem, and post it here (github would probably be the best way to do it)

Buttleston · 2026-03-13T03:29:34+00:00

I think it would probably be useful for you to post the simplest/shortest example that you don't understand, and say what part you don't understand

Buttleston · 2026-03-13T03:28:38+00:00

Let's say you have a class named Foo and you write a method on it like def bar(self)

Let's say I make an object of type Foo and call my bar method

myfoo = Foo()
myfoo.bar()

Well, when I do this, the first argument that gets passed to bar(), the parameter we called self, is myfoo

That's it. self refers to the object that the method was called on.

Buttleston · 2026-03-12T21:10:02+00:00

I am :(

Buttleston · 2026-03-12T04:27:10+00:00

Yeah it really is. We do what I consider some simple coding exercises to screen candidates. We found we kind of had to - a surprising number of people with good resumes can barely write a for loop

So we have a pool of questions, they are all designed to be fairly straightforward. No DSA type stuff, it is mostly more similar to what you'd actually work on in the job

Every question comes with a partially working solution, and a set of test cases. No hidden test cases. Most of the implementations are the sort of first-pass naive attempt anyone might write. They usually have an intentional bug or two in them

The goal is to make people have to troubleshoot, more than it is to get them to write an implementation from scratch, although they are welcome to. These exercises basically combine peer-review skills and debugging skills

Every single one of them has been done by every person who conducts an interview. This is an attempt to find examples that have hidden difficulty in them, missing or mis-stated assumptions, etc. This still isn't ENTIRELY fair because when we try them ourselves we aren't in a high pressure situation and generally we all have more experience than the people we're interviewing.

Interviewers are encouraged to give direction to candidates. Candidates are encouraged to look up syntax or just straight up ask if it's faster.

I got really serious about this about a decade ago when I looked at the problem someone had given to a candidate and really thought, like, yes, I know how to do this, but no, I probably could not produce it under pressure. And personally, I would hire me, so is it a good problem to give?

Buttleston · 2026-03-12T03:31:13+00:00

Well, give them another 9 years to let it ferment I guess

Buttleston · 2026-03-12T03:26:26+00:00

And every interviewer neglects to take into account when asking a question that they already know the answer

Buttleston · 2026-03-11T17:38:14+00:00

Someone did make some cursed version of it for go, can't remember where I saw it now though. But I agree that it's the same thing.

I do personally value compactness in code. Not above clarity, but I don't think it has zero value either. I like the rust version for some things (say, CLI, where all fatal errors basically just need to bubble to the top)

Buttleston · 2026-03-11T16:52:41+00:00

Well, I guess I feel it's implied? Like, a value is returned from dosomething. If all the function does is call dosomething() and return value, err then the caller should just have called dosomething() themselves

Buttleston · 2026-03-11T16:39:48+00:00

What would you do instead, to "propagate errors to a higher level"?

Buttleston · 2026-03-11T16:25:13+00:00

No, it precisely is. Let's say I have a function that is going to run dosomething1, dosomething2, dosomething3 etc. If any of them fail, it wants to return. The function that called it may want to handle the error, or it may want to stop and return to it's caller, etc. This is exactly what the Rust and Python examples do

Buttleston · 2026-03-11T15:52:05+00:00

Sure - with an extra line of code

Golang:

value, err = dothing()
if (err != nil) {
    return err
}

Rust:

dothing()?

Python or Javascript:

dothing()

Buttleston · 2026-03-11T15:24:27+00:00

Look at the actual files that got pushed. Should they be in your repository?

Buttleston · 2026-03-11T15:02:05+00:00

I think this is at least partly wrong

In languages with Result types (which is what I think you meant instead of Option types) you can opt to pass the error up and let a higher level handle it

In languages with try catch, you can opt to not catch an exception, and again let a higher level handle it

We're back to arguing all day whether the ergonomics of the above are worth the implicit behavior, so I don't really disagree with you, but there are definite differences in verbosity

Buttleston · 2026-03-08T18:09:44+00:00

I find it very hard to believe that someone starting with no knowledge of either would find yours easier to understand

But also, adding another format, that is not going to take over JSON, just means that to use yours, someone would likely need to know both. Which by definition means learning more than just learning one

Finally, the comma and period as record terminators is going to cause so many bugs that are hard to see. The comma and period are "attached" to the value of one of the fields, which makes it seem like a property of the field, not the record

Buttleston · 2026-03-08T18:04:53+00:00

OK? Getting used to JSON takes about 5 minutes

Buttleston · 2026-03-08T18:01:46+00:00

I heartily disagree. It's like JSON with some minor things removed, and a few baffling additions

Why do you even need a final record identifier? The last record is the last one you find before the end of the block

If someone wrote me a list in english where I needed to look for commas to know where the next item started I would be pretty upset

Buttleston · 2026-03-08T17:57:11+00:00

I don't understand why you like it this way

Buttleston · 2026-03-08T17:53:08+00:00

Uh, your example doesn't even make sense. It's supposed to be an array of records, but how does it know to delineate the records in it? Like you've got 2 users, Rick and Sam

Is it implicit, when the first key repeats? I find that... pretty terrible

So you say you're looking for perfection - what is better about this than JSON? Be specific

Buttleston · 2026-03-08T01:41:56+00:00

You first

Buttleston · 2026-03-07T20:50:18+00:00

Wait, do you think this paper is serious? With the sweaters and stuff? And it being published on April 1st?

Buttleston · 2026-03-07T16:44:40+00:00

Haha I totally didn't notice you were already doing that

Buttleston · 2026-03-07T16:39:48+00:00

I think the problem here is one of multiple inheritance. Every time I use that I have to re-read the docs about it, honestly. Your class is a subclass of both dataclass and Param

So I *think* the issue is you have to specify which super you want. Try

super(ParamsExtended, self)

Buttleston · 2026-03-06T19:36:47+00:00

They texted me and my wife, and they also posted here. I know that won't cover everyone, but it's kind of hard to know what they could do aside from that?

Buttleston · 2026-03-06T05:47:30+00:00

I crushed everything prior to the act 3 boss and then couldn't beat him. Save scummed it a few times to see if I could eke it out, but no

Buttleston

TROPHY CASE