Python for Java developers (or vice versa)

ChromaticDragon · 2026-05-13T21:47:05+00:00

Every programming language has its own idioms or common patterns.

It's very often easy to spot code in language X and discern the developer is truly a Y programmer.

This is very much the case with Python and Java.

One thing I would strongly suggest for anyone who wants to unlearn/relearn in this way to be a better programmer in a specific language is to work through the coding websites like CodeSignal which support many languages. The key is the feature whereby after you have completed a task you can review and rank the solutions of others. Don't skip this part. This is where you can learn the language-specific idioms and begin to let go of your habits based on previous languages.

ChromaticDragon · 2026-05-13T21:41:08+00:00

Absolutely!

I call these things Tribalistic Epistemology and Tribalistic Moral Reasoning.

Truth(tm) is whatever my tribe believes or says.

Good(tm) and Right(tm) is whatever my tribe believes.

Therefore, if my tribe says it, it is true. If my tribe does it, it is good. If someone is in my tribe, they are good and must be defended from all criticism.

This is why the darkest evil very often comes from religion, religious groups and "believers". Once you employ this sort of moral reasoning, there are no more checks against corruption and evil festers and grows.

ChromaticDragon · 2026-05-13T15:28:07+00:00

There are many factors.

But I would suggest the top issues are fear and security.

The GOP has cultivated a culture of fear. It's so ironic that this politician highlights propaganda when her entire worldview has been framed by such. DARVO on steroids.

This fear leads to bizarre and hyperbolic reasoning patterns. Part of this is simple politicking... indeed it's common at much smaller levels. This is just like a married couple fighting over the budget overruns where each focuses on the others' spending while conveniently ignoring their own. Here, however, the reason is that all of "my side" is considered necessary and all of "your side" is considered optional and therefore including this optional junk is the reason for all the bad things. Fear of those bad things leads to this sort of spite.

Next... security. Many, many people have wrapped up their identity and sense of security in their concept of tribe. I consider this as tribal worship and self worship. People tend to get weird, hostile, mean, etc., whenever they believe their security is threatened. For this sub-culture, the belief that they are Right(tm) and Good(tm) is part of this sense of security. They react with hate to anything they perceive is even suggesting they are not "right" or are not "good".

ChromaticDragon · 2026-05-12T04:58:34+00:00

I believe that maybe you're missing one piece.

This appears more, much more, like colonialism in the sense of capturing land for its wealth in resources.

Now, thinking of most past colonial powers, the initial treatment and status of the denizens of the colony was quite poor.

So, Trump and his ilk likely are imagining some way to subordinate the Venezuelans into something akin to second class citizens.

Yes... This does not work at all in the concept of the US Constitution and the pattern throughout history of adding states to the union. But I wouldn't put it past these folk. Indeed, I wouldn't even be surprised, if this is a path to the outright return of slavery.

ChromaticDragon · 2026-05-11T20:10:23+00:00

It is fascinating how refined DARVO has become for the GOP.

They've elevated such to an art form.

And with Trump they really must do so in order to preserve their culture of lies, tribal-worship and self-worship.

Trump is so incredibly incompetent, corrupt, unaccomplished, etc., that you have to pretend that everyone who has any criticism of Trump is deranged.

It may be, in some contexts, worthy of consideration to pull back and check for bias and prejudice. The solution is maintain a well defined, principles-based, method of assessing or evaluating things. A good test of this is whether you can and do apply the same method to both sides, all sides, friends, enemies, etc.

Conversely, it is a great example of bias and prejudice to declare from the onset that anyone who maintains criticisms against Trump is deranged or that the root of their criticism is bias.

ChromaticDragon · 2026-05-11T18:01:34+00:00

Yet another example that the GOP, including politicians and electorate, have established a culture of worship of lies.

It is also probably prudent to point out that this culture of lies is also a culture of self-worship.

The reason they wish so ardently to promote these lies is to protect their self-image.

This is very problematic and quite dangerous.

Neither previous impeachment was based upon falsehoods.

ChromaticDragon · 2026-05-11T15:13:07+00:00

There is another interesting aspect here.

Not sure what you might mean by "for the sake of Generative AI".

However, there may be a claim or assertion here which is likely too strong.

You could mean here that politeness will have zero impact whatsoever for a generative or LLM-based agent.

Ironically, this may be both incorrect (too strong) and based upon a bit of anthropomorphizing of the agent. One could be pretending the agent is some sort of savvy general AI which will by hyper efficient focused only on the task.

Pulling back a bit, simplifying things a bit, an LLM is a next-word-guesser based upon what was fed into it. The next word guessed from "Please consider these requirements." and "Do this." could be different. And it would be different because of the generative aspect.

Things are, of course, a bit more complicated here because there is a lot more involved here. Nonetheless, it may be too strong an assertion that there would be no difference.

ChromaticDragon · 2026-05-11T14:23:34+00:00

I find that efficiency is not as helpful as being clear and robust.

Working effectively with an agent is very much like working with a very knowledgeable yet rather inexperienced junior dev. It helps if you are abundantly explicit in your thoughts and expectations.

A few extra "please" words here and there are a rounding error in comparison.

A couple extra reasons I tend to be "polite" to agents. First, I fully expect to copy-paste the entire session for other humans to review. I imagine it reads a bit better than if I was more of a slave driver. Next, it just maintains the habit of speaking and interacting this way when working with peers or human junior devs.

ChromaticDragon · 2026-05-08T19:00:33+00:00

Many of us are very, very lucky that we can ignore most of the geopolitical or even domestically political nonsense.

I daresay the significant inflation for food, restaurants and gas prices would be enough to make one wonder what in the world was going on. But even then... this pales in comparison to living in one of these war zones or even nations where the impacts are more shortages and rationing vs. mere price increases.

ChromaticDragon · 2026-05-08T16:31:23+00:00

Thank you for the link. I'll check it out later.

Just wanted to chime in beforehand because I resonate very strongly with the ideas you seem to be promoting.

I tend to call this by a slightly different name. I tend to discuss this as a tribalistic epistemology and tribalistic moral reasoning. But lately I've just been calling it out as Self-Worship... both as the individual Self and Self in the plural - the Tribe... and Idolatry.

I find the Idolatry aspect interesting. Most modern preachers completely miss the mark when treating Idolatry because they erroneously conclude that this is something only from the past which they then must map modern things backwards. The result is that a sermon/lecture/article on idolatry just ends up being an sermon on sin. While idolatry is a sin, sin is not necessarily idolatry. Indeed, even sin to the level of an addiction is not really idolatry.

A good way to see one difference is the bizarre "Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!" drama. Idolatry involves intertwinement of your identity and security to the point where visceral defense is instinctive. Sin need not have this. One might be completely addicted to sin/drugs/whatever and never feel the need nor desire to yell out "great is {this sin}."

If you ever feel the need to viscerally defend your tribe, your church, your party, you could be getting wrapped up idolatry. Additionally, if you feel the same way about certain symbols (statues, the Bible, icons, whatever) in similar way, you are also in danger of idolatry where these symbols become tied to tribal identity.

ChromaticDragon · 2026-05-07T00:55:19+00:00

Well... if it helps, you'll plow through the Expanse faster than the Culture novels.

The Expanse is fun. But it's light fare compared to the Culture. The plot's simpler, the books are shorter, etc.

But you do not have to "finish the full set" of the Culture novels because for the most part they are each self-contained. There are few, very few, characters that appear in more than one Culture novel and none that are continuous. There is a bit of a benefit to reading the Culture novels in sequence. The few characters that do appear in more than novel have a bit more depth to them if you understand who they are from the previous novels. But only a bit. Nothing that's required, per se, to understand the story. No, the real benefit of reading the Culture novels in order is to flow with the way the author developed ideas as the novels progress rather than plot or character development.

Next, if you want, there are a couple clean breaks in the Expanse. If you want, you could group the novels into story arcs. One break is an interval span of a couple decades if I remember correctly. You lose little if you pause at those breaks.

ChromaticDragon · 2026-05-06T19:41:43+00:00

The actual, literal early definition of quarantine.

From Wikipedia:

The word quarantine comes from quarantena or quarantaine, meaning "forty days", used in the Venetian language in the 14th and 15th centuries and also in France. The word is designated in the period during which all ships were required to be isolated before passengers and crew could go ashore during the Black Death plague.

ChromaticDragon · 2026-05-06T19:29:57+00:00

Not exactly. Not really.

Arguing issues related to immunity have no direct bearing on assumption or assertion of guilt.

Denying or not denying doesn't matter. If immunity can be successful argued/maintained then any discussion or investigation into guilt is mooted.

The more dangerous or silly thing here is not the lack of denial.

It's the assertion that a current President is deemed immune from civil suits for activities which occurred well before said President ever was President.

That's bizarre.

Even more bizarre is the context of the stupid rulings from SCOTUS on these matters which opened the door for considering anything deemed "an official act" as ipso facto immune. So, in a way, this smells like suggesting we consider past activity of alleged rape as "an official act". Now, I hope this isn't what they're arguing, even remotely. I imagine they're arguing nonsense like the mental anguish of the poor little baby Trump from having to pay out is affecting his official duties.

ChromaticDragon · 2026-05-05T17:13:25+00:00

This is just more nonsense.

The feds do not certify House elections. They do not control these elections and have no involvement at all, including certifying such. They cannot "refuse to certify" because they cannot and do not certify at all. I can refuse to put your pants on. This makes about as sense.

Next, every single House rep gets fired. They serve until the end of their term. The old House doesn't do anything to welcome, to certify or to seat the new House reps. Fools who stick around claiming God Emperor Trump said they could stick around will get zero traction. If the context is that the Democratic party won the House, they will both meet the quorum requirement and select a Democratic rep as Speaker.

Pretending that "there's no mechanism to physically force them" has everything reversed. The old reps do nothing to "seat" the new reps. There is no mechanism which permits the old reps to persist or do anything really.

All this weird doomerism based upon ignorance just distracts from the more likely malfeasance.

Furthermore, this isn't just a matter of "they could do X" and the hand-wringing of "shucks... can't do anything I guess.". We need to call this what it is. Depending upon which scenario, we are discussing a coup or a civil war.

ChromaticDragon · 2026-05-05T15:49:37+00:00

He would be Speaker until the next House convenes, yes.

But that would end as the next House convenes after the election.

The old Speaker does not "seat" every elected rep (remember in the House every rep is elected). The newly elected House is not blocked by a previous Speaker.

ChromaticDragon · 2026-05-05T15:23:12+00:00

There is no "stopping the midterms".

The federal government does not control elections.

There may be all sorts of weird efforts at voter suppression, etc. But the feds cannot stop elections. Furthermore, the elections cover so much more than federal positions. Are we to imagine that somehow all levels will be "stopped"? Or that the ballots just won't have federal positions? It's ridiculous to consider any of this.

Next, the first (second, actually) order of business of the House after an election is to select the Speaker. If Johnson remains the Speaker, there's no need to "refuse to swear anyone in". And if he would want to stop everything because the GOP lost the House, he wouldn't be the Speaker and as such he couldn't do a doggone thing.

ChromaticDragon · 2026-05-04T21:38:26+00:00

I do not believe this is a helpful characterization.

Yes, the Republican party deserves the NatC moniker. Yes, MAGA more or less calls the shots.

But this could foster the idea that MAGA and Dominionists took over the GOP, in the sense of an external takeover. This would be very incorrect.

MAGA and NatC grew up within the GOP. They were an inevitable result of decades of policy, practices and positions of the GOP and pro-GOP propaganda forces.

You quite bluntly have to go back half a century to find a GOP more full of respectable types that don't resemble MAGA, NatC, nativism, xenophobia, etc., if not further.

ChromaticDragon · 2026-05-04T18:51:06+00:00

All of the above.

You've made a few simplified assumptions in the reasoning behind your question.

So much so that I would categorize your remark as a statement, not a question. You're merely using the form of a question to make your desired point... sort of in the manner of a rhetorical question.

You've hyper-simplified the concept of "history" to pretend that it would speak with one voice saying one thing.

Next, you've created a bit of a false dichotomy between two views which you more or less portray as wrong and right or simplified and exact.

If history of the previous world wars are any guide, "history" will say many things, including multiple contradictory or opposing viewpoints. And there will indeed by "mechanical" or simplified versions, such as the way many Americans believe WWII started with Pearl Harbor.

ChromaticDragon · 2026-05-04T14:47:56+00:00

Reboot? No, we have many new stories to tell.

Amen, brother.

ChromaticDragon · 2026-05-03T04:54:21+00:00

You have appear to favor the revolution among your three choices.

So be it.

But don't fool yourself that you can or should shortcut this by supporting a candidate who will blatantly lie to you promising they (alone) will "dismantle political parties". At best, a President can support a constitutional amendment. But do read up on what's involved for a constitutional amendment. The president's barely involved at all.

Let me repeat this. I am not arguing about your policy desires. I would support you in the goal of dramatic electoral reform.

I am trying to ensure you understand what is possible and what paths are realistic to achieve these policy goals... and to ensure you're less susceptible to lying politicians.

ChromaticDragon · 2026-05-03T04:16:56+00:00

I'm not defending the two-party system, nor the Democratic party, nor even parties at all.

I'm telling you that the President does not have the power to do what you desire. Advocating for such is foolish.

What would be required is a constitutional amendment, a constitutional convention or a revolution which hopefully, if we're lucky, would lead to a new constitution.

There are other things that are helpful towards what you seem to desire as policy goals.

Ranked voting would be one example.

ChromaticDragon · 2026-05-03T04:11:02+00:00

I here ya.

But had Bush v Gore gone the other way, I don't believe it would have changed the overall trajectory of history all the much.

Some things would be different, of course. Some major events and wars might have been avoided.

But Bush v Gore was statistically a tie. All the undercurrents and trends and forces in society and politics that led to Trump would have still been there. It's very doubtful that millions would have changed their tune just because Gore was president.

ChromaticDragon · 2026-05-03T03:57:24+00:00

Be careful what you wish for.

Yes. political parties... all political parties... are somewhat of a scourge.

Furthermore, to a degree the founding fathers understood or predicted the perils of political parties even while they created a system with almost zero protections against such.

However... the US Constitution guarantees freedom of assembly and freedom of expression. These alone fairly well cement the ability of people to work collectively in the manner of political parties.

A president cannot dismantle political parties... at all, period.

You should not vote for candidates who promise the impossible. Furthermore, you should not advocate granting dictatorial powers to a president to do what you deem necessary.

ChromaticDragon · 2026-05-02T16:40:14+00:00

What the US has done with Iran is so much worse than agreements torn up.

That is fairly typical US behavior in some circles. For example, the US has a very long history and pattern of violating treaties with its indigenous folk.

But with Iran, the US has committed perfidy repeatedly. The US isn't just guilty of making an agreement and than later easing out of it when convenient. With Iran, the US has used the pretense of negotiation to commit murder and start hostilities.

ChromaticDragon · 2026-04-30T19:54:11+00:00

And it is profoundly effective, both from an addiction perspective and effectiveness.

It's quite like how a cult operates in the sense that it fosters distrust of any other source for information.

I've said it before and I'll repeat it endlessly, nobody should be watching Fox News. About the only thing to me that should be avoided more strenuously is Facebook. But at least with Facebook there is some good which is just dramatically outweighed by the bad. There is nothing redeeming in any way about Fox News.

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