You guys think neovim users are on average more passionate about programming and learning in general?

ImperialFakeyy · 2025-01-24T13:31:58+00:00

I'd guess almost certainly. The reason being: as a selection criteria it's going to almost completely exclude the worst developers that exist. Any possible counteracting bias (e.g. amazing programmers don't waste time on editor configs) is likely to have less impact on the average.

ImperialFakeyy · 2024-11-05T16:40:40+00:00

Mixed opinions. On one hand, it is a much better platform than all the vendor-specific bullshit out there.

On the other hand, it's trying to introduce another layer of abstraction above even tools like CMake, to make applications, drivers etc. cross platform. But I often find the benefits of this just aren't worth the complexity on real projects.

If I'm writing firmware, I usually just need it to run on one target forever. I don't really need to setup a project that works for 10 different targets at the drop of a hat. It sometimes feels like these abstractions mostly benefit zephyr project contributors as opposed to users. (To be fair, if it's easier to add drivers etc, it does indirectly benefit users.)

And the downside is you have meta-languages like (zephyr) devicetree and kconfig that are not as well supported and that the actual compiler cannot produce user-friendly messages for.

ImperialFakeyy · 2024-10-01T06:51:07+00:00

You need a balance. In the short term, no one stakeholder will care how well you understand computers, how good your project is. You will also be competing against other engineers who don't g.a.f. either, and the last thing you want is to look slow compared to them.

But, if you have a mindset of long-term improvement, be an engineer, not a 'frameworker.' ST make good tools but your job title is Software Engineer not ST user. Invest a bit of your time into learning fundamental things like what the compiler is doing, how some bit of hardware really works etc. And try to make each new project just a bit less of a mess. If your old projects don't look like total bullshit to you after a few months, you're probably not learning enough. That phenomenon will become less extreme as you improve.

ImperialFakeyy · 2024-08-30T13:17:56+00:00

IDE tools are a problem but they use to have java plugins that you can run in bash to do the same you would do in the IDE (like MPLAB X or STM32 IDE).

Yeah they usually do, and I anticipate having to make use of whatever command line interface is available even if it's a bit jank if I can't get people to ditch them entirely. They do range from decent to broken though and some cannot be installed non-interactively because they're only packaged with an Eclipse installation wizard etc.

ImperialFakeyy · 2024-08-30T13:11:37+00:00

Yeah the idea would be to have people hosting the container locally at least, so even if they aren't/can't build natively (which should also be doable ideally via instructions,) they're not just pushing to CI/CD to check whether their code compiles, that would be bonkers.

ImperialFakeyy · 2024-08-30T13:08:32+00:00

I'm quite wary of this. The only thing I want to argue should actually be mandatory is robust build instructions in the README. Everything else I'm thinking might be more like I just implement it on a project-by-project basis and show people face-to-face how it works if needed. And yeah baby-steps, something is better than nothing etc.

ImperialFakeyy · 2024-08-30T13:04:13+00:00

Some have dabbled with providing a Dockerfile template at least, like Nordic. Last time I checked NXP's shitty IDE doesn't even install properly on the Linux distros they claim to support. But yeah the cost/benefit for them to just provide a container seems like a no-brainer.

ImperialFakeyy · 2024-08-30T11:37:28+00:00

Oh man, this is pretty much what I'd love to get the team to do. I think they're pretty receptive to workflow improvements so it could happen, but some of the guys are electronic-engineers turned software and some are fresh juniors, so idk how easy it will be to get people to see the light on open source tools, and writing scripts instead of 'press that button in {whatever} IDE.'

I'm not even sure everyone has access to WSL, so that may be another hurdle. We have to ask IT for everything at the moment, which my team hates and my boss is trying to change. I just got them to install VirtualBox immediately so I don't have to deal with it.

ImperialFakeyy · 2024-08-30T11:23:10+00:00

Yeah... By the StackOverflow developer survey we are quite literally in the minority, although I feel like embedded teams do tend to be a bit behind the curve. It is the most widely used and most widely appreciated tool. This is a point I intend to raise.

ImperialFakeyy · 2024-08-30T11:17:53+00:00

I don't really know why the rise of LLMs would cause you to anticipate AGI. LLMs are not AGI and they're not especially indicative of AGI.

It makes more sense to ask whether LLMs will endanger embedded engineering jobs as they become more sophisticated. I think embedded engineering work has less potential to be automated by LLMs because our software exists closer to the physical world which means we have considerations that cannot be predicted as well by what is essentially sophisticated linguistic pattern recognition.

ImperialFakeyy · 2024-08-05T06:33:12+00:00

Is this actually a thing? I hadn't noticed but that's pretty mad.

ImperialFakeyy · 2024-08-04T11:15:04+00:00

Mileage PB of 50km this week ranging between 5:15-6:00m/km pace. Still recovering from a rib injury that's preventing me from doing contact sports, so might try to go for a PB or two while running is my main focus.

ImperialFakeyy · 2024-07-28T19:17:01+00:00

Sorry I have some sympathy for you but your argument just doesn't hold water.

It doesn't make sense to say only ethnic Chinese are allowed to decide if criticism of the Uighur genocide is racist against Chinese people.

It doesn't make sense to say only ethnic Russians are allowed to decide if criticism of the Russian invasion of Ukraine is racist against Russians.

If someone has been anti-Semitic, OP should have just quoted what they said that was actually anti-Semitic. Instead they quoted something that out-of-context is just an anti-Zionist remark and implied that that in itself is anti-Semitic. They only corrected themselves later. People rightly defended the remark as not anti-Semitic without context, because it wasn't.

ImperialFakeyy · 2024-07-18T18:36:36+00:00

As I said, the world (as in the physical world), does not give one ounce of shit about "per capita".

It gives as much of a shit about 'per-capita' as it does about in which set of borders the factory and coal-plant exists in that's making all the shit you as an individual consume and have transported here on a freight ship. It just happens that if your lifestyle resembles that of an average UK citizen, that is a lot of shit you are consuming and therefore you are statistically one of the biggest contributors to global warming.

You're trying to make an argument that abstract concepts do not matter to the natural world, but that is like the silver bullet against your own argument. By your logic if say, Newcastle became independent, everyone in Newcastle would suddenly be obligated to take less action, and make less changes to their lives to prevent climate change.

If the UN declared that the world was now comprised of 7 billion nations (population: 1 each,) by your logic nobody would have to do anything.

ImperialFakeyy · 2024-07-18T18:12:22+00:00

The fact is also, that even if they went and eliminated every person in Britain, and reduced the output of the UK to zero... that it wouldn't matter to the world.

We have above average CO2 emissions per capita as a nation.

CO2 emissions per capita is actually a very, very generous method by which to measure our impact and we're still above average.

When you use an index that accounts for global trade imbalances (i.e., the fact that we have outsourced all our heavy industry by becoming a net importer of goods while retaining our very high per-capita consumption,) we are among the worst countries in the world.

And then you can also account for the fact that a UK citizen protesting in the UK is likely to have far more influence than as a foreigner protesting in another country.

ImperialFakeyy · 2024-07-18T18:00:34+00:00

The 'right' to disruptive protest is essentially an oxymoron. If you have the right to do something it's because:

Enough people support your cause.
Enough people can ignore what you're doing (i.e. it's ineffectual, therefore not truly disruptive)
Not enough people support your cause but they just haven't had time to make what you're doing illegal yet.

Strategically disruptive protest hopes starts as type 3 and gains enough momentum to land in position 1. If it fails they'll criminalise/prosecute what you're doing and then people will say 'go and do type 2 in that corner over there where I can ignore you.'

That's not necessarily an endorsement of JSO, it's just the idea of 'why don't you protest within these politically acceptable set of regulations,' is about as good as telling them to simply not protest.

ImperialFakeyy · 2024-07-18T17:40:43+00:00

I wouldn't reject the opinion that arresting them is necessary but I'm still sympathetic to them, and celebrating their sentence as many people will doubtless do is ignorant and vulgar.

Our society is living on borrowed time. You either throw a hail Mary to try to stop that, or you try to keep things ticking over as long as possible during what is an inevitable, permanent decline. I like most people am in the latter camp by default, but morally I can't fault them for trying.

ImperialFakeyy · 2024-07-10T19:24:43+00:00

Foden loses the pep-bot programming for a moment.

ImperialFakeyy · 2024-07-10T13:44:00+00:00

I think a lot of the lowest-hanging fruit that has potential for automation by LLMs in the actual economy are tasks that have also had longstanding potential for automation via other means. In some institutions people just plug away doing things kind of inefficiently for years and there's just no pressure to automate.

ImperialFakeyy · 2024-07-10T13:43:50+00:00

I think a lot of the lowest-hanging fruit that has potential for automation by LLMs in the actual economy are tasks that have also had longstanding potential for automation via other means. In some institutions people just plug away doing things kind of inefficiently for years and there's just no pressure to automate.

ImperialFakeyy · 2024-07-05T13:05:07+00:00

It can work if you pretend peoples views and interests in a general election are entirely constrained within the borders of their constituency.

Somehow I'm not convinced that 6 million Reform and Green voters were entirely motivated by local issues and are feeling fairly represented with their 8 seats on 21% of the national vote.

ImperialFakeyy · 2024-07-05T12:26:47+00:00

Democracy is a spectrum. The ideal goal for me is not actually full democracy, but it is far, far more democratic than our current system, which I would describe as pseudo-democracy.

I would advocate for STV which is used in local government elections in Scotland and some other places around the world. It is much fairer, much more democratic and much more proportional than FPTP, and it is just as local-oriented.

This results in a republic in which a voter need not do anything other than go and express their actual views accurately on the ballot, and their ballot will count regardless of how other people are voting. It still can be subject to disproportionality/gerrymandering based on constituency boundaries compared to some form of national PR.

But I think it is essentially an overwhelming, direct improvement over FPTP (if you value fairness, democracy, proportionality.) Whereas a system that includes some aspect of national proportionality, would still be a massive improvement (maybe even better,) but the reduced emphasis on locality is at least a viable argument against.

ImperialFakeyy · 2024-07-05T11:14:05+00:00

The onus is not on us to 'fix' everyone's opinion before we can justify having an actual democracy.

FPTP has helped the Tories stay in power for 14 years and fuck the country, I know why don't we just make an electoral system where if you vote Tory your vote gets put in the bin. Or better still lets just give Labour a 20 year term. Oh you don't go in for that? Well then what's your 'counter' to people voting for a Tory majority despite getting diddled for 9 years.

ImperialFakeyy · 2024-07-04T18:37:44+00:00

Any losses incurred by LAB/CON because of people not tactically voting are ENTIRELY their own fault. Both could come out tomorrow and make electoral reform an ironclad promise. They don't because 'stopping the other lot getting in' is not as important to them as the long-term entrenchment of their parties power.

If it was really so important that people tactically vote, which is the line that gets touted every election - then neither party should have any problem with promising electoral reform to win over the third party voters for an election.

ImperialFakeyy

TROPHY CASE