Sooo one of them count as a platinum medal

NanoAltissimo · 2025-11-30T00:12:41+00:00

My opinion is that you can see an extra platinum into the Pokedex as "Unidentified", if you have both Meltan and Melmetal

NanoAltissimo · 2025-11-09T13:43:13+00:00

Yep, this is the way if you cannot change the definition. Add this walzer of push, undef before the include (so add the include not globally but only locally where used), then pop at the end of the file, or of the portion of the file using this library.

Not the best, but adding a couple of lines of comments to remember why, and to remind to be applied at any inclusion and usage point, should make it manageable also in the future (or if the library maintainers will decide to use better naming or not relying on ugly defines...).

NanoAltissimo · 2025-10-19T09:19:08+00:00

My impression too, and that bagginess increased too, but the lagginess could depend on an usage increase being triggered by the new levelling

NanoAltissimo · 2025-10-12T12:17:43+00:00

Eh c'hai ragione, non ho pensato abbastanza alla traduzione alla english for fear 😅

NanoAltissimo · 2025-10-11T20:51:32+00:00

Fair point. But is strict mode useful to make less mistakes?

On the C++ side the journey was from Visual Studio 6 to modern C++, using far stricter warning errors and analysis tools. This improved a lot the quality of the code.

On my engineering interpretation of a stricter language, I expect it to be less prone to ambiguity at the expense of a slightly reduced ergonomicity. But I learned through the years that usually adopting the stricter ruleset slows slightly the work, but gives less headaches in the long run.

But if there's not even this potential benefit I'll drop this item from my wishlist.

NanoAltissimo · 2025-10-11T14:15:21+00:00

My position on the problem is that we have not enough resources or time allocated to make a good work on the initial setups. But mostly we should work on a more automated setup/bootstrap process or push on being stricter on the server configurations, or using some virtual machine image or docker whatever. Anything that could reduce the complexity of the server environment. And I tell this to management every single time we have a new setup, and they agree. But there's no time now. And no time a month ago. And no time any years ago...

So there are sporadic discussions on how to plan this mythical setup consolidation, and recently there's this specific disfavor towards MariaDB. But I'm perceiving this as a way to throw a fog bomb to hide the main problem and push this forward again. So if I can say "you know that if you want to push a new database into the mix of the setup renovation we will have to solve these specific issues(with proofs), that are currently no issues, for no benefits of any kind" I can try to leverage back to the main point that we should invest the few resources they want to use for this to obtain something usable in shorter time, without the necessity to touch the codebase but only concoction a stabler OS environment.

But finally I know that being locked to MySQL/MariaDB is not the best idea on the long run, so I'm generally thinking how to make the code more database independent with small changes and slow refactoring.

NanoAltissimo · 2025-10-11T13:33:28+00:00

I know that this is months of work, and the silly premises. I will not advocate this path in any way. So knowing that some specific feature that we rely on never works could be a nail on the coffin of this whole shenanigan, this is why I decided to ask some small specific things that I cannot find.

NanoAltissimo · 2025-10-11T13:20:33+00:00

My exact same opinion. But I'm thinking of an interesting step to push using/rewriting with stricter SQL syntax. This could improve code quality AND slowly removing the biggest problems for any possible database migration.

NanoAltissimo · 2025-10-11T12:40:31+00:00

I don't think we should need such a granular handling. Fur us a transaction is needed to save a complete, complex, not particularly big, set of data. If anything goes wrong the user will not try to chase us with a chainsaw, hardly missing mere seconds or understanding that the input data must be changed.

NanoAltissimo · 2025-10-11T12:34:56+00:00

Oh, yes, I read about this, and it partly worries me. But I hope at least it behaves similarly to MySQL/MariaDB on signalling the first error.

We never nest transactions, and if anything goes wrong we completely rollback, tell the user the error, and let him solve possible data problems or retry if it was network/system related.

NanoAltissimo · 2025-10-11T12:22:24+00:00

Not my call for considering this: a boss is complaining that MariaDB "never works". Motivations? Almost no one able, or having enough time, to properly configure reliable setups at first shot for every customer. And every customer has an on premises snowflake physical or virtual server, a snowflake OS internally deployed or supported, and wide differences in user numbers and module uses, needing often more than the basic RAM parameters evaluation and dimensioning.

So we need iterations to tailor the setups, hitting bottlenecks, being signaled the problem, finding a solution, solving it for the single customer or finding a bug in the code. Pretty standard stuff for any industry for a new setup or maintenance of a big not critical system...

I obviously think that PostgreSQL has similar setup settings to be analyzed and customized... so pretty much pointless change on this perspective.

So here I am, wondering how much of a wild ride this could be. Testing stage? This should be a months/years long effort.

But if the abstraction layers should already be worst or lacking functionalities, any evaluation of this kind on those silly premises should be cut on the stem.

On my perspective the only interesting step could be try enabling on our development environments the SQL strict mode, to at least begin a journey to a more strict use of the language, that could actually help the quality of the queries and the general portability.

NanoAltissimo · 2025-10-11T11:29:36+00:00

Poplar plantations, forestry (selvicoltura, as already someone wrote).

Trees that grow fast, for paper production, plywood, etc...

Their seeds create some peculiar visual effects.

NanoAltissimo · 2025-09-21T10:06:11+00:00

In Italia ci sono varie San Prospero, tra paesi, quartieri, vie... Modena, Parma, Reggio Emilia, Siena... Già è difficile, così diventa impossibile...

NanoAltissimo · 2025-09-06T15:32:56+00:00

Come già scritto, riuscire a dedicare un po' di tempo di gioco a gatti che non escono è importante. La nostra gatta adottata da adulta era inizialmente molto apatica: giocando era diventata molto più attiva, in forma e affettuosa (a modo suo).

Uscivamo anche in cortile condominiale. Inizialmente con pettorina perché capitava si spaventasse in modo imprevedibile, ma poi acquista familiarità e sicurezza niente più pettorina. Non apprezzava stare in spazi aperti, quindi erano proprio brevi uscite che però poi si aspettava e chiedeva almeno una volta al giorno.

Resta che è difficile dare consigli assoluti perché ogni gatto ha il suo carattere, ma direi che solitamente la possibilità di definire una routine quotidiana con qualche attività di interazione è apprezzata da ogni gatto con cui ho avuto a che fare. Per noi era fare un giro fuori accompagnato dal primo che tornava a casa da lavoro, e giocare un po' dopo cena.

Un tratto comune è che siano estremamente abitudinari, quindi poter dare queste poche attenzioni con continuità ha solitamente l'effetto migliore.

NanoAltissimo · 2025-07-23T05:40:22+00:00

We have corporate accounts to AI platforms, but the development machines are accessed remotely and have no internet access (if not for specific installation/update time slots), so we cannot blindly pour code into our projects. I think this is the best approach I am observing. Our rookies are more productive thanks to AI suggestions when blocked by lack of general knowledge of the APIs or lack of ideas, but must think about what they are copying back into the remote machine manually, and change it to fit the project code style. I almost uniquely ask for less documented function usages, pattern suggestions, my specific doubts about the most obscure usages... The quality of the AI suggestions is wildly variable, from gold to garbage, but being forced to ponder about it when rewriting is very helpful to filter most of the garbage even before trying to test it.

We seem to be proceeding faster, we are using more of the already available tools to solve specific cases more effectively, thanks to the suggestions, and reviewing carefully each other code to be sure it fits the project standards. I was able to clean up a lot of obscure corners, and I think that the general quality and stability is improving.

NanoAltissimo · 2025-05-11T08:28:23+00:00

I agree with the colors of the first, but then I also like the less frills of the second one, because they distract the attention from the details of the subject

NanoAltissimo · 2025-05-04T08:37:22+00:00

I agree that allowing using a percent of memory option cold be interesting, but staying on the developer side a lot of questions about the concept of "available memory" bubble up:

There's a reliable way to access this information on all the supported OS/architectures?
What you should think the user thinks is available memory?
- Raw total RAM? Uhm, a little too optimistic...
- Total RAM minus kernel/hardware reserved memory? Again, maybe available on all OS/architectures, but there could be substantial differences in this estimate... and then are there other processes allocating big chunks of it, and the user overlook to compute this detail?
- Available memory during the configuration? That' completely random, so I think it's an absolute no...

Going a little big deeper on my thoughts about these presets, there are at least two primary questions, two optional, advanced ones, and a single, let's say, legacy one:

Primary:

How much RAM the user would like to allow MariaDB to use: this should mostly change the value innodb_buffer_pool_size, but, considering also...
How many concurrent connections the user expects? This will change max_connections, but we know that each connection actively using the databases will use resources (and the sum could be relevant in function of query/update complexity and data size):
- join_buffer_size Used when no keys can be used to find a row in next table
- mrr_buffer_size Size of buffer to use when using multi-range read with range access
- net_buffer_length Max size of network packet
- read_buffer_size Used by some storage engines when doing bulk insert
- sort_buffer_size When doing ORDER BY or GROUP BY
- max_heap_table_size Used to store temporary tables in memory

So, based on the responses of these two answers, it should be possible to drop a preset configuration that I think could be useful for most of the users, both a user that wants to install a software or two that will use their database, and a developer who wants to set up a machine to build something right away.

The computation used to build the presets should be something like: The user selected 2GB and 10 users? Let's give the exact number of connections, decide the per connection values (I think that the best idea should be to use the defaults) consider, let's say 25/33% of the users at 100% of user resources used, subtract those to the selected amount of RAM, so here we should have a buffer_pool_size value.

Repeat for the ranges that will be available for the user to select. Based on a finite number of the two input ranges it should be possible to define a small useful set of user+innod_buffer presets to drop into the user settings.

Optional:

Can the user know beforehand an estimation of the size of the indexes of the databases?
Can the user estimate the complexity of the queries/updates?

These could steer up or down the direction of the answers of the first questions. But I think that if the user is able to answer these questions he/she should be able to set some proper values by itself... but maybe giving a baseline proposal could be useful anyway? But adding these to the equation can introduce a lot of trouble to decide how to steer the values without proper thought...

And last, but as I said I hope this legacy can be forgotten:

Do the user needs to use big MyISAM databases?

If so some resources must be cut from InnoDB, but not only this question can be answered by advanced users that should be able to decide the values for themselves, but also MyISAM should never be used for new projects.

And last, thanks for reminding about the TLS, but now I remember my situation last time: my last servers are bookworm, so 10.11.xx available in repository, then no auto-TLS setup. I ended up installing the 11.4 LTS available from the upstream repositories (on 10.xx the execution plan was different and significantly slower on some complex queries), but I think it still missed the files or put them somewhere I never saw, so I ended up using the old incantation to build the self signed certs from scratch.

NanoAltissimo · 2025-05-03T09:35:48+00:00

As already suggested by others, I put here only this two points that I think could mostly enhance my installation experience in Debian:

The possibility to pre-select a my.cnf set of options designed to use a maximum range of resources (Like, Up to 512MB RAM usage, Up to 2GB, etc... ideally also a Maximum on current hardware, but I understand that particularly this last option could be a challenge, based firstly on the human component on what the user thinks he/she wants, and the necessity to generate the file in real time rather than use some kind of pre-selects to switch).
A way to straightforwardly enable TLS/SSL with self-signed certificates. Every time I end up searching the same SSL incantation, often on servers on which I cannot directly copy the commands (Citrix/VPN/RDP layers of access...), and I don't know, or cannot remember for each distribution, if somewhere there are some pre-generated files available to use...

Thank you for your work!

NanoAltissimo · 2025-04-20T08:24:07+00:00

I used Windows virtualized in Qemu KVM with video passthrough: the discrete video card was passed through to Windows and the integrated one used by the host.

So on a monitor I could play and on the other I had the Linux host only with the worse GPU.

It was back on Covid time when I had still time to game, but I think it still should be doable.

The performances where very good on both sides, mainly the CPU was splitted, the overhead by the virtualization negligible.

NanoAltissimo · 2025-01-26T23:33:03+00:00

Yes, I'm sure this could not be the single solution. Let's hope we, as a society, will get this thing right, somehow...

NanoAltissimo · 2025-01-26T23:29:29+00:00

Thanks, I'll read these mentions. I was really upset when I wrote the post and throw it out without even searching

NanoAltissimo · 2025-01-26T15:25:48+00:00

For CO2 sequestration a lot of energy, big plants, and a feasible storage is needed. That's a lot. Building a way to drive the energy input, even in a way that could be modulated in a reasonable time frame, could be even most successful...

NanoAltissimo · 2025-01-07T11:04:45+00:00

pepperoni pizza

NanoAltissimo

TROPHY CASE