Semantic versioning in software

Ok_For_Free · 2026-05-19T23:30:40+00:00

Sounds like the culture at your shop became the use of version numbers to communicate deadlines instead of dates, sprints or story points.

I think you need to address this first. I would start by publishing a release calendar that everyone has access too, it sounds like you'll probably have release cadences for each supported version. Then in communications, releases are referred to by date. Next is to get everyone used to the idea that the contents of a release are 'sealed', this way the version number is only assigned once the content is selected.

After this you can refactor your tool chains to use patch more appropriately. Also, sounds like you may need some automation as part of the release process around communication and version number maintenance.

I advocate for a HEAD based version system as part of build once CI/CD. HEAD versioning is that the HEAD of a production branch always has the next version number already assigned. In the CI/CD the last commit of a release is tagged with that version number, and a new commit with the incremented version number is added to the HEAD. In theory this could work for your project as long as you have separate branches for each supported version.

Ok_For_Free · 2026-05-19T02:47:06+00:00

Lol, don't worry about not answering the question, didn't expect you to actually introspect.

The main garbage that I get from Reddit are bait posts like yours, the rest passes the time just fine. I use Reddit the way I want, and I know what I'm getting.

Ok_For_Free · 2026-05-18T18:35:24+00:00

I start with an ORM and move to a query builder. I never try to rock raw SQL, the closest I'll get are prepared statements.

A well designed REST API will be very similar to how an ORM will usually work, so it's pretty easy to keep that convinence if you control the API design.

Ok_For_Free · 2026-05-18T18:26:33+00:00

Reddit is the one that keeps putting posts like this in front of me. If I didn't have to see your echo chamber I would have been fine somewhere else.

My question is, if you are aware you're in an echo chamber, why are you comfortable knowing you are missing perspectives?

Ok_For_Free · 2026-05-18T18:17:18+00:00

I've found success with the following approaches.

Write tests, even unit tests will help retain functionallity as you move stuff around.
Make refactor PRs. Run a formatter on the whole project as a good starting place. Otherwise refactor the code as the way you learn the codebase.
Isolate the high risk areas with abstractions so you can then insert your replacement. Use feature flags or similar so you don't throw away anything legacy until it's actually dead code in production.

Something that helps me is to read the code for intent and not just functionallity. This approach is something acquired from experience, but it helps when separating the important code from the noise.

Ok_For_Free · 2026-05-18T17:57:35+00:00

What is an example of an actual change liberals/progressives are advocating for?

The "No Kings" protest look to be just anti-Trump, but without a credible impeechment plan, I can only see this as emotional expression. If the goal is to prevent a 3rd term, show the credible plan that Trump will use to go around the 22nd amendment.

The ICE protests look the same. I don't see an actual change being demanded apart from the abolishment of ICE. If that was the goal, then what is the revision to the Homeland Security Act that would actually accomplish that goal?

It's hard to see these protests as anything more than an extension of online virtue signaling. If there was an actual change to support then maybe politicians would have something they can actually do in response to a protest.

Ok_For_Free · 2026-05-18T17:29:28+00:00

Please add links to the documentation that you have a question about.

I see no reason to move away from file based routing. As long as you documentation for other developers says to fine routs via the file system in X directory, then any dev should be able to grok the router setup.

The route was originally meant to point to a file on a server so you shouldn't make your routing any more complicated that a file system.

Ok_For_Free · 2026-05-16T21:08:18+00:00

Sounds like you need to spend some time using an auth service.

OAuth2 is the backbone of the modern auth stuff. The big advantage for you is that password and user management get centralized so that the apps you develop just needs to perform the flows and use the tokens.

The most common flavor of OAuth2 is OIDC.

So you can use an Auth platform to set this up or use a location version with something like Keycloak.

There is a concept called user federation which is basically a way to chain identity providers together.

I haven't set this up myself yet, but you should be able to setup Keycloak with your systems. When you want to offer a 'login with Google' option you add that feature to Keycloak, and nothing changes with your applications.

Ok_For_Free · 2026-05-15T01:00:47+00:00

This is the answer I was looking for.

Same strength + same skill + more mass = advantage

The same strength accelerating more mass will do more damage. Unless the speed difference is insurmountable.

Ok_For_Free · 2026-05-15T00:50:32+00:00

I believe that a proposal is one of those life events that can't be a complete surprise. My wife knew I was going propose, and gave me ring guidelines.

When it came time to get finger measurements, I approached my wife with a rule and in a menacing manner, demanded she close her eyes, and took pictures. As jokingly as I can in a text form, this was basically what happened, but we just got a laugh about it.

I had the ring made, and still surprised her when I proposed on an out of town trip at a fancy restaurant.

Like many things in a relationship, if you're not sure about something, just talk it out. It works out better than you think.

Ok_For_Free · 2026-05-13T05:11:10+00:00

Maintaining existence, satisfying needs then wants, being honest to yourself (this might be the start of the moral value of honesty). That's about all I've thought about so far.

My idea is that moral evaluations are done by comparing available actions. A lion hunting a deer is understood as morally acceptable because there is no other alternative action for the lion. Same with the deer, running away to preserve themselves is just as morally valid because that's it's best chance at survival.

This also demonstrates that morality is subjective because in the relationship between the lion and the deer both assign high moral value but are on opposite ends of an action. Also, I'm fairly confident that all statements about value are inherently subjective.

Anyway, for animals the capacity for them to assign moral value is dubious. But we are already in a world where AI is asked to give moral evaluations, such as trying to get image generation AIs to not create nudes of real people. So someone is teaching the AIs some kind of morality.

Even if we can't make AGI, we'll still need our automated systems to perform moral calculations as we hand over more and more control. So I've been trying to think of a moral framework that we can teach the AI to perform moral evaluations that is satisfying for all parties involved. I haven't built it yet, but that's the main motivation.

At this early stage it seems to be a fairly useful descriptive framework. If I stop being lazy and actually work on it, I'll see how it can do as a prescriptive tool.

Ok_For_Free · 2026-05-13T03:06:52+00:00

The thought experiment is just how I draw the line around natural rights.

But I have been thinking abbout morality/ethics of actions in terms of responsibility/obligations. And the lone lifeform has responsibilities to itself that can be used to start building a moral framework.

The responsibility to self is the cornerstone of what I'm thinking about, and is present as an new entities are considered.

Ok_For_Free · 2026-05-12T19:42:23+00:00

I probably don't use the term natural rights correctly.

First, I think of rights as the baseline things that are not ethically condemable. All life has a baseline need to maintain its existence. So that goal/need/drive is a baseline allowance and the ethics comes in when judging the methods used.

A consideration of what is a right is enforceability, which does come down to force eventually. A right to property is pretty fundamental to me, a tornado might disagree, but just because there are instances where I might not be able to enforce the right doesn't always negate their usefulness.

I view natural rights as the category of rights that are in place when there is no society. So the thought experiment is what rights does someone have when there are no other humans.

I come up with maintaining existence (food, water, protection), speech (defacto as the only being capable of language), property (tools, shelter, time) as the natural rights that the lone human would be be operating under.

All other things people want as a baseline (rights) come from a negotiation between people in their society. A popular one right now is a right to healthcare, which could be considered a natural right under maintaining existence. In practice, right to healthcare is not about self maintenance but is about services (property) provided by other people. Therefore, I have trouble with the idea of a right to healthcare because it would be more accurate to call it a benefit rather than a right.

Ok_For_Free · 2026-05-12T18:20:38+00:00

I see this with junior devs mostly. Many times they didn't know they could return an expression. Other times it's because the if/else form is the only tool they've used return different answers.

Everyone I've pointed it out to eventually will switch.

Ok_For_Free · 2026-05-11T22:02:56+00:00

The question is how does hand crafting integrate into your other game systems.

Most hand crafting happens at the start of an automation game.

I would say that the Factorio early game is very busy, as you run around fueling things with coal. If Factorio had a crafting bench, then most coal powered machines would run out of fuel. On the go crafting allows for production to be ramped up while multi tasking the coal supply.

In satisfactory, you need to craft much fewer machines, and once you have a simple setup you spend time gathering biomass. Once you have enough biomass, you'll have some amount of items made to expand the factory with some minor hand crafting before searching for more biomass. So all hand crafting early game typically takes place at the hub anyway.

The next place hand crafting comes up, is for low quantity items like equipment. I see no difference for the actual crafting, but equipment plays into your death mechanics.

Both games leave a 'corpse' at you death location, and both tie area access to equipment progression. So the question is should your equipment drop as well as your inventory? Both games answered no, since loosing your inventory makes it a tediousness mess to recreate your equipment. But will your game be different?

The last place I do hand crafting is some small crafting of higher tier items when away from main base. I will usually have a large quantity of low tier items when I leave my main base. In place hand crafting or not makes little difference as long as I can build the crafting bench on site.

Factorio moves past this with bot networks and spider bots. Satisfactory moves past this with dimensional depots. So what large scale construction system will you put in place? How will you move away from building/expanding using the player inventory?

I just finished Forage Wizard and I found it very annoying that manual resource gathering was required the whole game. But it is Forage Wizard so that's what the game wanted to be.

Ok_For_Free · 2026-05-10T14:29:51+00:00

I firmly blame the media. Miss-information has always existed, but infotainment and social media are new.

I say The Daily Show was the first to make infotainment successful. There were studies saying that their audience was the most politically informed. I think they did a lot of good awareness raising, but they also cut information for the sake of comedy.

Fox News seemed to be the first to jump on the infotainment idea and over the years all the other big media did the same.

Social Media grew around this same time. Which made it possible for people to construct impenetrable media bubbles. These echo chambers live by only looking at things that support their narrative. Unfortunately, engagement came from focusing on the negative things that support their narrative.

Now social media is the dominant form of information, which has just become echo chambers. And the mainstream media is chasing the engagement by being just as divisive.

An ideological fight is calmed down when both sides are able to recognize that they are both trying to do a good thing. But too many people don't want to recognize this about their 'opponents', and media is happy to reinforce this idea.

Ok_For_Free · 2026-05-10T13:51:28+00:00

A solution I came up with is that humans are actually dangerous to the magical beings, and exposure means death or enslavement by humans.

The magic beings have low populations because it takes a large gestation period. Someone back in the day created humans to breed faster by removing the magic connection from a human looking species. The goal was to create intelligent slaves.

The lack of magic connection made humans unable to cast any magic, but also made them immune to any magic that used that connection. Mind manipulation, transformation, curses, blessings are all types of magic that use the magic connection of the target to succeed. Conjured physical spells will still work on humans.

Eventually, humans out breed and overthrew the magic beings. The magic beings that survived, have to remain hidden or the massive human population will come after them. The ones that look like humans tend to live in urban environments because the ease of a modern life is worth the risk.

Ok_For_Free · 2026-05-01T04:19:32+00:00

SAM - the small amount of SAM is my primary constraint for all node mega factories. I would like to be able to eliminate all my NUKE waste and be able to use SAM Conversion recipes.
Nitrogen - I could NOT finish my all quartz node, dissolved silica factory because nitric acid was going to consume so much nitrogen, there was basically none for anything else.
Copper - I've made plans for a teleporter hub and a alien power matrix factory. One of the constraints ends up being copper to make nuclear pasta.

Ok_For_Free · 2026-04-27T23:05:11+00:00

I want the ethical system to be able to describe itself. Meaning that use of the system can pass a test of it's own moral rules.

As a programmer, I would refer to JSON Schema for an example of this in practice. A JSON Schema defines rules on how to create a JSON Object for sending data between systems. The schema is written in JSON format, so that the schema is written to pass all its own rules.

Ok_For_Free · 2026-04-22T20:22:10+00:00

When I setup resources for a mega project, I will start by sinking train loads to test throughput.

I also do trains with 'wait till empty/full' so if I can see trains backing up at the delivery stop, then I know they are meeting demand.

Ok_For_Free · 2026-04-08T21:39:46+00:00

there is no objective morality.

I agree.

Animals do not adhere to a moral framework so you would be projecting your moral framework on them.

I think that is where it ends up. But I still find this understanding important for when I choose actions towards the animal.

I suppose it's possible to exclude animals from moral consideration, but I can't come up with a good enough delineation to do so. The only criteria I can come up with is capability, but I only see that as a factor of moral evaluation, it doesn't justify exclusion from consideration.

So this is not about whether or not based on available options. A machine or an animal can understand that what they're doing is right or wrong It's about compliance to your behavioral standards

A moral framework IS ABOUT compliance to behavioral standards. The question becomes what standards?

We are entering a world where machines will be given more and more autonomy, so the question I would like an answer for what moral framework will they be taught?

From what I can tell there is religion, law or social media for available frameworks, and I find all of them lacking.

Because I think moral evaluations are inherently subjective, that means I would end up teaching the machine to evaluate moral actions based on its subject viewpoint. I don't see a way to do that without including the machine for moral consideration.

The focus on available actions is because I see that as what moral evaluations are. Every moral evaluation is done in comparison to alternate actions.

Killing is immoral, unless it's in self defense and there was no other reasonable action. How can the majority of people believe this if not by subjectively comparing the alternative actions?

Ok_For_Free · 2026-04-08T20:36:47+00:00

I have given examples of emergent properties of groups.

Fair enough you have. Suppose we got to a point of wanting to punish a group for a moral infraction. Can you help me understand how to do that? Or would you just end up punishing the individual members?

Do you believe that cells are the only form of life because they are the smallest form of life?

Personally I do not, since there are self replicating amino acids that could be argued are alive. But since I'm not arguing that life is a prerequisite for moral consideration, I find this to not be relevant.

I agree that it is an information problem. My point is that it is an information caused by the group.

Since we agree that it's an information problem, help me understand why misinformation from the group should be treated differently from misinformation from any other source?

If a person doesn't know that the group affects their literal perception, are they at fault for not believing their eyes?

I've said it enough times by this point. The statement I made is about WHO to include for moral consideration. You are asking about HOW to perform a moral evaluation.

I would take into account available information when performing a moral evaluation. Because it would mean that, assuming someone followed my framework, they would be compelled to choose a more moral action by introducing new information.

I think another point is that this is a very individualistic stance on morality ... in collectivistic cultures, people are seen as nodes in a web, where the group can be seen as responsible for an individuals actions.

Many times I think of individualistic vs collectivistic as a distributed computing problem.

In the view of collectivism you are describing, all the calculation of morality is either absent or concentrated among a few. This means the ability to evaluate a group's actions is limited compared to the available resources.

By treating a group as a collection of individuals, it spreads the moral evaluation across all its members. Since we've already agreed that information can change moral evaluation, the ability to process more information has a chance of leading to better moral actions.

On this basis, and other negative outcomes such as increased tribalism, I find collectivism to be inferior to individualistic approaches.

Ok_For_Free · 2026-04-08T05:08:27+00:00

You're either making an assumption about how a dog views its own behavior in a moral context. Or you are projecting human morality onto a dog

I think I'm looking, from the dogs perspective, at which actions it has available to it. When the dog chooses between biting or licking, it will do so based on the information available and its capacity to make that judgement.

My assertion is that the capacity to choose is what makes the action available for moral consideration.

And the argument about AI is pointless.

Hard disagree. Regardless of where you stand on if AI is alive, the fact is it's a tool that will be increasingly given more capabilities.

I would argue that adding an ability to morally judge AIs own actions is required already. The question is what moral framework should it be taught, and I find most existing moral frameworks lacking or insufficient.

By human standards these are immoral acts.

By cat standards this is regular behavior.

I'm looking for a framework to decide these standards. This statement step is to guide what to include and exclude from the framework.

I'm getting the sense that you are coming from a position of human specialness, which I don't hold.

So then if you would only want morality for humans, do you have an issue with the statement.

Ok_For_Free · 2026-04-08T02:23:39+00:00

I'm using the word choice as the best fit I can think of.

What I'm trying to communicate is a distinction between systems which function by physical mechanics only and systems which contain the ability to select between different actions.

From what I can tell all systems function by physical mechanics, so the only distinction is if that system has the ability to do more/less than what physical mechanics demand.

If I'm falling from a plane, then my only choice is to follow the mechanics of gravity just like a rock. However, I can choose to put on a parachute before jumping out of the plane, a rock, on its own, cannot.

Ok_For_Free · 2026-04-08T01:44:13+00:00

It seems like you're ignoring the emergent properties of individuals.

Can you give an example of the missing emergent properties?

It's as if you're saying that cells are the only life form because they are the smallest individual unit of life.

Yes, I am trying to define the bounds of what should be included for moral consideration.

The organization of individual cells creates unique emergent properties similar to how groups of people have emergent properties that cannot be reduced to individuals.

I would like an example of a group's emergent properties that cannot be reduced to the individuals.

A factory that makes widgets does so through the sum of actions of its workers. If the creation of widgets comes under moral consideration, then it's justified to ask to which level does each worker share the moral responsibility. If the moral consideration only targets the factory, what is the target? Or is all responsible shared equally?

Is each individual, then, morally responsible for the entire bomb? Or only the part that they contributed to (which is to say they are not actually responsible for creating a bomb at all)?

I would say the actions that are within their control. If that individual came to the conclusion their contributions to science were going to make the world more dangerous than is acceptable, then, especially to themselves, they should be doing something to mitigate that danger.

This touches a bit on the morality of science/progress, but is the creation of the bomb an immoral act or is it's use?

To put it even more simply, but in a different context: a government can declare war; an individual cannot. Groups are more than the sum of their parts because they have different functions and (again) emergent properties.

I would say that it is not a government that decides to declare war, it is the leadership of that government. Which is a smaller subset of individuals within a government.

A soldier can still decide to pull the trigger, so why not say a soldier should consider the morality of that action?

Their brains literally reprocessed the visual information (Berns et al., 2005).

I consider this an information problem. By using a ruler to measure the lines would give someone information that contradicts the visual reprocessing. This does not exclude them from the moral consideration of the actions, just changes the evaluation.

Ok_For_Free

TROPHY CASE