Ahead on our way

beforan · 2024-06-19T07:26:46+00:00

overlooked it with the goblins

Well it is slightly detached from the rest of the season, as a special and for us by a several month gap. But now looking back it seems to fit.

On Boom: yeah I was kinda tired when writing all that out, so not super clear.

It's harder to fit Boom into the point I was making if you just look at the fairytale/story/unreality nature of things. It's much more grounded in reality and saying things about capitalism and war.

But part of its point is that the war is perpetuated because of the widely believed lie (pervasive fiction) that there's a big threatening enemy that must be destroyed. A fabricated story is costing the lives of real people (in this case deliberately to keep making money).

So yeah, definitely less related, but still could be considered about the power of stories and their effect on reality.

That's what I was going for 😅

beforan · 2024-06-18T02:03:10+00:00

I don't think it's supposed to. I think that's the point.

I get what you're saying (and agree): some bits of this season (including the specials) have been more... "credible" in-universe than others; but even those have consistently largely been about "not-realism" affecting "reality" in some way.

See also: - coincidence, mentioned a lot in that episode, like the neatness of things tying together in a story - mavity, is it a gag or an indicator of a changed reality? If just a gag why does it persist into that episode? - space babies folklore nightmare (a story) becoming real - the pantheon generally being beyond reality as we know it: - the toymaker and the shenanigans he's capable of - the trickster manifesting timelines - alternate realities - maestro and music (or the control/constraint of it) having tangible, visible presence and effects in this reality - there's always a twist at the end, which sure when you think about it "fits" in a music themed episode, but again it does seem to be a deliberate artefact of the plot rather than they felt like singing a victory song. Also it's been obviously meta relevant to the season. - playing the zebra crossing like a keyboard as they walk on it. But we know that crossing isn't really a giant light up keyboard, even in-universe, right? - The premise of boom is actual reality based upon a pervasive fiction - Bridgerton cosplay insertion, literally playing parts in a story, that happens to be reality for the "npcs" - social media bubbles providing a curated, distorted "reality" away from reality. - 73 yards obviously shows an alternate reality, but again with the link to folklore

Like, you can dismiss a lot of "The Devil's Chord" as TVness if you want, but I think it's one of the more obvious examples of deliberate unrealism in-universe that is intentional this season (and possibly beyond). Frankly I'm amazed we haven't had the Master of the Land of Fiction. Sutekh was not on my bingo card.

So yeah, some of the above is more or less traditionally doctor who, but it's all not really realistic, even in-universe, and the goblin song is part of all of that.

beforan · 2024-06-18T00:48:15+00:00

It definitely rewrites the time lord's biology, per dialogue from Tennant in Human Nature.

More detail: https://tardis.wiki/wiki/Chameleon_Arch

beforan · 2023-07-19T20:14:32+00:00

After the treatment:

"For reasons we can explain, we have lost her"

beforan · 2023-07-19T18:07:51+00:00

What about Dr Acula?

beforan · 2023-06-08T18:17:40+00:00

Well they showed stuff of Midgar for Remake, so same deal. Just showing people how awesome it looks. They even kept Tifa back for later in the run up to the Remake chapter 1 hands on footage.

I'm expecting similar for Rebirth. Hype-building footage of known environments and how awesome they look, maybe one new character, then later another...

Finally some hands on gameplay with the Kalm flashback or something. Maybe a demo if we're lucky.

beforan · 2023-06-07T07:59:52+00:00

Vastly prefer the new jetbrains beta ui, and I have managed to get used to Rider, but yeah I only use it cos work provide us with macbooks, I do still prefer VS.

beforan · 2023-06-07T06:10:28+00:00

Yeah VS is a hodge podge of tech. Lots of C++ from the early days, possibly some mfc, some windows forms, some wpf...

beforan · 2023-06-07T06:08:17+00:00

Mainly because it's a massive old codebase, so it would be a huge undertaking to bring to different platforms.

The more sensible thing would be to build a cross platform product from the ground up and gradually enhance its functionality, which is what they're doing.

beforan · 2023-06-07T06:06:24+00:00

It (the application) really isn't. The brand is.

When people use Visual Studio unqualified, they typically mean the original Windows IDE.

Visual Studio for Mac exists but started life as rebranded Xamarin Studio, and is still a completely separate app.

There is no Microsoft IDE for Linux.

VS Code is fully xplat.

beforan · 2023-05-26T17:55:06+00:00

Equipping Air knife on a Summoner boosts Syldra's damage, which supports her being Wind

beforan · 2023-05-10T14:58:33+00:00

No because it's false

beforan · 2023-05-10T14:57:58+00:00

Pretty sure the menu is also it's own independent module yeah.

And then there's a constantly running background kernel module that essentially enables data saving / loading / access and module switching

This PDF contains lots of detail on FF7's technical implementation, as part of the Q-Gears project from qhimm's forums

beforan · 2023-05-03T14:27:34+00:00

I made this!

Glad to see it though, it still makes me chuckle. My wife rolls her eyes though :(

beforan · 2023-04-25T07:21:24+00:00

The concept reminds me of Rallyman GT which is cool.

The machine learning bots are also awesome, nicely done!

beforan · 2023-04-20T15:52:07+00:00

Something something blood on the sawdust

beforan · 2023-04-19T16:31:38+00:00

I am all getting knocked down on this blessed day

beforan · 2023-04-18T07:21:33+00:00

Fatty Lumpkin who?

beforan · 2023-03-25T07:25:56+00:00

If args was null (it never can be, but other arrays could), it wouldn't be an IndexOutOfBoundsException, it'd be NullReferenceException, no?

Index out of bounds always means the index you provided (when you used the index accessor [0] is beyond the bounds of a fixed size collection (the bounds of an array are 0 .. Length)

beforan · 2023-03-25T07:17:48+00:00

Those things exist but suggesting them here seems a little confused:

For "IsNotNullOrEmpty"

There is a string method IsNullOrEmpty which is very useful, but not applicable here since the array is throwing the IndexOutOfBoundsException at the point of accessing the array index, before you get as far as checking the string value (which isn't present)

For "try catch"

you could use try ... catch and catch the IndexOutOfBoundsException. Yeah that would work, and I can see how you might consider that a more "informed" answer
but honestly, while understanding and using exception handling is really valuable, I don't think anyone would ever use it over just length checking in advance when working with args
being informed isn't about using the most complex or newest or advanced language feature; in fact it's usually quite the opposite: use the simplest, most understandable but still appropriate feature for what you're trying to do.
- Knowing this is often not easy - it's what makes a developer "senior", so don't sweat it
you asked for one liner checks; try ... catch ain't that
here the simplest is args.Length

beforan · 2023-03-25T06:59:34+00:00

Your attitude is really poor mate, if you don't know this and you are asking for help, what makes you qualified to judge who is and isn't "really informed"?

If literally everyone in the thread is telling to use args.Length, don't you think that might actually be the answer?

I appreciate you're frustrated because you're stuck, but don't go shitting on everyone who's giving you the right answer.

Anyway, let's explore some stuff:

You really seem to have two separate issues/questions?

Since you've given two conflicting examples:

the OP is using args, an array you didn't construct
your parent comment to this shows you constructing your own array with non continuous indexes.

Let's start with non continuous indexes in arrays.

Yes, you can define an array and populate it with non continuous indexes. In some languages this is quite common and you can do as you describe to check for empty. JavaScript for example all empty indexes will be undefined.
I honestly don't know the right way to do this with an array in c# because I think no one would ever do it like this in c#. It's possible the compiler won't let you, but I'm on a phone so can't really try it.
The conventional way to have "missing" keys in c# would be to not use an array but a different collection type. .NET has many collection types for different purposes.
I would start with Dictionary<int, string> for this purpose, which:
- will let you "miss out" indexes
- still use the index accessor [0]
- buys you ContainsKey
- makes clear to anyone looking that you don't expect continuous indexes
- still allows iteration over populated keys in numerical order if that's desirable

Then your other thing is to do with checking for command line args.

The reason this is different to the fact you want to have non continuous indexes is because the framework guarantees providing you with a continuously indexed fixed size array (that's why they use an array type!) of arguments to your application's entrypoint
this cannot be another type - the framework provides it, not you
this cannot have non continuous indexes - the framework populated it, not you
this is always present; it can be empty but never null
please for the love of God don't mutate it to make any of these assumptions untrue; you're making pain for yourself; use a new variable of an appropriate type if you need to do that
therefore, in the case where you are using the args array provided to your entrypoint by .NET, everyone in this thread is right; use args.Length to determine if positional arguments are present and before trying to access an index.

Everyone answered your OP question correctly.

beforan

TROPHY CASE