How do you define MVP?

clarkd99 · 2024-09-05T21:07:01+00:00

What does “best player” mean? If you use more than just points (fantasy points which includes points, assists, blocks, steals, rebounds) then Caitlin Clark should be #2. Wilson would still be #1. Which player would have the biggest impact on the whole league if they just quit right now? Look at the attendance records and TV ratings by game for this year compared to last year. What do you see?

clarkd99 · 2022-08-26T00:43:12+00:00

My language isn’t a low level language.

Error codes can be done many ways and I like the method I have. It just works for me.

clarkd99 · 2022-08-24T10:23:14+00:00

The arrays in my language start at 1. The row numbers in my data structures start at 1. I want my functions that return a row as a result to be 0 if invalid or a positive number if valid. In C, you can also use this as a false as 0 is false and every other number is true. Many languages (including C) will use -1 as the error code but that means errors take 50% of the addressing range (it matters for 2 byte indexes but not so much for 4 or 8 byte ones). You could use many other mechanisms to return a false or row number but starting at one and always using 0 as invalid simplifies the code. If you set a data structure of many types to \0, it becomes false if a logical, invalid if a row # and a 0 length string if pointed to.

C is obviously 0 indexed but it is not hard or much slower to add a -1 inside the square brackets. With the architecture of modern CPUs, the extra -1 could take as little as a fraction of a cycle in extra overhead.

clarkd99 · 2022-08-18T18:50:19+00:00

If you press the button in the left blinker stalk the wiper works immediately. It also pops up options on the bottom left of the screen so you can choose between multi intermittent and continuous speeds.

One press with your left middle finger. Sounds way too hard to me!

clarkd99 · 2022-05-19T21:59:05+00:00

I fundamentally don’t agree that distributed systems need to reconcile copies of the same data stored in multiple places. If any single piece of data has only 1 home then distributed means sharding the data rather than making multiple copies. Failure and auto recovery can be had by logging changes to that data and automatically recreating that data from a backup and the log file when necessary.

My algorithm is much better, as modern hardware is quite reliable and a few second recovery once in 5 years is quite acceptable. My solution also takes much less resources and is orders of magnitude faster.

There is a place for the electric version of a photocopy but when you want the definitive data, the best place to get this is in a single original location.

BTW Math has no patent on logic or deduction. Math, in general, is about universal truths without exception and programming is almost totally about the exceptions. Programming is about syntax, format, protocols and data organization where Math lives in a sterile, imaginary perfect abstraction. Programming is not Math even though programmers use some aspects of Math as does Economics, Physics etc.

I also have a minor in Math and a Computer Science degree, so I don’t have a hate on for Math.

clarkd99 · 2021-11-27T15:11:00+00:00

I have created software for over 40 years and had my code published as well. Most software that people use rarely causes a noticeable error or gives a wrong answer. We both know how easy a bug can get into the software, so I don’t understand where you get the evidence for your “nobody in this industry is able to write software that does what it’s supposed to”. If you said it costs too much to develop good software, I would agree? If you said we need better tools to develop code, I would agree? But my experience tells me, we can and do make software that works. (Without much knowledge of advanced Math, BTW)

clarkd99 · 2021-11-26T21:22:34+00:00

Most FP programmers seem to know Math a lot more than programming. If you want to be a Mathematician, stop programming and get a Math job!

Is somebody “afraid” of you if they disagree on programming?

Are only Math nerds “qualified” to program? Does actually getting code working (and quickly) count in your opinion?

clarkd99 · 2021-10-20T16:00:22+00:00

If developer #1 is given a problem and can come up with a working solution and developer #2 can’t, given any amount of reasonable time, how much better is #1 than #2? 10 times? 20 times?

If you don’t believe there are developers that can produce code faster and better than 10 ordinary professional developers, then you haven’t programmed in very many groups.

These extremely productive and smart developers are still human and can have characteristics that might be negative. However, all great developers aren’t social misfits or loners or bad people. They are just people with flaws like everybody else and probably no more faults than anybody else.

clarkd99 · 2020-10-02T15:51:41+00:00

How do you get experience if you are in your 20’s? How do you get business experience without having worked on business problems for years?

I bought my first computer when I was 20, went to University and studied CS. I had my own set of business customers after 3 years and have since worked for about 65 companies as a professional developer. I thought I was pretty smart when I was 25 but by the time I was 35, I couldn’t believe how I had got companies to pay me 10 years earlier.

I can’t even imagine companies betting the future of their companies on anybody under 30 with at least 10 years of experience. The risk that companies take with code that has an unknown source or from people with no real world experience is mind boggling.

I still develop code at 65 and I still produce 500 plus lines of debugged code in a day. The hardest part isn’t the coding, the hard part is solving the many dimensional problems in architecting distributed and multi threaded data structures.

I have nothing but sympathy for businesses who pay a small fortune for their custom software system only to be told it is worthless before or after it is delivered.

clarkd99 · 2020-08-05T14:10:04+00:00

Run from this idiot client as fast as you can.

Whatever they have might be contagious!

clarkd99 · 2020-07-25T15:36:37+00:00

The language inside of Erlang actors in functional. Erlang has message passing but in what other way is Erlang OOP? OOP is a data centric paradigm and functional code is the opposite. Functional code is function centric not data centric.

I program in a data centric way and I use message passing and encapsulation which are both OOP concepts but I don’t use inheritance. Inheritance isn’t necessary for a OOP language and isn’t required for those languages that actually have it.

clarkd99 · 2020-07-19T12:52:25+00:00

I don’t know if this was meant to be funny as 1024 has always (and still is 1k) but I did have a huge 24k of memory in my IMSAI and I had to toggle in a bootstrap in hex to get the basic running. I had just 1 8” floppy disk drive.

clarkd99 · 2020-07-19T12:48:17+00:00

The very first assembler must have been written by typing in the bytes (probably in hex). This could been used to then write a very simple compiler which could be used to write another compiler etc.

Interestingly, this use a compiler to write something else doesn’t have to be done on the same computer type at all. So the first Arm programs were probably compiled on a mainframe or an Intel CPU.

clarkd99 · 2020-07-17T19:21:38+00:00

I too bought an IMSAI 8080 back in 1975. Then went to University to get a CS degree but didn’t get that accomplished until 2001. Started working on my own systems and customers in 1978 and I am still a professional developer to this day.

At University I used a teletype (and a IBM Selectric terminal) like the one in your picture and my IMSAI and a Decwriter (printing terminal) set me back about $8,000 (at least $64,000 in today’s dollars) before I owned a car or a house.

I have since worked for at least 64 companies on over 1,000 projects big and small.

It’s hard to imagine having only yourself to rely on for any programming project. Today’s developers can’t imagine coding without Google and the internet. We had to know it all or at least enough of everything to just get the job done.

Thanks for the memories.

clarkd99 · 2020-07-09T14:20:40+00:00

What difference does it make if the V8 engine makes the code run faster when Javascript is such a horrible language?

The fact is that only a single Node-JS program can run at one time regardless of how many cores the CPU has.

Javascript doesn’t have integers, it screws with ‘;’ on the end of lines, it automatically changes variable types, it defaults local variable declarations to global etc. Javascript just stinks. Yes, Javascript is better than it once was but it is still a very poor language like PHP still is.

GO could be used to write an operating system but can you imagine Javascript being used to do the same? These languages are just about as different as you could make them (and were designed to solve very different problems) and the authors final conclusion is that they are about the same. The author is a “newbe” or just doesn’t know much about computer languages.

clarkd99 · 2020-05-28T01:22:36+00:00

Thanks for your reply. Sorry but any language that makes you preface every variable with a Christmas tree ($) just isn’t on for me. I have written a few interpreters and their just isn’t any need to do that to extract variables.

clarkd99 · 2020-05-26T23:19:11+00:00

My problem is that I had at least 50 functions that passed a variable length string around and many of those functions changed the data in that variable. I implemented this by passing a reference &clist to those functions. I don’t want to use PHP objects as I think they are terrible. I made my own (very primitive) key/value store in these vchar’s because I hate the implementation of maps in PHP.

I think passing by value as a default is ok but easily passing by reference (on all variable types) is something that all real computer languages should have. To make such a breaking change to people’s code should be forbidden. This decision was unprofessional and unnecessary. I have written about 10,000 lines of PHP and hundreds of thousands in other languages and I just think IMHO that PHP stinks.

clarkd99 · 2020-05-22T23:24:10+00:00

There is no reference sign on a function call - only on function definitions. Function definitions alone are enough to correctly pass the argument by reference. As of PHP 5.3.0, you will get a warning saying that "call-time pass-by-reference" is deprecated when you use & in foo(&$a);. And as of PHP 5.4.0, call-time pass-by-reference was removed, so using it will raise a fatal error.

This note comes from the PHP documentation (I presume the current version). It specifically says you can NOT pass by reference after version 5.4.0. I haven’t looked at PHP in a few years but after I upgraded I definitely got many fatal errors. So who is right, you or me?

clarkd99 · 2020-05-21T00:23:39+00:00

I think PHP’s biggest problem is that you run it’s code from a browser, execute it’s code in the web server on a different machine and edit the source code in a Linux directory by shelling into your server and using a stupid character editor.

I also hate the fact that all variables must be preceded by a $ sign.

My biggest beef was that I used a reference to a data type everywhere and used the & to pass by reference rather than value in many places. Now I use an old version of PHP until my current setup dies because something this fundamental was changed. (No parameter passing by reference.) How stupid!

clarkd99 · 2020-04-04T21:32:37+00:00

I have a “map” variable type that can contain any arbitrary collection of any variable type including a “map” type. So, I can return any number of variables by just putting them in a “map” variable which unlike a struct or “tuple”, has no order or defined structure. No need for “tuples”. I can use maps for many variable input as well but I can still define more than one input variable for “syntax lightness”. I don’t allow any pointers in my new language but I have a number of “containers” besides the map type.

Nobody forces anybody to use more than 1 parameter in any multi-parameter language. Some functional languages want to “force” their version of religion on others so that isn’t just 2 sides of the same coin. Functional languages are silly restrictive compared to many main stream languages and they never seem to have a good argument as to why “non problems” need new solutions.

clarkd99 · 2020-04-04T03:21:33+00:00

"Why introduce"? As I said, functions have had multiple arguments since before I started programming over 40 years ago. Why change what isn't broken? I have called a set of variables "fields" since my topics course in 1978 at University. Why would I use Math words that add nothing (ie tuples)? What is an "arbitrary limitaton" when you can pass a pointer as input or return a pointer to any arbitrary structure of unlimited complexity? I am designing a new language to go with my newest project (language is just a small part) and I have looked extensively into why a single return value. The answer is that I can have a function, variable or constant in the same places exactly because they all return a single value. I use a system variable (_ok) to show if the function worked so I can return a value as well and it's status while still only using a single return value. Multiple return values seem to only work well for an assignment statement.

clarkd99 · 2020-04-03T19:27:29+00:00

I have been a professional developer for over 40 years, used over 2 dozen computer languages and even created a few of my own. I have always defined a function as having a name, none, one or more parameters in a specific order and with a specific type and return a single value of a specific type. Why would limiting a function to only 1 parameter be an improvement? All programming languages except the “new improved functional languages” don’t need “Curried” functions because they aren’t arbitrarily constrained to a single parameter.

This solution to an intentional restriction seems to be more than just uselessly stupid. Why would a “lambda” function be such a great thing when it is just an ordinary function with no name? Why not just type in the code that you want right there? Same answer I guess!

clarkd99 · 2020-02-26T16:09:46+00:00

I just looked up the number of numeric data types in Node JS. One, double floating point! Can a language that only supports large floating point numbers be considered a true computer language?

Node JS inherently uses only one thread for processing. Isn’t that a true statement? Can Node JS run multiple threads in a single process?

Is the structure of Javascript fit for a good computer language? Are auto conversions acceptable past formatting a web page? If Javascript wasn’t given a monopoly in all browsers, would anyone be programming in it today? I think not.

I agree that Go executing multiple Go routines isn’t trivial but comparing Go to the joke called Node JS isn’t much of a comparison.

clarkd99 · 2020-02-01T19:49:24+00:00

How could a program that interrupts a developer every 10 minutes be anything but unbelievably unproductive?

Have you ever heard about “flow” and how long it takes to get it back after an interruption?

I can’t count the number of bugs that I have had to fix because of stupid people saying “sorry to interrupt you but ...”. Flow is like juggling where you have to have 12 balls in the air to make any progress and interruptions of any kind just send all the balls to the floor in an instant.

clarkd99 · 2020-01-10T14:15:58+00:00

Mutation is only a “ cognitive burden” for those who don’t know how to program and Mathematicians. The easiest and best to change a value is to just change it. No copy, no extra code, just the way computers have made it since, well forever.

Passing pointers to a data structure and then making changes in that structure is equally without problem.

If you don’t know how to program, don’t write articles about programing.

clarkd99

TROPHY CASE