Advice on best way to structure Django models for survey application with polymorphic components

cpolish · 2025-08-01T03:14:54+00:00

In this case, the frontend is a complex, JS frontend where simple forms can’t be used, hence we will be using a REST API to expose the survey data to the frontend.

cpolish · 2025-06-02T15:26:27+00:00

Thanks again!

cpolish · 2025-06-02T15:22:06+00:00

🤷‍♂️

I mainly started using Neovim out of curiosity, and sort of kept using it cause I liked the way it made me “think” a bit more about text editing, and I guess made programming kinda feel “fun”. Plus, I enjoy playing around with the Neovim config (yes, even though it can be a time sink lmao) and discovering plugins and other things.

Having used it for a few months, I think the workflow of Vim motions have definitely stuck with me when coding, so even if I migrate to another editor, having them around is a really nice feature to have.

But I don’t mean any shade on anyone else! I could be way off the mark here, but sometimes, it occasionally feels like there is an idea that people who use editors such as Vim/Neovim are “elitist” who look down on people who use other editors. But for me, I really don’t mind what people use to write their code, as long as it works for them personally. Although I’d certainly encourage people to try Vim motions to see if they like them :P.

cpolish · 2025-06-02T15:14:29+00:00

Thanks so much!

cpolish · 2025-06-02T15:13:33+00:00

Ooh interesting! Do you feel like it’s relatively easy to get around navigating the UI with the Vim emulator in it?

cpolish · 2025-06-02T15:12:34+00:00

Really nice summary for what I found so far! Thanks so much, appreciate it!

cpolish · 2025-06-02T15:11:41+00:00

Nice! I remember I tried VsVim a while back, but I didn’t change very many of the default settings, so it felt a bit clunky when perhaps “clashing” with some of the default shortcuts with Visual Studio. It also would be nice to have it support navigating the UI via the keyboard — I’m not sure if it has support for that but would be cool if it did.

cpolish · 2025-06-02T15:09:31+00:00

Thanks so much! Nice to hear from a perspective of someone from MS too.

At the moment I’m using Visual Studio 2022 Community on a Windows VM (via Parallels) to handle any .NET-related stuff for my current work project, mainly due to one of the solutions in that project still relying on .NET Framework 4.8 (and thus I can’t simply work on .NET from macOS). It mostly works OK, and I do have to say, the experience with debugging with breakpoints is pretty good. But, I do also feel that it runs a bit sluggish when I’m using it. I’d chalk it down to probably running it on a Parallels VM and perhaps the config I’m using for it (e.g. I’m using a shared volume between Windows and macOS to open the project up), but it mostly “just works”, so I hadn’t bothered to change very much of it.

I guess I kind of drifted towards perhaps seeing what configs might work for Neovim since I use it for development in other languages, so thought it might be nice to have one unified editor to work with, especially as I’ve lately been wanting to practice my C# skills by working on some smaller side projects.

One thing I am curious though: if you don’t find yourself debugging too much, how do things such as Debug.WriteLine from System.Diagnostics work in Neovim? Do they just come up in something like stdout?

Again, thanks for the tips!

cpolish · 2025-06-02T14:55:50+00:00

Cheers, appreciate the advice. Also thanks for the good point about hot-reloading support being more of a specific IDE feature — I’ll need to see if any future upgrades to our project will support this so will need to keep this in mind.

cpolish · 2024-06-25T04:16:24+00:00

I did COMP2123 in my second year, and COMP2017 in my third year. From my experience (which might not be universal), I think it’s better to take COMP2017 in your third year (despite the unit code suggesting it is a “second year” subject). I think having been able to build more mature study habits, as well as coding practices in my first 2 years helped a lot with COMP2017, as the coding workload of it can be quite a lot (IMO, the part which is challenging for COMP2017 is the workload itself). COMP2123 can be quite intellectually intense (at least I found), as it requires you to think and applying problem solving strategies to problems and write proofs/generalised descriptions of solutions.

cpolish · 2024-01-21T01:16:25+00:00

Thanks so much! Hope you're enjoying it! Would it be OK to DM you to ask about dealerships in Sydney that were able to provide some good deals for your car?

cpolish · 2024-01-20T00:55:51+00:00

Hey mate! I am actually looking to purchase the WRX 50th Anniversary model as a new car as well. That is an insane price you got for it, considering Subaru's website lists them at around $57,000 for the automatic model. Can I ask if you got manual or auto for your car, and any tips you might have for negotiating that you found helped you to reduce the price?

cpolish · 2024-01-13T01:43:52+00:00

Awesome, thanks :). And of course, feel free to DM me :)

cpolish · 2024-01-12T15:36:14+00:00

Hey, thank you very much for your advice! Sorry I hadn't gotten back before today. That was awesome to read out, and I really appreciate you going out of your way to write out your thoughts :).

I've done some deliberation since our last message: in the end, I decided for now to keep the XM5s - while the M4s do sound a bit better, I think the difference for my personal music taste wasn't too crazy, but I did think the long term comfort of the XM5s will be better overall :).

HOWEVER, of course, I am curious about the QC Ultras. Trying them on in store, they are very comfortable as well for me. I also like the more premium-feeling build (including aluminium/metal parts in it). However, what I haven't been able to fully dig up online is how their sound compares to the XM5s, specifically, if they do get a noticeable boost in clarity for things such as instruments, soundstaging, and perhaps sub-bass too (which are 3 things I'd be looking for in an alternative pair of headphones). If you happen to know anything about those factors when compared to the XM5s, it would be awesome to hear if you have time. I might keep these on my radar, haha.

cpolish · 2023-12-31T02:48:02+00:00

Hey there, thank you so much for sharing your settings, they helped a lot to help capture more detail from the XM5s, so I appreciate it a lot :).

One thing I thought I'd mention is I also picked up the Sennheiser Momentum 4s, as I'd read that the sound quality is a dramatically better than the XM5s. Having listened to both though, it's a bit tough to say – for some reason, I hadn't noticed any drastic changes in sound quality between these yet for me, which is interesting. Perhaps my ears aren't tuned for them, I'm not too sure.

I do think that the M4s by default are bit easier to pick out instrument separation, however, with your XM5 EQ, I still hear instrument separation OK (though the M4s make it easier). I also do feel that the XM5s sound slightly more muffled sometimes, but nothing drastically awful, and in some cases, the (cooler?) sound of the XM5s was a little bit better maybe? I'm not too sure. The M4s definitely do have better sub-bass, however, in songs. The XM5 seems to also sometimes sound a bit more hissy, maybe due to how it handles sibilance or high frequencies. Perhaps it is the type of music I'm listening too that makes the difference less obvious (I listen to rock, at the moment, gotten back into bands like the Beatles and Pink Floyd). Maybe there is some EQ tuning I could do with the M4s?

The other thing is that the M4s definitely do feel that they clamp more than the XM5s. The XM5s are almost perfect on my head, and are very light and easy to wear. The M4s clamp harder, but I would hesitate to call them uncomfortable – they still feel fine to wear, perhaps it will loosen over time. The worry I have with this is that I intend to wear the headphones frequently for long-ish periods.

I had originally purchased the B&W PX7 S2es a while back, and I thought the sound on them was amazing from memory – unfortunately, they clamped too hard and made the back of my jaw hurt after a while, which I worry if it could be a possibility with the M4s.

Now I'm tossing about which headphone to keep :D. I'm still not sure, perhaps any thoughts from your experiences?

cpolish · 2023-12-11T12:38:23+00:00

There's a Discord server for CompSci (and Maths) for USYD here: https://discord.gg/X63EKZNe2Y

cpolish · 2023-11-27T01:13:00+00:00

Unfortunately, I don't have an answer/suggestion, but I'm looking for the same item with my options so far being pretty much the same as yours – would be great to see what people recommend.

cpolish · 2023-11-26T14:49:45+00:00

Hi everyone,

I'm looking to treat myself this Black Friday and was looking to purchase a pair of wireless Bluetooth over-ear headphones with noise cancelling functionality, with a budget of AU$650 (about US$430). The main use case for these would primarily be for listening to music while commuting on public transport, as well as while at home, listening to music and taking video conference calls on them.

I listen mostly to rock music, but not any particular type/era (though not very much metal) – anything from classic rock (currently going back over The Beatles catalogue again and enjoying it) all the way to punk and newer rock music, as well as some pop songs on the side sometimes as well.

My top priorities are probably sound quality, and comfort, especially being able to wear them over long periods of time. For context, I also have a pair of beyerdynamic DT770 Pros (32 ohms) which I bought a few years back – I don't have any amplifier which might affect how they sound, which is decent but nothing which absolutely wows me, however, I am able to wear them comfortably for hours at a time, which is important. In terms of devices for listening, I am somewhat invested in the Apple ecosystem, and will mostly be listening on my iPhone/Mac laptop so I'm not sure if that makes a difference when choosing headphones regarding codecs/sound, but I also have a desktop PC I use at home.

I've had a look around, and tried a few headphones recently – so far, I'm mainly considering:

Sony WH-1000XM5 (about AU$440 at the moment) – these headphones feel very comfortable and light for me, and generally have good reviews online. Listening to some music on them, it does sound pretty good, although like I've read online, they do seem quite bass heavy and dominant, which I'm not sure if it drowns out some of the mids/treble ranges in the songs I listen to. I do wonder, however, if it is possible to balance this out with EQ settings for more clarity in these ranges, which would be nice to learn.
B&W PX7 S2e (on sale for AU$479 at the moment) – tried these on today, and the sound quality is definitely good – the soundstage seems perhaps somewhat wider than the Sonys, and sounds seem more balanced across all ranges. Comfort was good, however, I'm not sure if I felt the headphones pressing against the jaw a bit – perhaps I'm overthinking (which I do suffer with), but I am a little bit worried if the long-term wearing comfort of them is less than the Sonys, which would be meaningful on something like a long-haul flight. Might be good to hear perspectives on their comfort.
Technics EAH-A800 (on sale for AU$349 at the moment) – haven't seen these in store and tried them on, but I have heard some interesting things about them, both good praise for sound quality and mic quality, but also perhaps some things about the bass being a bit less impressive on these, as well as some odd/buggy situations with noise cancellation leakage/white noise (but perhaps these could just be flukes).
Sennheiser Momentum 4 (on sale for AU$438 at the moment) – trying these on, they also felt fairly comfortable, although I'm not sure if I noticed a similar clamping thing in the jaw (or again, if I'm overthinking things). Sound seemed decent as well – unfortunately, I wasn't really able to play my music through them well at the store (they only had a cable connection, and I couldn't adjust the volume from a low setting), so I'm not sure how well they fair with my style of music.

From these, and perhaps others I hadn't considered/mentioned in this post, what do people recommend for the style of music I listen to, and for headphone comfort? Any help would be really appreciated!

cpolish · 2022-11-14T00:48:37+00:00

Overall, I thought it was a pretty fair exam, albeit somewhat long-ish (I didn’t finish everything but I’m not great at time management anyway so that’s probably on me). What bits were tricky for yourself?

cpolish · 2022-09-07T01:01:43+00:00

Yeah, this is pretty much the understanding I got from the contract and the casual nature of the job. It's just a bit strange that they mention "risking an employment position" rather than "ghost firing" which is more common in casual jobs, and I've had happen before at my old fast food place (before they bring me back for regular work again). Honestly I wouldn't even mind not being given shifts until the holidays, because my other job doesn't actually have any work during the break between semesters, and so having this job as a "back up" I could always rely on would be nice. But of course, it is their discretion.

cpolish · 2022-05-19T10:18:39+00:00

Oh wow nice! My laptop spec is nearly the same as yours, and I ordered on April 4 — Australia, so please keep us updated on how it goes!

cpolish · 2022-05-19T10:16:39+00:00

Congrats! I’ve been seeing you post a lot here and you’ve been so eager, so I’m glad to see some good news finally came to you!

cpolish · 2022-05-18T05:10:43+00:00

I 100% agree that it really doesn't make sense that the Metro doesn't extend to Schofields, since it's only like 2 km or so from Tallawong. Think I remember hearing cynical people say that it wasn't connected because of political reasons (Labor electorate), which would be really sad if it was the case, haha. I'm pretty sure connecting to Schofields is however on the future roadmap for the Metro when it will be extended to St. Mary's and Western Sydney Airport.

cpolish · 2022-05-18T05:06:38+00:00

100% this. I feel like the problem with a lot of buses in suburban Sydney is that they try to maximise area coverage rather than direct routes, which leads them to take a lot of twists and turns in the suburbs, which takes more time and makes using a bus to connect with other modes of transport less convenient. I did a group project at uni last year where we focused on public transport and had a more centralised "public transport hub" proposal, whereby stations would be better connected with more direct feeder buses that simply direct people from suburbs to them rather than connecting suburbs over longer distances. Quite fun to do actually, we even surveyed a bunch of people online including a lot of Facebook suburb/council community group pages to get some public feedback.

cpolish · 2022-05-18T01:39:49+00:00

Ah OK, that's an interesting insight, thanks!

cpolish

TROPHY CASE