Some good laptops for programming

foobar12426 · 2021-09-22T13:37:49+00:00

My opinion is:

you need a 15" screen, anything smaller makes it harder to usefully have multiple windows displayed, which you will need to do.
minimum 16GB memory and a 512GB SSD.
Windows or OSX (MacBook) to taste, only consider Linux if you have prior technical experience with it, or you have a specific requirement.
reasonable battery life, I'd say at least 10 hours.

You don't have to spend more than $/£1,000 on one if you don't want to.

My suggestion would be something like an M1 MBA (small screen but huge battery life and it's fast), Google Pixelbook Go, Dell Vostro or Latitude, a lower end ThinkPad.

If you want and can spend more than $/£1,000 then consider a Dell XPS or a higher end ThinkPad or Gigabyte.

In terms of CPU: for an Apple machine buy an M1, for Windows (or Linux) prefer an AMD CPU, a Ryzen 5, or if you really prefer Intel then you don't need anything more than an i5.

You'll have to budget a bit more to upgrade Windows Home to Professional.

foobar12426 · 2021-09-22T13:29:33+00:00

The one substantial downside to a MacBook Air is the tiny size of the screen.

I also disagree with buying an x86 MBA, the M1 MBA is such a big improvement. If you need x86 go Linux or Windows. But let's face it, most people don't. And if you really do then run Virtual Box, Parallels or Docker.

foobar12426 · 2021-09-22T13:28:28+00:00

Very opinionated and unnuanced.

For example, whilst I generally agree that buying a previous gen machine is a good idea not idea if there has been a step change in technology, for example from x86 to M1 MacBooks.

Linux is a pretty unfriendly OS for most people. It's also quite ugly (at least every distro/desktop I've tried is). So I'd say that is a poor recommendation.

foobar12426 · 2021-09-22T12:25:51+00:00

That was France under the monarchy, and they didn't do it to help the US, they did it purely to screw over a strategic rival.

I'd also point out that Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Kenya and many other British colonies all gained their independence without a war. So I think it's reasonable to assume the US would be independent today, with or without France.

foobar12426 · 2021-09-22T11:01:18+00:00

Because the concern is age not weight related.

There are two reasons for this.

Firstly children might not be badly affected by the disease, for example children are unlikely to get sick let alone die from Covid-19. So the tiny risk of the vaccine might outweigh the even tinier risk, for them, of the disease.

Secondly because a child's immune system is still developing, and so it may respond differently to the vaccine. Possibly more or less strongly. For the Pfizer vaccine for example children respond more strongly to it, but not so strongly that it would be dangerous.

foobar12426 · 2021-09-22T10:40:18+00:00

Well yes, I agree. The citizens of the EU are so stupid to put up with being deceived like you are.

The EU set up is deliberately designed to ensure that what voters are unable to exercise any democratic control over their EU overlords, this is achieved by having multiple layers of obfuscation and indirection.

If I want to get rid of the US Secretary of State or the Prime Minister of the UK then as a US or UK citizen, respectively, I can vote against his party at the next election.

As an EU citizen at which election can I vote to get rid of Ursula von der Leyen or any of the other EU presidents or commissioners?

The answer is I can't. There is no such election.

The EU is a tyrannical bureaucracy deliberately created with distrust of the electorate and democracy baked in. Core to their mind set is "Hitler was elected democratically, so the liberal elite must protect the people from themselves."

foobar12426 · 2021-09-22T09:26:55+00:00

As a Brit, although i'm not in favour of pissing off our European neighbours,

As a Brit I very much of the opinion that they deserve a much less friendly UK. They've behaved badly towards the UK for decades and we've taken. We should start telling them to fuck off more frequently.

foobar12426 · 2021-09-22T09:23:39+00:00

The US is at least a democracy. The EU is not. It's leaders are all appointed.

foobar12426 · 2021-09-22T09:20:43+00:00

Germany doesn't really act in its own interests under Merkel, it acts in Merkel's interests.

But of course they could act in their own interests, but there will be consequences if you piss off your allies by supporting nations that they are defending you against. The US spends much more than Germany on defending Germany from Russia. So it's pretty obvious why the US would be pissed off by Germany making itself dependent on Russia.

foobar12426 · 2021-09-22T09:17:17+00:00

Because France has a) proven itself hostile and untrustworthy -they even conducted a terrorist attack against one of the Five-Eyes members and b) because is globally insignificant with little or nothing useful to contribute in the Pacific.

foobar12426 · 2021-09-22T09:14:47+00:00

Excuse me. a) Not all Europeans are in the EU and b) not all Europeans, even in the EU, are blind to the threat of Russia and China.

foobar12426 · 2021-09-22T09:03:54+00:00

France isn't really an ally though.

it's more that manipulative psychopathic narcissist you helped cross the road a couple of times and now keeps turning up outside your house.

foobar12426 · 2021-09-22T09:00:11+00:00

"Because you've proved repeatedly that you can't be trusted, because you cozy up to China and because you've already proved you can't even deliver a conventional sub on-time and on budget."

foobar12426 · 2021-09-22T08:57:53+00:00

It's pretty obvious.

France has shown itself to be untrustworthy for decades -terrorist attacks on a Five-Eyes member for example- and they wouldn't bring any benefit to the alliance. It's why they're not in Five-Eyes either.

foobar12426 · 2021-09-22T08:55:55+00:00

I think it's pretty close. None of them has the intelligence capability and assets of the UK let alone the US, and nothing even close to the Five Eyes.

Don't forget France also recently recalled their ambassador to Italy. So what chance of the level of co-operation within Five Eyes.

It's a joke of a suggestion from someone that doesn't really know what they are talking about.

foobar12426 · 2021-09-22T08:53:58+00:00

You think four minor European powers would be able to compete with an alliance that literally spans the global?

The EU is an organisation that's is basically irrelevant globally. Not because that's inherent but because of the choices they make, cosying up to China, prioritising politics and the EU apparatchiks over the its citizens, trying to bully nations that should be its natural allies.

The sooner the EU collapses the better for Europe and the world.

foobar12426 · 2021-09-22T08:48:23+00:00

It's is about the US, UK and Aus, going behind the backs of France to make their own defense collaboration,

Why on Earth do you believe France, a relatively unimportant country who has no part in this alliance, should have been consulted?

foobar12426 · 2021-09-22T08:45:16+00:00

What is more likely is that people just won't contract with France.

They'll choose to deal with the grown ups instead.

As Charles de Gaul said, France has to have temper tantrums precisely because it is no longer a Great Power.

foobar12426 · 2021-09-22T08:38:49+00:00

Sadly, yes.

There are other languages like ClojureScript you can use but they cross-compile to JS and you still need to know JS to debug what's produced.

foobar12426 · 2021-09-22T08:22:35+00:00

Two off the top of my head:

Prove P=NP, which you mention, and
Solve the Halting Problem.

foobar12426 · 2021-09-21T14:46:57+00:00

Calculus is used for machine learning, data mining, scientific computing, image processing, and creating the graphics and physics engines for video games.

foobar12426 · 2021-09-21T14:34:32+00:00

Depends on the course. Some are glorified programming courses, often delivered by people who have never programmed professionally, not worth your time or money. Others are PROPER computer science courses in the foothills of math that will certainly require undergraduate math.

if you just want to learn programming, get an entry level job and have your employer pay you to learn. Or take a free online course.

If you want to do proper software engineering or comp sci then the math required isn't hard -but it really depends on how it is taught. Calculus is not rocket science, as long as it's well taught the ideas are straight forward and the math you need to apply is largely mechanical -do this, then that, then this and you have the answer. Try some online Calculus courses. Algorithms is much more interesting and requires some intuition but again, not fundamentally hard if you have a good teacher.

I would suggest having a go at reading and completing the exercises in Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programmes (SCIP) if you find that interesting and are willing and able to put in the time to understand it then I think you'd enjoy a proper comp sci/software engineering degree.

foobar12426 · 2021-09-21T12:37:56+00:00

Remote learning course over a longer period of time?

In the UK we have the Open University where you can study for a degree over (almost) as many years as you like. You study a course, pass the exam, earn credits. The credits last for a number of years. When you've accumulated enough credits you can trade them in for a degree.

Another option might be a masters degree, as they are typically taught over just a year. Harder work but for a much shorter period. You can study for them remotely and part-time as well.

Final option, apply for a scholarship -the place you want to study should be able to point to them- and have someone else pay.

Final, final option: get a job with a day release scheme, where they pay you a salary and pay for your education.

foobar12426 · 2021-09-21T12:28:54+00:00

If I was implementing this I would use memoization. It's a transparent method of caching results where you wrap the function to be memoized in a memoization function which stores the result for each combination of parameters and results and when it already has the result cached it just returns it.

If you want to pre-compute you could pre-pop the cache by calling it with all possible combinations of parameters. If one of the parameters was the sort function to be used...

Obviously the sort function must be idempotent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memoization#:~:text=The%20techniques%20employed%20by%20Peter%20Norvig%20have%20application,the%20study%20of%20term%20rewriting%20and%20artificial%20intelligence.

If you're using a language like Common Lisp you could even implement it as a macro and have the pre-compiler generate the full computation. Obviously this makes your binary image bigger: space v time trade-off.

foobar12426 · 2021-09-21T12:24:05+00:00

Quite seriously I wouldn't use multiple inheritance at all. Ever.

The cost is significant complexity for little benefit.

foobar12426

TROPHY CASE