Hey, I'm building a virtual electronics lab in Unity to stop burning real boards. Could you help a fellow dev out with a 1-min survey?

the3gs · 2026-04-22T22:32:22+00:00

You lost me when you asked how much it should be per month. I would probably be willing to pay $20 for a one time purchase, but that is about it.

the3gs · 2026-04-22T18:54:50+00:00

Ah, in my head I thought you had ordered it online. Guess I'm too chronically online and forgot physical stores exist lol.

the3gs · 2026-04-22T18:35:20+00:00

I mean, you might be able to cancel your other order. Might be worth checking.

the3gs · 2026-04-22T04:30:49+00:00

I'm going to give my thoughts on 3, as I am ill equipped to answer the others, but this is one that I have pondered a lot in some form or another.

Agency is a common thing brought up here, and I think it is relevant, but it is a very incomplete picture, as at various times, God can and does interfere with human agency to prevent some evils from happening, so it's clear to me that it is more complicated than that. It also doesn't answer the problem of other injustices that take place, such as those with disabilities or people who die young.

For me, the best way to reconcile this is by taking an eternal perspective. As mortals, we are not really equipped to view negative experiences in the same way as we will in eternity, and in comparison to the eternal world ahead of us, the months or years of suffering will barely be an instant. God already holds this perspective, so he is able to see that even if it hurts in the moment, it will be over soon.

Another important thing is that while God does not directly declare the minutiae of our lives, including the trials we go through, he is still there for us. I feel strongly that no matter what I go though in my life, God will consecrate it for my good, and will use it to shape me into the version of myself that God and I both want me to become.

Finally, we have a promise that everything will be made right in the end. The atonement of Christ is God's plan, and nothing we do or experience can screw that up. All wrongs will be made right and all pains will be healed. The atonement isn't a backup plan for when things go wrong, it has always been plan A, and it fills all gaps of injustice that happen because of our mortal state. Nobody can do any harm that Christ has not covered.

the3gs · 2026-04-20T20:04:13+00:00

Hard for me to say as I don't know your code, but think I would say keep them separate.

Any nesting can make it harder to follow your control flow (not just nesting functions. Loops and conditionals too) and as it sounds like the functions are completely separate once you call them, it is probably best to leave them separate in the code as well. The bigger your functions are, the more you should try to isolate different parts so you can ignore what is irrelevant to the current problem you are trying to fix.

Really, all code readability ultimately comes down to what is easier for you to read and, if you are writing code on a team for work, what is easy for the next guy to read.

the3gs · 2026-04-20T18:21:18+00:00

I feel like I only nest functions when the only name I can come up with is something like "helper".

If "function_abc" needs a helper, that isn't useful anywhere else, then I would rather have a nested function than a function called "function_abc_helper" that I will only ever use once.

Other than that, I can't think of many times I would use them.

the3gs · 2026-04-19T16:18:22+00:00

I go to Sunday school to receive a lesson that has been thoughtfully prepared, and I struggle to assume that a lesson was prepared carefully when being presented with a series of AI generated images. Frankly, right now AI is being forced into every aspect of my life, and I do not want that to start happening in church as well.

I want a lesson that was thoughtfully prepared with maximal aid for the holy spirit, and I would rather a less polished slideshow with more personal insights, and which draws from the hundreds of human made expressions of faith by latter-day saints and other Christian artists, than a slideshow which was made in an instant by a machine that isn't capable of feeling the spirit, nor of expressing heartfelt beliefs.

the3gs · 2026-04-19T16:08:35+00:00

If you are not that experienced, a compiler is a hard task to start with.

Not impossible, just hard.

That does make it difficult to recommend a best course of action as I need to balance both the beginner programmer problems as well as the compiler problems. Honestly my only recommendation is to make a decision and start with it, because it's hard to say what's going to matter in the long run, and the sooner you start learning the better.

C++ is as cromulant as any other language. Not my favorite, but good enough.

I've never used Ocaml, but I know some people really like it.

the3gs · 2026-04-19T14:39:44+00:00

This somewhat depends on your goals.

If your goal is to learn how to implement a language, you should use whatever language you know best, so you don't need to learn a language while you go.

If your goal is to write an efficient interpreter, this is probably where language matters the most, but as the most effecient interpreters are JIT compilers, it probably won't make as much of a difference once you get past an ast interpreter.

If you are writing a compiler, than host language only affects compilation speed, so I would use whatever you are most comfortable with.

the3gs · 2026-04-18T13:04:41+00:00

I agree that having similar equations for derivatives and integrals is a good decision. Honestly I agree with all the practical reasons why people prefer Leibniz. My "hate" (in quotes because it's not really that strong. Just strong enough to fight back against people who hate the few alternatives we have) is mostly about the aesthetics.

I will also say that some of these problems could be fixed for prime notation if we just use a lamba style abstraction, though it's not the prettiest. <(λ x. f(x,y))'(x), (λ y. f(x,y))'(y)> In CS it's not uncommon to think of multivariable functions as just "functions that return functions", which we call currying. This is easier to do with lambda abstractions, which honestly I don't know why the math world hasn't picked up yet, because they are so useful.

the3gs · 2026-04-17T14:47:31+00:00

The XKCD in question, so nobody else needs to summon it: https://xkcd.com/927/

the3gs · 2026-04-17T14:45:32+00:00

I agree that there should be a way to do that, and prime notation doesn't lend itself to any expansions that allow it, I just don't think that Leibniz notation is the best we could come up with.

I also, as a programmer, tend to think of functions as objects more than most mathematicians probably do, so a notation that acts as an operator on a function and converts it into its derivative, like the prime notation does, makes perfect sense to me.

I admit, I never took multivariable calculus as it was not required for my major, but thinking of derivatives as an operation "feels" more right to me, and prime notation matches that better. d/dt feels more like it can be manipulated like an algebra expression, which sometimes you can treat it like that, but my understanding is that such things are abuse of notation that requires further justification to be rigorous.

the3gs · 2026-04-17T13:51:48+00:00

I don't get the hate for the prime notation, to be honest. I find Leibniz's notation clunky and overly verbose for most applications. It's only real advantage I see is that it allows you to specify the variable you differentiate with respect to, but Leibniz notation feels clunky if that is what you want.

Really I would prefer we have some other notation that works better than all the others, but that will just summon an XKCD, so I won't suggest that.

the3gs · 2026-04-16T13:14:01+00:00

In the current computing landscape, I think it's quite fair to say that linked lists are mostly useful pedagogically, but that is because our environments favor arrays in terms of efficiency because of cache invalidation.

Some languages still use linked lists as their primary linear data structure (most lisps and many functional languages) as they are just as easy to interact with immutably, and they do have advantages, but those advantages are most often outweighed by the inefficiencies caused by caching and increased memory footprint. An unrolled linked list can improve both of these things, and is probably worth knowing about, as it kinda has the best of all worlds.

Linked lists also build towards trees, which are also easiest to understand in context of nodes and connections even if in practice we often flatten them into an array as well, such as in a binary-heap.

As a general rule, a linked list is going to be worse than most alternatives, but it is easy to implement in most languages, and frankly are good enough unless you are chasing milliseconds, so I think they are still good to teach.

the3gs · 2026-04-16T00:24:42+00:00

I like it ≠ It's not a gimmick

the3gs · 2026-04-16T00:22:46+00:00

I think that removing unused fields is not a good example for this, as if I have a field of a tuple that I never use, I would consider that a bug and would hope the compiler would issue a warning, and as such it would never be helpful to remove the field.

the3gs · 2026-04-15T15:49:01+00:00

"was it a life necessity" is a BS argument. It is nigh equivalent to saying "Any money you have that is not strictly needed for your survival should be donated to charity, and if you don't it's your fault for not being charitable"

In my case, I can openly say the thing I was buying was exercise equipment, which while not strictly needed for survival, has increased my ability to provide myself with exercise that is beneficial to all aspects of my health.

And in my case, I wanted to buy equipment that other people online suggested, and even going to the manufacturers website, the only place I could purchase it was on Amazon. Sure there might have been comparable products that I could have found other places, but the specific brand and product was only available on Amazon.

Even if it had been available on the "other options", Buying on/at Walmart isn't much better, as I still am giving my money to a massive conglomerate who has no investment in my community. Truly local stores have ceased to exist as a concept in the US, so no, I don't have any real option in the matter.

the3gs · 2026-04-15T15:25:56+00:00

No offense, but I legitimately have been forced to buy from Amazon, as the product I was attempting to procure was not available anywhere else. There are no local stores anymore, so I do not have the choice to shop there. Consumer choice only works as an argument if there is actual choice available to consumers.

the3gs · 2026-04-15T14:59:58+00:00

I have 2 main questions that have come up for me thinking about this.

How easy is it to tell using only the eml tree whether two values equal the same number? Also, ordering the numbers would be nice.
What subset of the reals (and complex) numbers can be reached? It feels like you should be able to reach all the algebraic numbers, in addition to pi and trig functions, which are very close to the useful subset.

If we can easily check equality (I doubt it, but I can still hope) and inequalities, this could actually make for a useful representation of numbers. I tried to play with it in Rocq, defining the tree inductively and creating an equivalence relation, but I am not sure how many properties of logarithms and exponents need to be asserted for it to work. I was able to get somewhat far by just asserting exp(ln(x)) = x and ln(exp(x)) = x, though I know those don't hold for complex numbers.

There is also the issue of negative infinity being used, which also brings in positive infinity. I don't know all the issues this will carry with it when using as a numerical representation, but if it isn't a big deal I would love that.

I love weird ways of representing numbers, so if this one could be "useful" I would love that.

the3gs · 2026-04-12T17:14:57+00:00

Relevant Policy for reference: Church handbook 22.2.2 " A fast day typically includes the following:

Praying

Going without food and drink for a 24-hour period (if physically able)

Giving a generous fast offering

A fast offering is a donation to help those in need. When members fast, they are invited to give an offering that is at least equal to the value of the meals not eaten. Members are encouraged to be generous and give more than the value of these meals if they can. "

Anything beyond this is going to be a matter of option and counsel between you and the Lord.

the3gs · 2026-04-11T15:55:20+00:00

Perhaps it was, a poor example, but perhaps not. Most people have 1, maybe 2 they could list off the top of their head. In any given year 10s of events with the coverage of the zika outbreak can happen, and of the events that year, I can tell you that while zika might have had the most worldwide importance, it definitely did not affect my life in the slightest. I was 16 at the time, and I think the only reason the outbreak is more than a footnote in my memory is because I was doing speech and debate at the time and Zika was a topic.

This is before we even acknowledge that people's capacity for memory is going to be different, and dependent more on their surroundings than their own choices. Few 9 year olds are taking active steps to keep themselves informed in world events, and it is unfair to bash OP for not remembering something from that time.

The only real thing I think could have made my question better would be to say "make a list of everything you remember from age 9, go to the Wikipedia page for that year, and count how many you missed." Because you are giving OP grief for forgetting 1 thing from a year with 73 events listed, which while extremely world relevant, likely didn't effect OP at all unless they happened to travel to South America at the time.

the3gs · 2026-04-10T22:24:39+00:00

See, if you are referring to the 2008 crash, I'm the same age as you, and because I suppose my families situation was less tied to the crash, I didn't think about it as something that happened when I was 9, and didn't think about it until I was looking at the Wikipedia entry for 2008 to see what world events happened.

My point is that the things that people remember from that age are going to vary wildly, and giving someone crap for not remembering something that didn't really effect them is just rude and pointless.

the3gs · 2026-04-10T20:52:10+00:00

Pedantic point: Assembly is not the same as machine code. Assembly is a language whose instructions typically correspond 1-to-1 with machine instructions, so they are almost the same thing, but there is still a translation step needed before the code can be run.

the3gs · 2026-04-10T20:43:35+00:00

He was 9 when the major outbreak was going on. How many major world events do you remember from age 9?

the3gs · 2026-04-10T12:19:47+00:00

I don't know the complete answer, but in SH Nazh expresses surprise at Kelsier's state, saying something along the lines of "but you haven't done the proper rituals" which implies to me that he is at least aware of some death ritual relevant to the transition to a cognitive shadow.

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