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Cold Showers: For when people get too hyped up about things

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Re: Cold Showers: For when people get too hyped up about things

#31

Post by wccrawford »

GlennS wrote: post #23
quonn wrote: post #10

I wish it would be possible to have better studies for that. I believe that static typing has huge benefits as software scales. I also believe that the type system of TypeScript is actually stronger in practice than the Java or C# one (despite theoretical weaknesses). It has the right tradeoffs (e.g. structural equivalence, being able to type strings, being able to check that all cases are handled, etc.) It would be…

People who like static typing seem to really like static typing. I'm honestly not convinced it helps that much. And it seems to cost a lot to me. I like database and API schemas though. And I like clojure.spec and function preconditions a lot.

It depends on the situation. I've had code that absolutely benefited from static types and it helped me find bugs before they happened.

But my current job has very, very little that would benefit from static typing. Adding it into the mix would slow us down, both literally and figuratively.

Re: Cold Showers: For when people get too hyped up about things

#33

Post by Spivak »

threeseed wrote: post #25
Multicomp wrote: post #16

I love that sqlite article. It seems like "everyone" is certain that sqlite can only be used for up to a single query per second, anything more and you need to spin up a triple sharded postgres or Hadoop cluster because it 'needs to scale'. I love being able to show that study, if you properly architect your sqlite system and am willing to purchase hardware, you can go a long long way, much further than almost all co…

My favourite part is how they: (a) built their own transaction/caching/replication layer using Blockchain no less. (b) paid SQLite team to add a number of custom modifications. (c) used expensive, custom, non-ephemeral hardware. Now you could do all of this or just use an off the shelf database that you aren't having to write custom code to use and if you choose a distributed one e.g. Cassandra will be able to run on…

This really isn't a fair take on the situation.

(a) They implemented a very boring transaction/caching/replication layer that is like any other DB except they borrowed the idea that "longest chain" should be used for conflict resolution.

(b) They worked with upstream to get a few patches that were unique to their use-case. Once you're in deep with any DB this really isn't that uncommon.

(c) They used a dedicated (lol non-ephemeral) white-box server that has a lower amortized cost than EC2.

(d) Bedrock isn't bound to the hardware. You could run it on EC2 and reap the benefits just the same except you'd pay more.

Re: Cold Showers: For when people get too hyped up about things

#34

Post by pydry »

carlmr wrote: post #12
timClicks wrote: post #2

Hillel (the editor of this list) is one of the people in this industry that is going to make a tremendous difference to the world. His ability to make formal verification understandable, and therefore useful in practice, is unparalleled.

I think the biggest issue with formal verification, is that you need to rewrite the important parts of your code in (for example) TLA+. If it's integrated into the language, like ADA Spark, you don't need to learn so much additional syntax or rewrite parts of your codebase in a language you rarely use (given that you already work in ADA).

My biggest issue with formal verification after doing it a couple of times was how absurdly complex the specification needed to be for it to work.

If the spec is 5x more complicated than the code would be then I'm not sure I see much of a point coz you're just creating different spaces for bugs to hide in.

Re: Cold Showers: For when people get too hyped up about things

#35

Post by jedimastert »

ahelwer wrote: post #11
gonzo41 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is taking cold showers like a machismo SV thing?

Yes. Like stoicism. You aren't emotionally insensitive/unintelligent, you're a masculine Roman general!

How is stoicism a SV thing? It's kinda been around for a while...

Re: Cold Showers: For when people get too hyped up about things

#36

Post by pixelrevision »

GlennS wrote: post #23
quonn wrote: post #10

I wish it would be possible to have better studies for that. I believe that static typing has huge benefits as software scales. I also believe that the type system of TypeScript is actually stronger in practice than the Java or C# one (despite theoretical weaknesses). It has the right tradeoffs (e.g. structural equivalence, being able to type strings, being able to check that all cases are handled, etc.) It would be…

People who like static typing seem to really like static typing. I'm honestly not convinced it helps that much. And it seems to cost a lot to me. I like database and API schemas though. And I like clojure.spec and function preconditions a lot.

Clojure spec seems like the way to go. I really like that it defines what should be going in and out while leaving it really easy to merge incoming data without having to write a bunch of extra code.

Re: Cold Showers: For when people get too hyped up about things

#37

Post by pantaloony »

jdmoreira wrote: post #32

> Static vs Dynamic Typing All research is inconclusive? Sure. I wonder what kind of type systems were in there? I guess Java and similars are accounted and yet I wouldn’t put any faith in them. ML, Swift, Haskell... now that’s something else.

It doesn’t account for the communication value of static types. Personally, I consider static types primarily a communication tool, so IMO the review’s interesting but not very useful per se. Also the main point of it seems to be “research on this topic is mostly bad, so far, so who the hell knows what’s true”. It could be that the research has sucked, not that there’s little discernible difference between the two on the dimensions measured.

Re: Cold Showers: For when people get too hyped up about things

#38

Post by doublerabbit »

tutfbhuf wrote: post #24
Multicomp wrote: post #16

I love that sqlite article. It seems like "everyone" is certain that sqlite can only be used for up to a single query per second, anything more and you need to spin up a triple sharded postgres or Hadoop cluster because it 'needs to scale'. I love being able to show that study, if you properly architect your sqlite system and am willing to purchase hardware, you can go a long long way, much further than almost all co…

Why choose sqlite over MySQL on a single server (e.g. small vm instance)?

Overhead.

SQLite resources are a lot lower due to the database being a flatfile on the OS. It's only main resource is storage.

MySQL is a application that not only requires configuration, tweaking, turning and tender-loving-care but consumes constant resources utilising the processor, memory and storage.

Re: Cold Showers: For when people get too hyped up about things

#40

Post by quickthrower2 »

Multicomp wrote: post #16

I love that sqlite article. It seems like "everyone" is certain that sqlite can only be used for up to a single query per second, anything more and you need to spin up a triple sharded postgres or Hadoop cluster because it 'needs to scale'. I love being able to show that study, if you properly architect your sqlite system and am willing to purchase hardware, you can go a long long way, much further than almost all co…

I don’t use SQLite on a server for the simple reason I’m to lazy to look after it. There are cloud managed sql server or psql databases. AWS backs me up by default. Why mess around with SQLite.

Not knocking SQLite - great for desktop apps or maybe local dev environments.

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