Fast • Hacker News Board

Re: Fast

#301

Post by rurp » Fri, Jul 07, 2023, 5:59 PM UTC

systemvoltage wrote: post #234

rurp wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Autocracy gets shit done. On certain high profile projects, sure. But autocracy typically embeds a lot of corruption at every level of the system which creates a drag in many ways. A system that prioritizes loyalty and obedience to your superiors more than anything tends to have a lot of waste.

Counter point: Autocracies are actually extremely efficient, but we don't like to admit that. So, we come up with various narratives. Let's be honest, there is plenty of corruption in democracies and autocracies are pretty damn good at infrastructure. Just not an ideal governing structure for individual freedom and things like property rights which we value higher than efficiency of building things fast.

I agree that a good autocrat can be more effective than a democracy, but also think that bad ones are much worse. Plus autocracies are notoriously bad at picking good rulers/successors, so you end up with a lot more poorly run than well run countries.

Re: Fast

#302

Post by GabrielTFS » Fri, Jul 07, 2023, 11:36 PM UTC

lloydatkinson wrote: post #290

edwinwee wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes

Why?

I would assume it's for the same reason I've seen many instances of this in similar cases: because it's funny.

(e.g. https://unicode.org/L2/L2016/16325.htm#149-A93)

Re: Fast

#303

Post by fragmede » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 2:19 AM UTC

wildrhythms wrote: post #282

fragmede wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been 15 years and we have 50 miles of guideway complete, with 39 more underway; 41 structures complete, and 29 more underway¹. Some of the completed structures include: - The Cedar Viaduct, a 3,700-foot-long bridge over State Route 99 in Fresno, which features a signature double arch design². - The Hanford Viaduct, a 3,300-foot-long bridge over the Kings River and State Route 43 in Kings County, which is the lon…

So it took 15 years to build 50 miles, at this rate a high speed rail from Los Angeles to NYC (2,700 miles) would take over 800 years to complete?

Yup! With just that one data point, I'm sure your estimation couldn't possibly be wrong!

Re: Fast

#304

Post by golergka » Sun, Jul 09, 2023, 2:13 AM UTC

nine_k wrote: post #215

scubbo wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, I can squint and see that as a special-case of moving your head to another ref - the `-b` merely flagging "if this branch doesn't exist, create it instead of erroring".

It's a bit like building a train station is a special case of arriving to it :)

It's arriving at it with trucks and bulldozers and other equipment repeatedly, but essentially yes.

Re: Fast

#305

Post by capr » Sun, Jul 09, 2023, 8:54 AM UTC

noduerme wrote: post #199

nine_k wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, there was no choice. Good thing we ended up with a small language that has easy objects, first-class functions, and compact syntax. We could have got something like ABAP were we really unlucky.

As much as I couldn't live without complaining about Javascript's shortcomings, I have to agree with this. At the time, many of the features you mention were hardly necessary - no one was considering using it to build giant web apps, let alone servers! The fact that people decided they could do those things and the language was sufficiently flexible to grow along those lines would probably be very surprising to the o…

I don't believe this. Someone who knows how to design and implement a language with real closures, prototype-based inheritance, a garbage collector, etc. also knows the value and power of those things, used them before extensively and knows how far they can go. Also, the shortcomings that everybody loves to talk about are mostly misunderstood features (yes, even == which everybody loves to hate), and mostly by programmers who wouldn't even know where to start designing a language.

Re: Fast

#306

Post by randoglando » Sun, Jul 09, 2023, 8:39 PM UTC

B1FF_PSUVM wrote: post #178

coldcache wrote: post #28

For a recent infrastructure example, I would point to Beijing's high speed rail expansion. Around 24k miles constructed since 2008, and around ~12k in five years [1]. [1] https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/china-high-speed-rail-cmd...

I was told Delhi built 400 km of subway in the past 20 years. Not shabby.

A lot of Indian cities have built a subway in the past 20 years. Compared to the US you can see what can be done when it's needed.