Earlier quoted context omitted.
I make comments like this all the time because I write code for people to read, not robots. Well-commented code allows you to skim very quickly, and gives a sanity check, allowing others to ensure a line or block of code does what it is expected to do.
// This is my reply: No. You have "well-commented code" completely backwards. This is not it. // This is the end of my reply.
A DOGE staffer appears to be posting DOGE work on his public GitHub
91–100 of 404 posts
Re: A DOGE staffer appears to be posting DOGE work on his public GitHub
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
I make comments like this all the time because I write code for people to read, not robots. Well-commented code allows you to skim very quickly, and gives a sanity check, allowing others to ensure a line or block of code does what it is expected to do.
This is not a case of "code for people to read". If you want that, maybe try literate programming[0]. I prefer in the case where the code is blindingly fucking obvious for there not to be an extra comment above it that adds no value whatsoever. I much prefer for comments to be about the theory of the code rather than to explain in a worse way what I can already clearly see simply by reading the code. In other words I…
You can have your preferences all you want and that's great, but when you start passing irrational judgement about the value of someone's code just because it's liberally commented, your perspective becomes less respectable.
Re: A DOGE staffer appears to be posting DOGE work on his public GitHub
#93A surprisingly large amount of data one might think is classified is not at all. In this case all the examples listed are from freely available public data outside of the Twitter thing which seems to be just setting up the environment for some local tool. Here are the sites: --- datacatalog.worldbank.org opendata.arcgis.com mrdata.usgs.gov / www.usgs.gov --- Sharing things like this isn't very useful because it just…
As I said in anothercomment, using available data in itself can be seen with suspicion. With freely available data you can build a nuclear reactor (if very capable), or buy fertilizer and build a bomb. Chances are, fbi will knock at your door and ask what you're doing. The same way, an agency gathering lot of public available data regarding sensitive infrastructure can be assumed to misuse the data for shady purposes…
Re: A DOGE staffer appears to be posting DOGE work on his public GitHub
#94A bit tangent, and since I’m an outsider who doesn’t live in the states and have no skin in the game — my understanding is, they will do literally anything to make sure DOGE succeeds, because a failure is basically unacceptable. I can’t even imagine how you can backtrack this, and fix stuff up. They obviously prepared for it months in advance. Targeting ex-employees of successful product companies and putting them in…
Re: A DOGE staffer appears to be posting DOGE work on his public GitHub
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
I make comments like this all the time because I write code for people to read, not robots. Well-commented code allows you to skim very quickly, and gives a sanity check, allowing others to ensure a line or block of code does what it is expected to do.
That's not well-commented code, that's just noise. When you are calling a function named "read_csv()", you do not need to add a comment that says "Read the CSV file". These sorts of comments make code harder for humans to read. The hill that I will die on is that if you need to comment what your code is doing, your code is either a) bad and should be rewritten to be clearer, or b) the result of tricky, clever optimiz…
Obviously, the best way to make code self-documenting is to wrap logic in a method whose name clearly describes its intended function. For one-liners however this can lead to overabstraction, and leaving a "what" comment can be entirely appropriate if the engineer decides it is. This cult-like behavior of engineers who think that well-commented code is some sign of weakness or unprofessionalism is beyond silly.
Absolutisms are a sign of a bad engineer, but I can give you the benefit of the doubt and not assume you're a bad engineer just because you employ such absolutist statements and use erroneously use them to judge code by oversimplified metrics instead of relying on deeper analysis.
Re: A DOGE staffer appears to be posting DOGE work on his public GitHub
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
I remember the anti-interventionist Democrats of the 80s and 90s quite well. They criticized military adventures but never suggested dismantling NATO, abandoning treaty allies, or praising dictators while undermining their own intelligence agencies. Funny how this "anti-interventionism" only applies to defending democracies against Russian aggression, but not to inserting troops into cities to confront protesters or…
You’re making it sound like they were on board with the general idea of using american power to police the world, but only disagreed on the particulars. That was not the case. For example, a common refrain was to criticize America’s military bases all over the world, or spending 10 times as much on defense as the next 10 countries combined: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/10/infographic-us-mili....
You make it sound like they merely objected to use of that infrastructure in particular conflicts for fact-specific reasons. That’s not true. Anti-interventionist liberals opposed the idea of using american military power to defend far-away borders, and the imperialism and military apparatus required to underwrite that commitment.
> Funny how this "anti-interventionism" only applies to defending democracies against Russian aggression, but not to inserting troops into cities to confront protesters or threatening military action against political opponents.
Shutting down riots is good for the vast majority of americans. Defending far away borders isn’t. The logic is simple.
Re: A DOGE staffer appears to be posting DOGE work on his public GitHub
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
As I said in anothercomment, using available data in itself can be seen with suspicion. With freely available data you can build a nuclear reactor (if very capable), or buy fertilizer and build a bomb. Chances are, fbi will knock at your door and ask what you're doing. The same way, an agency gathering lot of public available data regarding sensitive infrastructure can be assumed to misuse the data for shady purposes…
This is such a lame comment. He's looking at publicly available geospatial data, not trying to build a bomb.
Re: A DOGE staffer appears to be posting DOGE work on his public GitHub
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a bad comment. It adds nothing to clarify anything, since the function in the line below is "read_csv." This would be a textbook example of a comment that is not useful to improve legibility by humans and it demonstrates a lack of expertise among the people who are currently dismantling our government.
I'm sorry, but a code comment does not demonstrate lack of expertise, although such a perspective certainly brings your own expertise into question. Perhaps we should all assume a little less?
Re: A DOGE staffer appears to be posting DOGE work on his public GitHub
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is not a case of "code for people to read". If you want that, maybe try literate programming[0]. I prefer in the case where the code is blindingly fucking obvious for there not to be an extra comment above it that adds no value whatsoever. I much prefer for comments to be about the theory of the code rather than to explain in a worse way what I can already clearly see simply by reading the code. In other words I…
How about we don't tell other people how to code? It's one thing to make suggestions, it's another to make demands. I've been doing this for a long time and I can code laps around most people. I also like well-commented code that allows me to quickly skim code and check it for correctness. You can have your preferences all you want and that's great, but when you start passing irrational judgement about the value of s…
I'm sorry, that was not intended to be received as a demand, I edited my comment to hopefully clarify.
> You can have your preferences all you want and that's great, but when you start passing irrational judgement about the value of someone's code just because it's liberally commented, your perspective becomes less respectable.
I didn't say anything about the value of your or anyone's code other than that obvious comments don't add any to me. (I do tend to find it funny when a comment manages to obviously contradict the code that it's about, but here that's not the case.) My point was more that comments are more useful to me when they're non-obvious. See, again, the data structure example.
Re: A DOGE staffer appears to be posting DOGE work on his public GitHub
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
Genuinely curious here. How does this relate to Putin being captured by Russia/Putin? This, to me, looks like textbook ineptitude not foreign interference. I want to be clear. I'm not casting doubt on observations that Trump does currently echo Russian talking points. I'm also not trying to argue that he's not captured by Russian interests. I'm merely wondering how this specific piece of information points to that co…
[flagged]
https://apnews.com/article/ukraine-russia-trump-war-zelensky...
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5151545-trump-uk...