• 6 Posts
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Joined 7 months ago
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Cake day: February 26th, 2024

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  • Just keep in mind that inheritance is nowadays a very contested feature. Even most people still invested in object oriented programming recognise that in hindsight inheritance was mostly a mistake. The industry as a whole is also making a shift to move more towards functional programming, in which object orientation as a whole is taking more of a backseat and inheritance specifically is not even supported anymore. So yeah, take the chance to learn, but be cautious before going into any one direction too deeply.



  • Of course, I’m a user too, but I don’t think Linux’s UX is that bad. It may be bad in some areas, but it’s not bad across the board.

    I also don’t think Linux is only for developers. It’s great for developers, but it’s also great for people with only basic needs of their computer, those that don’t need much more than a browser, an email client and maybe an office suite. The UX is totally adequate for them, as evidenced by ChromeOS.

    I think where Linux lacks is mainly for the users in between, those who are not full developers or tinkerers, but do want to mess around and do so from a perspective of expectations of how things worked in the Windows world. And I won’t deny there’s a plethora of legitimate enterprise use cases for which there is no equivalent in Linux today. But those are not UX issues, those are mainly matters market support. Linux is not great there, maybe it never will be. Or if it does, it’ll take a long time.


  • First example that came to mind was actually Mac users who struggle with external monitors/projectors and things like screen sharing too. I agree they’re things that are so basic they should just work. Reality is often different even on other OSes.

    Of course if you have a Windows home and everything works and then you try Linux and it struggles with a piece of equipment, it’s easy to blame Linux. You wouldn’t even be wrong. But you are oblivious to someone else’s experience who uses Linux exclusively and everything works for them, how many of those things wouldn’t work or work well with Windows.

    Personally I’m a developer, so I care a lot about integrating parts of my development stack. A lot of those things don’t “just work” on Windows, or even Mac, so I’m happy to stick with Linux instead.


  • I agree with your examples and it’s certainly true there are plenty of rough edges on Linux. Then again, how many examples are there for things that should “just work” and do on Linux but don’t on Windows? There’s enough that make me not use Windows at all, because it has a subpar user experience. I even used a Macbook for a few years, mainly for work, and there were too many small things that annoyed me about it, so it too had a subpar user experience.

    Seems it’s mostly a matter of perspective which issues are more important to you.


  • 0° being “very cold” and 100° being “very hot” is intuitive.

    As someone who’s not used to Fahrenheit I can tell you there’s nothing intuitive about it. How cold is “very cold” exactly? How hot is “very hot” exactly? Without clear references all the numbers in between are meaningless, which is exactly how I perceive any number in Fahrenfeit. Intuitive means that without knowing I should have an intuitive perception, but really there’s nothing to go on. I guess from your description 50°F should mean it’s comfortable? Does that mean I can go out in shorts and a t-shirt? It all seems guesswork.



  • As a junior with no clue how to write production code, is Clean Code going to provide with a decent framework I can quickly learn to start learning my craft, should I throw it out completely because parts are bad, or should I read both Clean Code and all its criticism before I write a single line?

    I see what you’re getting at it, and I agree we shouldn’t increase the load for juniors upfront. But I think the point is mainly there are better resources for juniors to start with than Clean Code. So yeah, the best option is to throw it out completely and let juniors start elsewhere instead, otherwise they are starting with many bad parts they don’t yet realize are bad. That too would increase cognitive load because they would need to unlearn those lessons again.











  • Agreed on all counts, except it being useless to think about :) It’s only useless if you dismiss philosophy as interesting altogether.

    But that kinda misses the point, right? Like, all that means is that the observation may have created the particle, not that the observation created reality, because reality is not all particles.

    I guess that depends on the point being made. You didn’t raise this argument, but I often see people arguing that the universe is deterministic and therefore we cannot have free will. But the quantum mechanical reality is probabilistic, which does leave room for things such as free will.

    I can agree with your view to say observation doesn’t create reality, but then it does still affect it by collapsing the wave function. It’s a meaningful distinction to make in a discussion about consciousness, since it leaves open the possibility that our consciousness is not merely an emergent property of complex interaction that has an illusion of free will, but that it may actually be an agent of free will.

    And yes, I fully recognise this enters into the philosophical realm and there is no science to support these claims. I’m merely arguing that science leaves open a path that enters that realm, and from there it is up to us to make sense of it.

    There is the philosophical adage “I think therefore I am”, which I do adhere to. I know I am, so I’ll consider as flawed any reasoning that says I’m not. Maybe that just makes me a particularly stubborn scientific curiosity, but I like to think I’m more than that :)


  • can you define physical for me?

    The distinction I tend to make is between physical using the classical definition of physics (where everything is made of particles basically) and the quantum mechanical physics which defies “physical” in the classical sense. So far we’ve only been able to scientifically witness quantum physics in small particles, but as you say, there’s no reason it can’t apply at a macro scale, just… we don’t know how to witness it, if possible.

    it doesn’t require an observer to collapse the wave function

    Or maybe it does? The explanation I have for us being unable to apply the experiments at a larger scale is that as we scale things up, it becomes harder and harder to avoid accidental observation that would taint the experiment. But that’s really no more than a hunch/gut feeling. I would have no idea how to prove that 😅


  • In fact, one of the great mysteries of physics right now is why only quantum objects have that property, and in order to figure that out we have to figure out what interaction “observation” actually is.

    This does not stroke with my understanding of quantum physics. As far as we know there is no clear distinction between “quantum objects” vs “non-quantum objects”. The double slit experiment has been reproduced with molecules as large as 114 atoms, and there seems no reason to believe that would be the upper limit: https://www.livescience.com/19268-quantum-double-slit-experiment-largest-molecules.html

    This proves that the wave is in fact real, because we can see the effects of it.

    The only part that’s proven is the interference pattern. So yes, we know it acts like a wave in that particular sense. But that’s not the same thing as saying it is a wave in the physical sense. A wave in the classic physical sense doesn’t collapse upon observation. I know it’s real in an abstract sense. I’m just questioning the physical nature of that reality.


  • Thanks, that seems a fair approach, although it doesn’t have me entirely convinced yet. Can you explain what the physical form of a wave function is? Because it’s not like a wave, such as waves in the sea. It’s really a wave function, an abstract representation of probabilities which in my understanding does not have any physical representation.

    You say the building does not start acting like a wave, and you’re right, that would be silly. But it does enter into a superposition where the building can be either collapsed or not. Like Schreudinger’s cat, which can be dead or alive, and will be in a superposition of both until observation happens again. And yes, the probabilities of this superposition are indeed expressed through the wave function, even though there is no physical wave.

    It’s true observation does not require consciousness. But until we know what does constitute observation, I believe consciousness provides a plausible explanation.


  • Do elaborate on the batshit part :) It’s a scientific fact that physical matter does not exist in its physical form when unobserved. This may not prove the existence of consciousness, but it certainly makes it plausible. It certainly invalidates physical reality as the “source of truth”, so to say. Which makes the explanation that physical reality is a product of consciousness not just plausible, but more likely than the other way around. Again, not a proof, but far from batshit.