njharman's comments

On: I spent 18 years in the Linux console

[njharman]

18 years? Filthy casual, jk ;)

I can't remember how long, but I started when you had to make a stack of 3.5 floppies to install... More than 30years ago.

Long before that, I was using 4DOS to create best "shell" possible on Microsoft. ~14 yr old.

On: Why Do Python Lists Multiply Oddly? Exploring the ...

[njharman]

I've never understood peoples confusion about function defaults.

They are part of function definition, they aren't in the function body. You should expect them to be "executed" when the function is defined.

[Scarblac → njharman]

Or they could have been part of the function call, and run when the function is called without that argument.

[klyrs → Scarblac]

You want Python to be how much slower now?

[Scarblac → klyrs]

This isn't about what I want, just noting that the other way around could sound just as intuitive. Anyway, it's awfully slow already, how much can it hurt ;-)

[kerkeslager → klyrs]

This is a terrible excuse. Quickly doing the wrong thing isn't optimization.

[klyrs → kerkeslager]

The language spec isn't wrong, you just don't like it.

[kerkeslager → klyrs]

The language spec isn't right you just like it.

Sure, there are a lot of subjective aesthetics that go into the spec, but in this case, there are objective reasons for not liking this. It's a well-known footgun that causes bugs. And it's almost never what you want, so you end up doing something like this:

    def f(xs = None):
        # Are these two lines actually faster than the
        # interpreter creating defaults at call time?
        if xs is None:
            xs = []

        ...

Do you have any reasons at all for defending this decision?

[klyrs → kerkeslager]

>

   # Are these two lines actually faster than the
   # interpreter creating defaults at call time?

You're proposing that the interpreter add a check for every default parameter in every function signature; that it should optionally fire off arbitrary code for each and every one. And when you consider that high-performance Python involves writing C extensions, your proposal would be to move that check out of the compiled code and into the slow interpreted space is, yes, a major performance hit.

[kerkeslager → klyrs]

> You're proposing that the interpreter add a check for every default parameter in every function signature

No, that's not what I'm proposing. Why would it check anything? Just evaluate the given default expression at call time. If you don't want the overhead of an expression, don't put a default.

You can also do defaults like:

    LIST_OF_X = []

    def foo(xs = LIST_OF_X):
        ...

...if you want the other behavior. This does add a variable lookup (oh no!).

[klyrs → kerkeslager]

Your list there is mutable. Isn't that what you meant to solve with this?

[kerkeslager → klyrs]

Ugh. You're just ignoring my entire post except the one part where you (wrongly) think you can correct me?

The code I posted is showing how you can explicitly get the mutable behavior if you want it when the default expressions are evaluated at call time.

That is to say, if you evaluate default expressions at call time, you can get either behavior by being explicit with minimal loss in performance:

    def foo(xs = []):
        xs.append(1)
        print(xs) # always prints [1]

    DEFAULT = []
    def bar(xs = DEFAULT):
        xs.append(1)
        print(xs) # prints [1], [1,1], [1,1,1], etc.

To reiterate, the above code is what would happen if default expressions were evaluated at function call time.

You're clearly not as knowledgeable as you think you are on this and you're just cherry picking things you don't understand to feel smart.

On: Landlines are dying out. But to some, they're a li...

[njharman]

> It's managed!

Your cellular isn't? Maybe switch providers, T-Mobile doesn't make me go maintain cell towers.

On: How Quora died

[njharman]

100%

On: A company that sells lost airplane luggage

[njharman]

> off way back machine.

+1 for practical paranoia!

[guru4consulting → njharman]

wayback machine? why not the regular official website? sorry, I don't understand.

On: Htmx changes license to Zero-Clause BSD

[njharman]

Sure, anyone can do anything. It would be up to you (and hopefully a lawyer) to then sue them and let judge/jury decide. Or, convince authorities that some criminal law was violated and they should investigate.

Both of which are hard and/or expensive. So most rely on public shame. Out them on social media and foment outrage.

On: The funny rules of SpamAssassin in 2023

[njharman]

Spam is a minimal effort endeavor. A lead generator for scams. Only 0.1% or 0.01% response rate is good. They only want the unsophisticated, naive recipients. Expending effort to tweak rules is not worth the effort. (Although if they can get AI to do it, then that's back to near zero effort)

On: All DMCA Notices Filed Against TorrentFreak in 202...

[njharman]

The ultimate answer is because copyright holders have money and spent a fare bit of it on lobbyists.

Copyright holders are organized, e.g. MPAA/RIAA, and motivated (money moves ya). Content consumers are disorganized and little motivated.

On: Can We Imagine a World Without Work?

[njharman]

I don't think, and in general believe people label, not things like construction work or care givers as BS jobs.

BS jobs are the ones that only exist to support hordes of people having jobs; middle managers, service industry (all the downtown office worker coffee/lunch/bar/cleaners/maint). And most retail.

[AnimalMuppet → njharman]

Cleaners are a BS job? They're an unpleasant one, perhaps. But that's not a BS job. (For one thing, they often are the ones that restock the toilet paper in the office bathrooms. Think about the implications of that job no longer being done. If we're going to have offices at all, that's not a BS job.)

[Retric → njharman]

Service industry jobs like bartenders are directly doing stuff customers actually want and are willing to pay for.

If that doesn’t make the cut then 100% of jobs are BS. You don’t “need” a farmer when you can just plant your own food etc.

On: Police have undermined the promise of body cameras

[njharman]

I wanted to wear a body camera in the form on Mediated Reality glasses but the public shamed/cancelled the early adaptors and manufacturers so much so that the product/concept was withdrawn from market place.

Everyone should be a glasshole