Posts by chololennon 210 publicly visible posts • joined 2 Apr 2019
> TypeScript, also known colloquially as AnyScript for obvious reasons (reasons: any)
Well, that's a problem with the mindset of some (dynamic) programmers (*). I used a lot of TypeScript in production code without a single "any" (no type, no code review approval). If a team/company decided that TypeScript must be used, then they must enforce its correct usage; there should be not place for lazy programmers.
(*) I come from static languages so I understood the benefits of types, especially in huge code bases.
How many programming languages started with the selling motto, "simpler than C++"? Java, Go, etc. At some point in their own history they had to introduce C++ features (like generics) because otherwise the language didn't scale well with large projects. In this regard, I always cite the following Python example: for years Pythonistas justified with strong silly arguments the nonsense of not having a simple switch case (you can use a dictionary or if elif, they always said, OMG!). Since Python 3.10 the language has a match case statement, why? if it wasn't "necessary". TypeScript as a replacement for JavaScript is another big example ("types are not needed", yeah, until your project grows. The same applied to Python before the introduction of Type Hints in v3.5).
In the end all programming languages end up being much more complex than when they started, which is reasonable. The problem, IMHO, is denying the need for a feature, or the stupid comparison with C++ (maybe in the future, Rust will have proper ctors, method overloading, or do while loops :-P who knows?).
>> Unit 42 spotted phishing campaigns targeting European governments
>>>> Hmmm. Does Palo Alto spot American campaigns target European governments? I thought not...
Well, according to them (or probably to years of Hollywood propaganda) they are always the good guys, the white saviors, and we, the rest of the world, are the most nefarious villains who want to destroy their "American way of life".
I totally agree with you, but:
> ...They are unreliable and untrustworthy...
> ...They elected a madman and keep him there...
USA has been unreliable and untrustworthy since WW2 or before (do you remember the Bretton-Wood system collapse? or the unnecessary nuclear bombs on a defeated Japan? or weapons of mass destruction?, there are zillions of examples). Their actual president is a grotesque exaggeration of those words, but they were always like that. Before the Orange Baby, those who suffer them were those countries/regions not aligned with them, but nowadays their most closed allies are suffering (or could suffer) the same; yes, invasions, coups, wars, economic sanctions, etc. Everything is possible for everybody, and what is more, not even its own population is safe :-(
> Just a genuine question here. Can you point me to any data showing the number or percentage of Starlink satellites that remain operational?
You can download the dataset (and do your maths) from:
https://www.space-track.org/
If you don't want to create a free account to download the datasets, you can get a copy, updated in February 2025, from:
https://github.com/EnzoRg/space_debris/tree/main/data/raw
Please stop worrying about the Linux Desktop (and the year of it). Nowadays the Desktop is OK (whichever one you choose, with few exceptions).
The key here is that Windows comes preinstalled. When Linux came/comes preinstalled like in Chrome OS or Android, people used/use it. Of course, there are people who are held hostage by some applications, but most do not have those restrictions.
The problems to solve are: 0- Establish Linux as a "brand", a good one. 1- Convince big OEMs to sell Linux machines, 2- Convince companies/governments to use Linux machines. The last one is the most difficult because Microsoft is very aggressive on that regard.
> No it's not. It's configurable to look like a few existing mainstream distros and nothing much else
> blah blah...
Liam, a long time KDE hater, can't accept that, like it or not, KDE is the most configurable desktop out there, not even Windows or MacOS are as configurable as KDE. Of course, being the most configurable DE doesn't mean that you can convert it in any other desktop, or that it should have the most twisted configuration feature he wants/needs.
Mysterious mystery: He always finds a way to describe KDE negatively ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
In my personal experience, as a long time developer, those who embrace vibe coding are mediocre programmers, or people who can barely code. They are people that feel empowered by the initial results (fast setup for small projects for example), but sooner or later, a real knowledge is necessary. The problem is that vibe coding is not good (actually is terribly bad) for getting/improving your knowledge.
I hope this trend/nonsense (which is also not free) fades away into the fog. Real/passionate developers are still necessary.
> There was no re-write - the existing solution did not scale any further and they had significant internal experience in Rust so went with what they knew for v2.
I wasn't saying that Cloudflare has rewritten its service in Rust. What I was trying to say is that Rust code has bugs too, especially because there is a lot of (bad) Rust PR that is brainwashing programmers, who end up thinking that, if it is (re) written in Rust, it will be better than a long time established piece of code written in C or C++.
The PR is so negative that I saw posts from Rustacens praising the .unwrap() call, because (they said) "without it, an undefined behavior would have occurred with unknown implications". Yes, the UB didn't occur, but half the Internet was down!, only because the error was not properly managed (or because .unwrap_or_default()/.unwrap_or(...) were not used). No language, even Rust, can't protect from programmer stupidity/laziness.
For those who sanctify Rust every day, a plain .unwrap() in production code :-O
https://blog.cloudflare.com/18-november-2025-outage/
Remember, Rust is neither the holy grail nor the silver bullet, it is just another tool that can be used by incompetent programmers. Having said that, stop this nowadays nonsense of trying to rewrite everything in Rust.
>> Half of the "file managers" out there can't bring up the browser for a .html file.
> I agree most "file managers" for Linux are kinda junky. OTOH I practically never use them so I don't care much --
I don't know which Linux file managers you have used, but those based on KDE (Konqueror, Krusader, and Dolphin) were, and are, way better than any version of Windows File Explorer (in other words, **for the past 25 years**, Linux has had at least 3 file managers that are better than the one provided by Windows).
> I think I'll just stick with Kate and/or KWrite.
Sadly, Kate for Windows is is not very well known. I like Notepad++ (it used to be my editor of choice), but when I discovered that the port from Linux (on which Kate was always my favorite editor) was ready, I didn't hesitate, I made the switch. The integrated terminal and LSP support are a must for me.
"While the Netherlands has denied extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography to the PRC market..."
That's clearly wrong, correction: "...USA has denied extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography to the PRC market...", the Netherlands is just another European lackey of the United States, pathetic.
...If you can't work (way) faster than before (because now you have the AI help) then you're fired.
And it's not just Accenture: nowadays I am seeing a lot of job offers (for software developers) on LinkedIn that requires, for the sake of efficiency (yes, the offers say that), advanced use of AI to code (Gemini, Copilot, Cursor, etc). Awful times for ancient developers, forced to not use their brain and, in exchange, use those crappy and inefficient tools.
> ffrankly all those Linuxtards having to comment on each article about Windows your way are really annoying.
Look at you, a Windowtard, what a surprise, it is the same when you comment/troll on (a lot of) articles about Linux.
> But probably people like you do still envy Windows has a decent GUI and applications
Haha, just KDE alone is vast superior to Windows GUI. It seems that the awful GUI inconsistencies of Windows UI don't count for you: Settings vs Control Panel at the same time?, Control Panel/Disk Manager/Event Viewer/etc with different DPI, really? (ohh but zoomed-in just to be aligned with the rest of GUI), Ribbon Bar in File Explorer, OMG! File Explorer and its particular way to show the User's Home Folder, a mess. Constant change of the Start Menu, one worse than the other. Search in Start Menu that fallback to Edge with ads even if my default browser is other. Start Menu in Win11 in a movable middle point, WTF!?. How about the GUI differences between Win32/WFP/WinForms/UWP/etc?. And not to mention nasty things of the past like having to install all apps as Admin because the OS "GUI" didn't have a proper way to elevate permissions without resorting on the command line.
> while Linux desktops still look designed and implemented by amateuers without a clue about good UIs
Well, if "amateurs without a clue about good UIs" design way better interfaces that "professionals" at Microsoft, I will always stand with the "amateurs".
It is sad that Sean Baxter (a very talented developer) couldn't with the committee :-(
He has very good WORKING ideas (like Circle C++ or Safe C++).
I'm not convinced by the Stroustrup's Profiles either. The latest Stroustrup's creations like Concepts, IMHO, are not really good.
> Therefore the entire world's codebase will need to be rewritten in Rust
>> Ah yes, and you are paying for that work?
Also new code introduces new bugs, even in Rust, yes, even in Rust. So, "rewrite everything in Rust" is not a solution, especially for old well tested software with years of stabilization.
Why Rust people (like the OP) think they are perfect developers? It is ridiculous.
Check this out for example (the video is from today, 16th of September):
"Ubuntu's Rust GNU Utils Replacement 17x Slower & Buggy"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIEqpFI43no
I moved away from GitHub (several month ago) to Codeberg. Easy and without regrets. For big projects that require CI functionality I always preferred Gitlab over Github, so there is no excuse to stay on Github.
Now I have to ditch VSCode (and its intrusive Copilot). I used to use VSCodium since its inception, but several extensions from MS, which IMHO are the best (Python, C++, Typescript, Java, C#), no longer work on it. Luckily the extensions for Java (Redhat) and Rust (www.rust-lang.org) work Ok. My current poor man alternative is KDE Kate which supports LSP for all the aforementioned languages. The experience is not the same but is getting better.
> "I've reduced it from 9,000 heads to about 5,000 because I need less heads," he told The Logan Bartlett Show podcast on Friday...
The language he used is so disgusting, he has zero empathy, just numbers/more money for the investors. I'm sorry, but I'd like to see this CEO "head" in a guillotine right now.
> I'm still hanging on with Thunderbird even though they did hideous things to the UI a while back, which broke my long standing workflow in a single update.
You're not alone, I really hate Thunderbird, that update was disastrous: it silently upgraded my ancient profile (which has 6 e-mail accounts) so I couldn't go back to a previous version, infuriating. And what can I say about the UI? OMG!!! awful, inconvenient, unusable, all is too big or too small; who was in charge of its design? He/she must be jailed for a long time.
> Compile your program with:
> $ gcc -Wno-error moon.c
Maybe this ^^ doesn't solve your problem.
(My) openSUSE 15.6 uses an old version of gcc (7.5, defaulted to c11) which, I don't why, it doesn't consider an error the lack of a variable type at the point of declaration (since c99 this must an error). The solution is to change the standard (tested with gcc 14):
$ gcc -std=c90 moon.c
I am a KDE user, but there is no way that I will use a distro with a read-only root partition; for me it's nonsense, and it is based on my own experience with Android tablets/phones. I want the full control of my device(s)! period. I am really worried about this new trend, especially because my distro of choice (openSUSE) is in that direction :-(
> It's this obsessive mindset that profits have to *improve* every quarter, as if that is ever going to be sustainable
Sadly, that's the capitalism mantra that is destroying good products (enshitification), and more importantly, destroying our planet :-(
In a minor scale, Milei in Argentina, is doing the same, destroying everything that has connection with science (including universities of course). The far right everywhere, is full of lunatics, ignoramuses, flat-earthers, and Middle Ages people who are "afraid" of science, because they don't have arguments when someone well educated (especially in science) can show/destroy their lies.
A prestigious entity like NASA doesn't deserve this.
I was a huge fan of Hiren's Boot CD, my respects for all the help provided prior to 2005 (*). After that I started using only Linux so Rescuezilla is a must have tool in my arsenal :-)
(*) I used to maintain more than 15 cybercafes ranged from 20 to 100 PCs each one. Deep Freeze was the other tool that deserve my respects in that ancient epoch.
> Installing docker on Linux shouldn't be difficult though. Using it, maybe. But it should be as simple as telling your package manager to install it and start the daemon.
Well, ideally yes, but depending on your distro, the installation has it gotchas, that's why this long documentation exists: https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/
> The problem in the 90s is the same as now: the technical expertise required is a massive barrier for entry. Most people don't want to fiddle with command lines or resort to documentation to install software, ESPECIALLY when Microsoft offers functionally one-click installs.
Context: I am a Linux/KDE user, but I have used Windows for many many years (since Windows 3.0).
You seem to forget the vast amounts of problems that a Windows user must face in his/her entire life, problems that they cannot solve by themselves, problems that require a technical expertise:
- Driver problems
- BSOD
- Infinite reboots
- Registry problems
- Update problems
- Installation problems (e.g. DLL hell)
- Configuration problems
- Printer problems
- Virus/Malware
- Login problems
- Filesystem problems
- Application problems
- Etc, etc
How many Windows users have the knowledge to install the OS or to solve the above problems? IMO, nearly zero. I solved/solve all of them for my family/friends/customers (in many occasions using a terminal with batch or powershell commands), so it's unfair to say that for Linux "the technical expertise required is a massive barrier for entry". The only Windows advantage over Linux is that it comes preinstalled.
PS: C'mon, with all respect, your anecdote about installing docker on Linux is ridiculous... docker is for advanced technical users (*), not for the average ones, they cannot install Docker Desktop on Windows either.
(*) you, like it or not, must read the documentation about the installation process in the docker website.
As other noted, what worked/works for me is Python with pandas/numpy/scikit/etc or Octave. I am pretty happy with both of them.
I will never use a proprietary software that requires an online license server (pure nonsense greed).
> "If anyone can suggest how I buy a new laptop WITH NO OS licence on it, I'd be very interested!!"
> System76 is the only one I know of (they ship with Linux)...
For those who live in Europe, there is a Spanish company, Slimbook, https://slimbook.com/en/
> I'm an IT professional but my hobby is photography. And I do use Lightroom and Photoshop on my personal PC, while I don't use them at work. And other photo-related software. And Logitech devices and Canon printers which aren't supported in Linux.
Your personal experience is valid, yes, but it says nothing, because I can say the same from the Linux perspective: I am also an IT professional. My hobby is astrophotography, my telescope (Skywatcher) and astro camera (QHYCCD) are manged from Linux (from my laptop, x86_64, and also from a RPI 5, arm64) without any problem, drivers available. The capture software like AstroDMx and INDI controllers like Ekos (KStart) run natively on Linux. Planetarium software like Stellarium and KStars also run natively on Linux. Some photo stacker software (like Autostakker) run under Wine perfectly well. Gimp/KDE Showphoto for the final touches. BTW... I also have a Logitech webcam, and HP laser jet printer, both work OK on Linux.
> C++ "smart" pointers are needed because C++ lacks a "finally" statement because Stroustrup couldn't understand the need to free objects properly in large complex applications.
With RAII you don't need 'finally', period. It is a real problem to rely on programmers to code consumer release instructions in the finally block, sooner or later a resource leak will occur because he/she forgot to code one of those instructions.
These far-right medieval "leaders" (Trump, Milei, Bolsonaro, etc, etc) don't believe in science or scientific thinking, because:
1. They are only interested in money for their own pockets.
2. They are truly ignorant.
3. And more important, science can question them, their lies can be rigorously exposed, or in other words, science can question their fascist/totalitarian/narcissistic/celestial leaderships.
Science and democracy are not perfect, but they are the best we have.
It it sad, but these pseudo-kings + the techno-feudalism of Meta, Google, etc, are too dystopian for this 21st century :-(
