Threads for moa

  1. 2
    moa avatar moa 4 years ago | link | on: Generative art setup

    I’ve used Processing. I think it’s pretty good unless you’re doing something that needs high performance for some reason.

    1. 1
      moa avatar moa 4 years ago | link | on: The faster you unlearn OOP, the better for you and your software

      I am usually against articles that are too bold and assertive. You can rarely pick a concept and say it’s just outright useless or bad. There are always circumstances and conditions that you have to consider. This is a classic example of such articles especially because of its lack of suitable alternatives. I don’t disagree with the points it has however, but shouldn’t be generalized and a grain of salt is needed. For those interested, I found this Quora question helpful. The part about parallelism in oop being a problem definitely resonated with me.

      1. 5
        moa avatar moa 4 years ago | link | on: Docker Considered Harmful

        “Considered Harmful” Essays Considered Harmful https://meyerweb.com/eric/comment/chech.html

        1. 5
          hwayne avatar hwayne 4 years ago | link

          I really like “Considered Harmful” as an identifier. If I’m trying to find articles skeptical of a position/technology/paradigm the first thing I do is google “X considered harmful”. Usually they’re pretty bad but it at least gives me a place to start.

          1. 1
            nil avatar nil 4 years ago | link

            The writing of a “considered harmful” essay often serves to inflame whatever debate is in progress…

            Was there ever a debate in progress on this matter? Seems like the article questioned a rather accepted practice/tool.

            The publication of a “considered harmful” essay has a strong tendency to alienate neutral parties…

            I’m a neutral party, but I do tend to be skeptical of new tools. Granted, I’ve never really had a need for them; but if I did, then I wouldn’t really be a neutral party, would I?

            I haven’t been alienated, I’ve been informed.

            A sufficiently dogmatic “considered harmful” essay can end a debate in favor of the viewpoint the essay considers harmful.

            I don’t think this one counts as dogmatic. It generally reads as “there exists a more idiomatic solution”.

            …we’ve seen them a thousand times before and didn’t really learn anything from them…

            I almost always learn something new from “Considered Harmful” essays. They often make me realize there are multiple solutions to a problem that seems to have just one.

          1. 1
            moa avatar moa 5 years ago | link | on: How To Build A Notification That You Won’t Hate

            Reposing my comment here for more engaging feedback: “One idea I’ve had for a while has been smart contextual notifications that take into account what you are doing and remind you if/when the work you do is somewhat related or at least when you’re procrastinating or resting. For example, you go to Amazon and a notification says “ah, you wanted to check this thing out a week ago remember?”. Or “oh you’re on Facebook, how about you answer that email…”. It’d need quite a bit of autonomy and AI of course, but that’s the gist of it.”

            1. 1
              unhammer avatar unhammer 5 years ago | link

              That’s a cool idea. Regarding the “oh, you’re on facebook” thing, I use https://gist.github.com/unhammer/01c65597b5e6509b9eea to notify me about when long compiles complete, because I tend to alt-tab and forget about what I was doing when wait times get too long.

              But other than that I just use really dumb notifications that arbitrarily remind me of random TODO’s dredged up from the depths of my old notes.

              OTOH, I do make Emacs turn off very visible notifications (like from IRC etc.) during working hours.

              1. 2
                hyperpape avatar hyperpape 5 years ago | link

                What do you use for notifications in Emacs? I use org mode, but have a bad habit of forgetting to check my agenda frequently enough.

                1. 3
                  unhammer avatar unhammer 5 years ago | link

                  For scheduled agenda items, I just use the built-in appt thing

                  (use-package appt
    :config
    (add-hook 'org-finalize-agenda-hook #'org-agenda-to-appt)
    (appt-activate 1)
    ;; Won't work without display-time:
    (display-time))

                  and to ensure it’s run at least once a day I have

                  (add-hook 'midnight-hook (defun my-org-agenda-on-midnight ()
                           (org-agenda nil "p")
                           (delete-other-windows)
                           (org-agenda-goto-today)
                           (recenter)))

                  (which also means my agenda shows up in the morning)

                  But for other things I’ve started using https://github.com/jwiegley/alert (I could maybe get appt to use alert too, but haven’t bothered yet).

                  https://github.com/akhramov/org-wild-notifier.el might be relevant if you want more control (I haven’t tried it yet)

            1. 17
              Yogthos avatar Yogthos 5 years ago | link | on: Ask: Is your work meaningful?

              I took a job at a hospital a number of years ago building applications for internal clinical use. I get to talk to physicians, see how they’re using my applications, and how they improve outcomes for the patients. Knowing that the apps I work on directly affect patient care makes the work feel a lot more meaningful than any other job I’ve done previously.

              1. 5
                moa avatar moa 5 years ago | link

                Been thinking about OP’s question and people who work close to the medical field for some time. Glad to know it’s fulfilling.

                1. 7
                  harlanhaskins avatar harlanhaskins 5 years ago | link

                  I just left a small startup in the Rochester, NY area called Bryx (https://bryx.com), and we’ve gotten some incredible feedback from people saying how much easier their lives are that they don’t have to sit, blocked, waiting for pagers and faxes to be able to get routed to fires and EMS calls.

                  It’s incredibly fulfilling.

                  1. 3
                    moa avatar moa 5 years ago | link

                    Awesome. The feedbacks help a ton.

                    1. 3
                      cac04 avatar cac04 5 years ago | link

                      That sounds amazing. Would you mind going into a bit more detail about Bryx? If you’re allowed to say, what sort of technology/languages/stack does it use?

                      1. 1
                        harlanhaskins avatar harlanhaskins 5 years ago | link

                        Just saw this reply. The API is entirely implemented in Kotlin, the backend receiving jobs from departments and putting them into our (for better or worse) MongoDB instance is all Python. The Android app is a mix of Kotlin and Java, and the iOS app is entirely Swift. We have a desktop Electron app and a management site that are written in TypeScript. We’re really big fans of the new developments in programming languages and we’re huge fans of type safety. Specifically, we like type safety because our old PHP API caused so, so many bugs in production from accidentally misspelling variables and a lack of enforced structure.

                        1. 2
                          cac04 avatar cac04 5 years ago | link

                          Thank you, that’s really interesting.

                  2. 3
                    cac04 avatar cac04 5 years ago | link

                    Please could you describe the applications a bit more? In particular, what sort of languages/software stack/environment do you use? I have occasionally thought about doing something similar - mostly when I get depressed about working for morally dubious people - but my skills and experience never seem to be a good fit.

                    1. 2
                      Yogthos avatar Yogthos 5 years ago | link

                      I actually did an interview about my work recently here.

                      1. 2
                        cac04 avatar cac04 5 years ago | link

                        Cool, thank you.