valw

6 ms·

1.
by valw 4y ago
Or, you know, use a time-aware database like XTDB or Datomic.
2.
by valw 4y ago
I absolutely agree - one of the biggest shortcomings of SQL is that its primary programming interface is based on text and intended for human, instead of being based on data structures and intended for programs.
3.
by valw 4y ago
> There’s not much difference in expressiveness > However SQL is declarative Pick one :) the way I see it, if declarativeness is not a factor in assessing expressiveness, then expressiveness reduces to the uninteresting notion of Turi
4.
by valw 4y ago
Thanks for sharing this. I believe we essentially agree: chaining method calls is inexpressive compared to composing expressions in an algebraic language.
5.
by valw 4y ago
Btw, am I alone in thinking that DataFrame abstractions in OOP languages (like Pandas in Python) are oftentimes simply inferior to relational algebra? I'm not sure that many Data Scientists are aware of the expressive power of SQL.
6.
by valw 4y ago
Well, to be also fair, we also want quantum electronics to be deterministic in their behaviour. The difference lies not so much in randomness as in leveraging intrication.
7.
by valw 4y ago
I made the same remark in reply to another comment which used the phrase "factoring primes" :) Wikipedia does use the term "prime factorization": that seems legit to me, as prime is used as an adjective. https:/&#x
8.
by valw 4y ago
> factoring prime numbers factoring into prime numbers ;-) (factoring a prime number is trivial, that's why it's called prime)
9.
by valw 4y ago
> Are quantum computers overhyped? Well, let's see: > When given the same problem, a quantum computer should be able to trounce any supercomputer in any problem in terms of speed and efficiency LOL, no, not any problem, far fro
10.
by valw 4y ago
> the annual worldwide energy usage of blockchain technology is roughly equal to the annual US energy waste from machines plugged in while in standby mode. It is also significantly lower than the annual worldwide usage of Christmas light
11.
by valw 4y ago
April fool's joke : we'll pretend that bugs in software are distributed as a homogeneous Poisson process, AND that Poisson distributions are bounded, while we're at it. Poisson d'avril!
12.
by valw 5y ago
Reminder that the Computer Languages Benchmark Game itself recommends against using it to draw general conclusions about performance of languages in real-world apps: https://benchmarksgame-team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgam
13.
by valw 5y ago
> Sir Tony Hoare famously said: “Premature optimization is the root of all evil.” Er, wasn't it Donald Knuth? https://wiki.c2.com/?PrematureOptimization
14.
by valw 5y ago
I submit that Event Sourcing (or at least something very close to it) can be easy, once you've removed some technology locks. I've seen it happen with Datomic ( https://vvvvalvalval.github.io/posts/2018-11-12-d
15.
by valw 5y ago
I wrote the blog post you cited (thanks!) but I disagree with both statements: that is not what is meant in the article. 1. I don't think Event Sourcing sucks - I think we are lacking accessible technology for supporting it. 2. For mos
16.
by valw 5y ago
Folks, just to clarify: "catalyst" is a very broad chemistry term for "something that helps a chemical reaction take place without being a reagent nor product of said reaction." So don't get the wrong idea: catalyst
17.
by valw 5y ago
Reminder: this sort of metric is sensational but hardly relevant. The relevant metric is how much fossil production is left, not how much low-carbon production we add. All the more so because production peaks of renewables tend to be outlie
18.
by valw 5y ago
A shameless-because-related plug: https://www.reddit.com/r/patient_hackernews/ A Hacker News mirror biased in favor of thoughtful discussion, by enforcing that you cannot comment on something in less than 24 hours
19.
by valw 6y ago
Compiling means translating a program from one representation to another. Executing a program always involves a combination of compilation and interpretation (example: Java usually runs by compiling it to Java bytecode, which is then int
20.
by valw 6y ago
Interesting example, but it's funny how parts of the abstract read like an intro probability class: > The framework estimates the climate change risks in economic terms by modeling the main activities that a mining company performs,
21.
by valw 6y ago
When you're in the business of sneaking in a Scheme-inspired language into the universal programming platform in a world of object-oriented dogma, you'd better add some camouflage ;) And so the language was compromised in its name
22.
by valw 6y ago
Note that carbon credits are not all about afforestation - if you don't believe in afforestation, fine, you can buy from projects that do energy transition or industrial efficiency (at the same cost, preventing emissions is always bett
23.
by valw 6y ago
As should be known in a community of programmers, it's misguided to blame tools from their potential abuses. Every single tool for the ecological transition can be misused for green-washing, from solar panels to electric cars to carbon
24.
by valw 6y ago
The crazy thing about it, I think, is that removing CO2 from the atmosphere rather than where it's readily concentrated like power and cement plants, is picking the worse amount of entropy to fight.
25.
by valw 6y ago
I'm surprised to not see these investments directed towards the voluntary carbon market, in which projects such as those REDD+ certified achieve more than 10X higher efficiency, with significant co-benefits in biodiversity and support
26.
by valw 6y ago
Reminds me of the gray kingbird, a very common bird here in the Carribean, which has no problem attacking much larger animals such as vultures or dogs whenever they go near its nest. Luckily for us, it never attacks humans, and sings quite
27.
by valw 6y ago
Are you aware of EDN, Transit or Fressian, which IMO improve a lot on the currently common approaches to encoding (JSON / YAML)? If so, how does Concise Encoding differentiate itself? https://github.com/edn-format/
28.
by valw 6y ago
Anyone who believes the above simply hasn't looked at the numbers. The speed at which we need to reduce emissions simply dwarfs anything technology has ever achieved - not to mention the fact that so far, technological progress has alw
29.
by valw 6y ago
Here we see the classic tension between synthetic names and natural names. The best discussion I've seen of this topic is in the 1st chapter (which is fortunately freely accessible and concise) of this excellent programming book:
30.
by valw 6y ago
I know what you mean, and I feel for you. That said, what forces you to follow fads? I've basically stopped doing it when I got started with Clojure about 6 years ago and it's been fine. It does take some convincing to use that fo

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