otabdeveloper1's comments

> you could make a new syntax

Thanks, but I'd rather not.

You're making a category error. Human brains aren't computers. They do not "compute" at all.

I'm not.

My point was that Docker purports to solve the sandboxing and security problems.

In reality, this is something that 90% of people who use Docker don't give a shit about. For the vast majority Docker is just a nice and easy-to-use packaging format.

The sad part is that

a) Docker failed at security.

b) In trying to solve the security problem Docker ended up with a pretty crufty (from a technical point of view) packaging format.

Maybe we need to start from scratch, listen to the devs this time and build something they actually want.

Indeed you're right, but the problem is that your devs' machines and your production systems are running different OS's/distributions.

Nix tries to solve this, but it isn't there just yet.

90% of the time Docker is used to solve the problem of "how do I upload this bucket of Python crud to a production server?" (Replace 'Python' with any other language to taste.)

A slightly smarter .tar.gz would have solved the problem just as well.

> The main reason Chrome is so popular is because tech people have been saying "just use chrome" for forever.

Utter bullshit.

Chrome is dominant due to two factors:

a) Distribution deals by Google to bundle Chrome everywhere they can. (Including shady crap like 'warez' sites, illegal music, OEMs, etc.)

b) Google aggressively peddling Chrome on their properties and making them deliberately slow and buggy with other browsers.

It's not a coincidence that Gmail suddenly became slow and buggy under Firefox with their latest redesign.

I fail to grasp what you mean.

Reach, penetration and target audiences is like 95% of what modern advertising does.

Modern advertising works on simple statistics rules like "people who drink Pepsi might need heartburn medicine" or "people who recently bought home appliances might want to buy another one".

These things are simple applications of the CLT. No psychology or manipulation is needed or wanted.

Advertising hasn't been about 'persuasion' or psychology for a long, long time.

Advertising today is mechanical applications of the central limit theorem / law of large numbers to sociological problems.

> ML makes predictions; testable predictions.

Well, no. ML solves the classification problem, not the prediction problem.

E.g.: The "is this a cat picture" problem is effectively solved, but we _still_ can't reliably predict something as primitive as a simple binary proportion.

> Prudential Real Estate is a franchise operation. Prudential does not actually broker any real estate. Instead, a local franchisee pays a fee for the use of the name and logo and other services.

I don't know how contracting works, but for corporate project the rule is always "follow the money", then once you figure out the money flow, only then do the requirement gathering bit.

Doing it in the opposite order will result in tears.

Absolutely untrue.

Whiteboard problems absolutely do work.

The vast majority of applicants cannot code at all. And I mean that literally: they're at a loss at how to write a function that adds two numbers or counts the number of elements in a list.

Worse is that these guys can be employed as developers (even 'senior' ones!) for years and years in 'serious' enterprises.

How, you ask? By using copy-paste and cleverly navigating their enterprise processes and dodging responsibility.

Maybe this is what you mean by 'being good at working with others', but it's definitely not what I want in a software developer.

Source: I've interviewed a great deal of people for lots of positions over the years.

Yeah, you're right. Many hospitals encourage bad practices like gratuitous C-sections. (But then again many home birth proponents also encourage bad practices.)

I guess I'm saying that one should be less emotional at this point and more cautious and rational.

> The commands are more uniform and predictable.

Git won because it was a) unopinionated and b) powerful enough to support arbitrary workflows for any enterprise.

For the enterprise, being 'uniform and predictable' is way, way, way down lower on the list of important criteria in version control. (And in fact may even be a negative, due to the weird legacy workflows many enterprises have.)

Trash flows downstream. Not very surprising.

> As in, it is their job.

What makes you say that? That's like expecting software engineers to understand the implications of clock synchronization in your server CPU. Sure, it'd be nice if employees had that level of dedication, but who are we kidding? That's not what they are being paid for.

> Such government effort can only be successful if it involves lots of doctors.

Well, no. Doctors aren't the ones making epidemiology science research. At best they might read a paper or two if somebody pushes them.

Being a doctor (i.e., general practitioner) is a job that is less cognitively loaded and carries less responsibility than the job of a car mechanic.

General practitioners are simply running off standard checklists for standard ailments. It's no different from reading a car repair manual.

And unlike car mechanics, you probably won't succeed in suing your doctor if he used the wrong checklist and got you injured by mistake.

P.S. Being a doctor in a more complex specialty is not much different, but then you're expected to read literature and keep up with current science research. It's still fundamentally checklist-based, but at least there's an expectation that the checklists are being updated.

Antibiotic abuse is a real problem, but expecting doctors to fix or even understand it is like expecting car mechanics to make traffic laws for your country.

Antibiotics should be regulated by a serious government effort, not by doctors.

Presumably, by getting a bacterial test. That's done in a lab and isn't a doctor's job.

> Well, people shouldn't be buying antibiotics without a doctors note.

Why? It's not rocket science, and it's not like this is a complex decision that you couldn't adequately make after 15 of Internet searching.

The fake mystique imparted on general practitioner doctors is a toxic force for bad in the world.

> Doctors shouldn't be prescribing antibiotics unless there is a big real need.

The doctor doesn't know if there is a "big real need", and in fact cannot.

The doctor is just running off a standard checklist for one of among 50 almost exactly alike cases during his workday.

"OOP" is not "X with classes".

"Classes" is a low-level thing that you'd need for implementing many language features. Including things like 'abstract data types' of the ML kind.

Good C++ style has always viewed "OOP" as something highly suspect and hacky.

(This didn't apply to "classes" in the C++ vein, which are mostly about pre/post-conditions and RAII.)