work-on-828's comments

work-on-828 | 10 years ago | on: I no longer understand my PhD dissertation

> I was one of the best in that class, but when I asked what we need this stuff for the other people in the class looked at me and said the following: "if you ask this question you're in the wrong class"

I am always so disappointed when I hear people express this. Being able to place an effort in a broader context is so helpful in being able to approach the work well. A few teachers in the Literature department in high school had the same attitude and it was incredibly demoralizing and left me kinda directionless in their classes. I wish things like https://youtube.com/watch?v=suf0Jdt2Hpo had existed back then to give me some idea of what useful and interesting literary analysis looked like and could do.

work-on-828 | 10 years ago | on: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died

An argument in favor of Hillary is that the democrats need to be more cautious so as to make sure a republican doesn't appoint folks to the bench who would reverse the decision in Roe v. Wade If Obama appoints Scalia's successor, then that weakens that argument.

work-on-828 | 10 years ago | on: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died

Is it bad that my third thought was about how this will hurt Hillary's chances?

EDIT: It directly counters the argument that Bernie supporters are naive to risk a more leftist candidate who would have a lower chance of being able to appoint justices.

work-on-828 | 10 years ago | on: Wikimedia removes the Diary of Anne Frank due to copyright law

The full text of the clause is "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."

"Creative works" is as reasonable shorthand for "useful arts and sciences" as "privacy" is for "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects"

work-on-828 | 10 years ago | on: What do you mean ‘we need more time’? Project schedule estimation in software

usually when I debug things my method is sort of a mix of linear and binary search where I start at one place, see if the a value is what I expect it to be, then move along to a different part of the code to see if something is wrong there, reducing the search space and repeating as necessary.

Sometimes my method is instead to look at data output at a certain level of abstraction like system calls (which is usually not helpful except for detecting a network hang or a path config whose directory doesn't exist) or database queries or something. That is usually more helpful if I either already suspect I know where the problem is and need to know what model name or file name to `ag` for.

If (Hephaestus be praised) there is actually an automated test framework in place, I'll start by writing a failing test or copy-pasting an existing test and modifying it to fail, then (if it isn't JavaScript), inserting a debugger into a function the test calls.

All of this tends to be pretty successful.

But I've occasionally found myself on a project where I just have a sense that I don't know what is going on or how pieces fit together and I feel a strong temptation to stop and fix that sense of bewilderment. When I resist this urge is when it feels like I am trying things at random.

work-on-828 | 10 years ago | on: What do you mean ‘we need more time’? Project schedule estimation in software

> As a general rule, if management expects results without giving you the tools for the job, ask yourself whether you really want to be in that job, and start looking for alternatives.

Well the hard part here is determining if lack the tools due to management disorganization or due to my own lack of skill or intelligence. I have already left the organization.

> you _can_ estimate things correctly once you have the context

Maybe my problem comes down to not recognising when I lack a piece of context or being stubborn enough to get it.

work-on-828 | 10 years ago | on: What do you mean ‘we need more time’? Project schedule estimation in software

It sounds like you are saying that when I take an hour to work on debugging something, I should spend 55 minutes taking notes on the system and where the problem might be and 5 minutes turning those notes into a coherent email. Is that a reasonable approach?

I certainly prefer to think of debugging as a process of learning about a system rather that trying to try things at random without making a mental map of where I am.

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