eggdaft

I agree. I was taught Scheme and I later taught it. It was a much cleaner and suitable language for teaching computer science than Python. Students could completely understand the language and how it worked by the end of a semester.

Scheme is much closer to mathematics, which made it much more suitable for teaching strong mathematicians arriving without coding experience. It also made the hackers more rigorous and broadened their minds from the imperative "do this then that" mindset.

There's a notable difference between those first taught scheme and those first taught Python. Of course, both can go on to learning Python or FP or whatever. But that foundation needs to be there to teach truly great coding for most mortals.

Browser debugging tools are very basic. Their UI is generally awful.

Spend a few days debugging in PyCharm and you'll scream when you open developer tools.

I only use print debugging when working on the web, and your mention of console.log makes me think maybe you're in the same boat.

It's an absolutely damning indictment of the developer experience for the web that this is the case. Why aren't our IDEs and browsers beautifully integrated like every other development environment I use integrates the runtime and the IDE?

Why hasn't some startup, somewhere, fixed this and the rest of the web dev hellscape? I don't know.

I taught both SICP and Java, and I can confirm Java was far more confusing to students. Classes vs instances, inheritance, polymorphism. Why was everything a class? Don't I just want the computer to do something to some input?

Yes, I agree these are two good points. I also experienced teaching SICP and would say the overall position of the GP is incorrect and results in a less profound understanding of programming.

> Bullshit. Again, I was a TA for this course. You do not spend the rest of the semester on ideas, you spend the rest of the semester on the students being very confused.

I was a TA on an SICP course at a UK university, disagree with you. The students weren't confused, the simple syntax really helped and, because all the students had good maths knowledge, a functional style was a lot more intuitive than imperative.

FYI, the course has since been replaced with Python programming.

My completely unscientific analysis: aerobics gets the blood circulating more and enables the body to remove stress hormones from the blood at a faster rate.

Hi Hacker News I’m Captain Obvious and I’m here to tell you (and myself) an uncomfortable truth that most of us kinda know but really can’t face up to.

Many of us have sleep problems.

We don’t have the healthiest lifestyles. Lots of screen use, being very sedentary, many of us eating bad food (it’s quick! I can get back to thjngs). Denis Nedry is not a mischaracterisation.

It’s not true for absolutely everyone but for the vast majority of people the answer is super simple. You need to exercise. Not even a ton. Three times a week will probably do it. Some cardio some weights, each visit to the gym a decent workout.

This will cost you £40-£90 a month. That’s about the cost of various Adobe Creative Cloud packages, which enable you to make mediocre graphics on your home personal computer.

for the same price as those photo tweaks you can get: improved longevity, improved all round health, protection against RSI and back problems, hugely reduced stress levels, improved levels of focus and happiness and better relationships. Hey, keep it up for a bit and you’ll even get a bit buff and your partner might like that.

We all know this and yet we all seek alternative explanations and remedies: eye masks, Vit D, meditation, dietary fads… because they’re so much easier than 2 hour trips to the gym a few times a week. Sure for some people those things are real but for the rest of us it’s just procrastination because:

The gym isn’t very fun.

Get over it. Put a podcast on, start small, accept that Tuesday night and Thursday night are going to be mostly lost to the gym and just enjoy the journey there and enjoy the music or podcast accompaniment. It’s a tax on living. Pay now or pay much more later, your choice.

I struggle with this so hard, but I’m trying ringo, I’m trying, and you should too.

My theory is this is cause by stress hormones.

You can get to sleep because you’re so damn exhausted, but you wake up as soon as you’re physically able because of the hormones.

The answer is exercise. Aerobic and weights. Three times a week minimum. And for a good amount of time.

A lot of people wake up at 3 or 4am. This is typically stress related.

Possible solution:

1. Sit up or get up. If getting up, I usually get a mint tea.

2. Journal. Write down your thoughts. Very important: write down _what you are going to do tomorrow_, step by step. Usually the brain is worrying about something and by telling it what you’re going to do about it tomorrow it seems to calm down.

3. When you’ve gotten everything out, read. Just keep reading until you can’t keep your eyes open.

I’ve found this almost always works. Waking in the middle of the night is caused by stress around a problem. Your brain just wants to know the narrative around how that problem will get resolved or improved. Then it will fall sleep again.

Problems with f/oss for business applications:

1. Great UX folks almost never work for free. So the UX of nearly all OSS is awful.

2. Great software comes from a close connection to users. When your software is an OS kernel that works just fine for programmers, but how many OSS folks want to spend their free time on zoom talking to hundreds of businesses and understanding their needs, so they can give them free software?

See also: year of Linux desktop

What happened when someone from the cool club got promoted and became a boss?

I actually think Slack is great and it has improved over the last 12 months.

Tbf the same debate has raged over SO snippets for a long time.

Hmm, no I think people don't get what I'm saying.

Yes, you might waste five years (in your words) of income. But that is not a "risk".

A "risk" for me is "this could all go badly wrong". Not having an extra five years of savings is just a fairly straightforward consequence. It's predictably going to happen, I can decide if I want it.

Real risk is "something can go catastrophically wrong". If say you've taken out a huge bank loan to fund the business and you have to declare bankruptcy if it fails, now _that_ is a risk. But nearly every founder I've ever met has taken nothing like that risk.

That's my point, startups are not risky in that sense, for most people, most of the time. It's kinda strange that so many people think they are.