papaf
Joined 17 years ago
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Recent submissions
Comment · 5 years ago
Comment · 5 years ago
Have you been in that scenario, ever? Video calls are infinitely worse than typed text between non-native speakers. And if the call is not going to be in english… why would the written communication be so?
I am in this scenario every work day as a non-native speaker. I much prefer talking to people than trying to get the text correct.
Comment · 5 years ago
I disagree with a lot of this article because it assumes that we are efficient robots that just need things to be searchable and written down. Tools are also a bit lacking -- in theory writing stuff in a wiki is useful but then try finding the information with, say, Confluence search.
The article also assumes every one is a native speaker who can write quickly and clearly in a chat -- in a lot of international projects this is not the case.
I find that there is less chance for misunderstanding and aggression if you disagree over a video call. Also, human contact and informal communication make life and working more enjoyable.
Comment · 5 years ago
A Fairphone is repairable and, using Lineage, has long term software support.
I have a Fairphone 2 as my main phone (released in 2015) and I am running Lineage based on Android 10.
Comment · 5 years ago
It's like asking why the knife you're using keeps cutting you when you put your finger on the sharp end.
Most cloud providers don't have this billing problem and so the analogy breaks. Its more like, why does this knife keep shooting me in the foot?
Comment · 5 years ago
it routinely eats up close to 4 GB of RAM, which in my case is an entire VPSes worth and costs me about 60 Euros a year
You are absolutely correct that running other peoples Ruby code is expensive. I would argue similarly for Java because of the high RAM requirements.
However, if you are a company developing your own software, if you use a more productive technology and it spares just 1 programmer then you have paid for a few hundred VMs and running costs become insignificant compared to labour costs.
This is an argument in favour for both Rails and the Java monsters.
Comment · 5 years ago
I have been on several teams that found the following article "Unlearning toxic behaviours in a code review culture" very helpful:
https://medium.com/@sandya.sankarram/unlearning-toxic-behavi...
Comment · 5 years ago
Certainly not clarity of written communication.
Comment · 5 years ago
Sometimes I think Canada is more interested in portraying itself as a progressive beacon to the world than actually being one.
Its attitude to seals is not very progressive: https://www.humanesociety.org/resources/about-canadian-seal-...
Or the environment: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/alber...
Comment · 5 years ago
The taxi could have been in on it -- its a trick that is normally used in poorer countries but looks like its reached the EU.
Comment · 5 years ago
Two things stick out here that I don't fully understand.
Declarative schemas, and a well-defined update process (that isn't human-written DDL), are essential at any sort of organizational scale.
Isn't this impossible because some schema changes require data migration? A data migration cannot be declaratively automated as far as I know.
Queue support
Why not use a dedicated and feature rich queue such as Rabbit MQ or, if you want to get really fancy, Kafka?
Comment · 5 years ago
One thing I would recommend when someone blames a bug on you -- without hesitation, always say "yes, I will take a look at it".
This way if you have to push back and say it wasn't you, you have much more impact because you have investigated the problem.
Edit: but I agree, that is no way to treat a colleague.
Comment · 5 years ago
Even if actual flu related deaths reverted to a pre-2020 level, I guarantee it would still be news. People will still be wearing masks, state/local governments will be enforcing mandates, etc.
They were in pre-2020 for bad flu pandemics:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_swine_flu_pandemic_in_Mex...
Comment · 5 years ago
Gstreamer uses it. Those are some smart guys and I trust their choices.
I tried the Meson build of GStreamer last year. It didn't go well and I gave up because of time pressure.
I haven't looked at Meson since because CMake actually works.
On video calls and in meatspace, you get to see peoples facial expressions, their smiles, they can move their hands and make gestures. I much prefer that to text.
As for the human contact, I do recommend having a social life outside work. Distributed or not distributed work.
You are correct but, personally, I think spending 8 hours a day without seeing faces is too much.