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3 yr. ago

  • No, I'm trying to get people to think. If I laid out my full opinions on this subject (compilers and interpreters aren't that different anymore, even machine code often runs more like bytecode in many ways, "scripting" is a term that hides what's actually going on, etc.), then people get into endless debates. My questions are designed to pick apart assumptions.

    Admittedly, people didn't appreciate when Socrates did this shit, either.

  • Hell, they'll probably put that on a resume, and someone will hire them.

  • Scripting languages are often considered to be very high level and can commonly run without compilation. Making them great to automate tasks or create a simplified interaction/abstraction layer to a more complex program.

    Then Python is not a scripting language.

    Programming languages usually have much lower level access, and by extension they tend to be more complicated. In exchange for that, you get much more control.

    Would you consider C to be more or less complicated than Perl?

  • FLAC is where it's at. Oddly, most of the head units that understand FLAC don't have CD drives at all. If it has a CD drive still, it probably only understands MP3.

    Which is one response to the question of "why would you encode an MP3 at a high bitrate when you can just use FLAC?" It's because I had a car that didn't FLAC.

  • I built one, but by that time our local FM radio waves were so saturated that there was no good frequency to use.

  • Yeah, once you know all the details, the distinction disappears. The term doesn't clarify understanding.

    If I had to make a distinction, it'd be that scripting languages are meant to be a simple way to serve a specific niche. Things like SQL or Excel formulas. It doesn't apply to Python.

  • What's the difference between a scripting language and a programming language?

  • Python: I'm so readable that I'm practically executable pseudo-code

    Also Python: if __name__ == '__main__': . . .

  • I'd say the term "procedural" itself is an issue. Pretty much any language can be done that way if you choose. IIRC, the creator of Clojure wanted Java to work more that way, and he did it by having a single class full of functions. It's not a natural way to write Java, and that's why he invented Clojure.

  • Procedural and OOP aren't mutually exclusive terms. Most OOP programs are ultimately procedural in nature. Often, the only difference is that the first argument to the function is to the left the function name and separated by a dot.

  • "Hashed emails". Besides the fact that they can match up a hash from one source to a hash from another source to link them to the same person (they never said they'd salt them), emails often have enough predictability to break the hash. Assuming they all end in "@gmail.com", "@outlook.com", or "@yahoo.com" will get you the vast majority of emails out there. Unlike a good password scheme, people don't shove a lot of random data into their email addresses.

  • The -i option is simply interactive mode. All commands still go through a compiler.

  • That is not how Python works. There are very few languages that work by executing line-by-line anymore. Unix shell scripts are one of the few holdouts. JavaScript also does it to a certain extent; the browser starts executing line-by-line while a compiler step works in the background. Once the compiler is done, it starts execution of the compiled form right where the line-by-line execution left off. It helps JavaScript be more responsive since it doesn't have to wait for the compiler to finish.

  • What would make it "object oriented"?

  • What's the difference between a "scripting" language and a "real" one?

  • Only took 27 years to make the Java "Hello, world!" kinda sane.

  • Neural nets are AI, and so are LLMs. They haven't reached AGI, but it's silly to make that the threshold for something to be "AI".

    People really need to understand the history of the field better.

  • There are scripting extensions to SQL that definitely are. There are some features in some SQL servers that make it Turing Complete even without scripting stuff.

    https://stackoverflow.com/questions/900055/is-sql-or-even-tsql-turing-complete

    Like HTML5+CSS3 being Turning Complete, it's easy to add features that accidentally make you hit the threshold. Many would argue that it's a sign complexity has run away from you, and I tend to agree.

  • The US is allergic to it, but needs to get over it.

    Aluminum wire was tried in the 1970s due to a spike in copper prices. The problem was that they just tried to swap it right in. Aluminum and copper have different rates of expansion. Over time, that would slowly loosen the connectors, and the wires would pop right out and cause a fire.

    You can design connectors to handle both, and you'll see many electrical things today specify that they're good for aluminum or copper wire. It still has a bad reputation among electricians; they haven't unlearned the problem yet.

    Now, one place it's more of a problem is in things like transformer windings. There are kilometers of wiring in any of them, so the higher resistance of aluminum is a problem.