>3 (syntax) seems to be about not supporting the author's own highly idiosyncratic habits
Yeah, I don't get the author at all. Using indentation is so, so, so, so, much cleaner and easier to understand, even with lots of nesting than trying to figure out if you closed all the stupid curly braces, curly braces be damned.
I asked a "C all the things!" developer a while back why he hated Python's enforced indentation and in a whole lot of words he basically said that it makes it difficult to visually track scope when you have long chains of conditionals.
The standard Python developer response to that is, "Aha! You like braces because they enable your bad programming practices!"
However, I found the best way to illustrate that point is this: I asked him, "If you're never allowed to use a text editor/IDE that highlights braces or the space between them ever again would you still prefer braces to indentation?"
I had to re-explain this concept several times but eventually I think he understood my point at least a little bit...
"Aha! You're using spaces because Python lacks decent development tools! In fact, because there's no static typing you can't even make a decent IDE for Python! Spaces are a crutch!"
> * I asked him, "If you're never allowed to use a text editor/IDE that highlights braces or the space between them ever again would you still prefer braces to indentation?"*
Being visually impaired and also having coded since before syntax-highlighting editors became standard, yes. A brace character is something that's easy to visually perceive; whitespace isn't.
Literally anything other than spaces that allowed easier linting, less "wait am I doing it right" regarding multi-line statements, etc.
If that is a keyword, or brackets, or whatever, I would prefer that. You can't minify or easily lint python. And you can't easily tell if there are mixed indent methods (tabs/spaces) and IDEs struggle with it vs. a simple bracket structure.
(This is a rare repost within a thread. I'm punching that card for 2018. Whitespace significance is my #1 issue with Python. I love the language, hate this feature.)
I hate meaningfull identation because the tools I end up using suck at maintaining it. I end up bugfixing on customer systems, sometimes on systems used by coworkers. There is no editor with consitent tab vs. spaces or tab width settings. I had editors clear two indents at once, fail to correctly line up new indents more often than not. I will accept whitespace as sane block scoping method the moment every text editor follows the same settings out of the box with the ability to customize the settings removed.
While I have PyCharm on my dev. system the chance that I can use it while I am debugging or extending a script on a customers system is zero, sometimes there is kwrite, sometimes it is gedit and if it is headless I may get vim. So consistency is guaranteed to be non existent.
>"If you're never allowed to use a text editor/IDE that highlights braces or the space between them ever again would you still prefer braces to indentation?"
Yes. (Though that's hardly the worst thing about Python.)
Isn't deep nesting (hence deep indentation) a sign of code smell? Yeah, you might end up shuffling the logic into a new file or a function that makes the file much longer, but I've noticed when doing that kind of refactoring it forces you to clean up the scoping quite a bit so there's less state to keep track of.
Imagine an if, inside of a foreach, inside of a function definition, inside of a class. This is not terrible code, it's perfectly reasonable.
Now you're indented four levels in. Now combine this with some rather unreasonable and outdated assumptions that PEP8 (automatically enforced in many shops and OSS projects) has, like pretending that people are still on glass terminals and that anything longer than 79 characters is a problem. It also insists on four-space tabs, so this very simple construct has eaten 20% of your line budget.
..not to mention how it makes your code harder to read. I also share the author's concern about how you're less able to separate your debug code from your actual code.
This is all subjective, so it's hard to make a water-tight argument either way (even if we were looking at a concrete code example)...that's one reason it's referred to as "smell" instead of a bad-practice. PEP-8 effectively starts with "A Foolish Consistency is the Hobgoblin of Little Minds." Every place I've worked used a modified version of PEP-8 for standards because it never worked out of the box. Like I was saying higher up, it's hard to tell who to blame. It is the reality of using that language, but the developers have made a strong effort to address it. I guess it's a lesson to future language designers or community managers?
More concretely, I often find deeply indented code more difficult to read. There are more local variables to keep track of and breaking it out into a function helps encapsulate and name what's going on. Even from your description I might look to see if I could use a generator to filter the loop instead of "for" and "if" which should be more clear, fewer indentations, and easier to optimize at runtime. I do find trying to break up long line onto multiple rather annoying because diffs are more difficult to read.
I've never really used whitespace to separate my debug and actual code...which probably speaks more to my background than anything else. I have tended to put a # at the beginning of the line when debugging and next to the comment when commenting. Linters don't seem to care for that, but the code is tidied up before it's committed.
Four-space indent is very common in other languages too. I don't see why this choice should be argued over for Python specifically. The 80 char limit is also very common.
I too used to leave debug-code purposefully unindented. There are other ways to handle that and the loss is negligible to me considering there can't be misplaced braces in Python in return.
Yes, we indent code for readability sake. If you don't, that would be incompetent. Which makes the braces redundant at best, noise at worst.
Their lack in Python bothered me too, one afternoon in the spring of 2001, then I moved on.
When I hear someone complaining about it I immediately think, this person hasn't much experience with Python, or is one of those highly inflexible pedant types.
Arguably the lisp family contains the “huggiest” use of characters, but something like Paredit turns those parentheses into something of a turbo-charged way of handling code forms.
But it leads to another problem: hatred of typing commas in non-lisps.
When I switched to Python, the one thing I predicted I'd hate is the forced indentation.
The reality is that after a week or so I forgot completely about it. There are other things for sure that became an issue (took awhile to fully grok class variables vs instance variables), but the indentation was never one of them.
Debt with interest is inherently destructive. Inevitably the demand for debt owed exceeds the actually supply of money. To put it in very simple tangible terms, if the US economy was say $100,000, and say all that money is lent out at a simple 10% interest rate due back in one year, then a year from now the demand to be paid back is $110,000. Where is that extra $10k coming from? It doesn't exist. Lending with interest is designed to fail. The only "solution" is to keep printing more money.
I think you are implying the companies and people borrow money for shits and giggles. The reality is that most companies borrow money only when the availability of extra capital would help them generate more revenues or capture addtional market share. So they would take into account the cost of servicing the debt and repaying the loan.
However, there are cases like IBM raing debt to buy back shares and boost share prices. I have no idea how that will work out for them.
>I think you are implying the companies and people borrow money for shits and giggles.
Nope. I was just using an example. It could have been $100k and only $50K was lent out. You sill would need $105k at the end of the year to satisfy all debts and have an equilibrium within the economy. Where is the extra $5K coming from? Magic??
> The reality is that most companies borrow money only when the availability of extra capital would help them generate more revenues or capture additional market share.
This doesn't change the fact that the demand back for money will exceed the actually money supply.
It is simple math really. The fact that they are using the cash to, hopefully, generate more revenues is irrelevant.
Private companies have no control over the the supply of money. This is a central banking problem.
>You sill would need $105k at the end of the year to satisfy all debts and have an equilibrium withing the economy. Where is the extra $5K coming from? Magic??
this makes very little sense. You are not lending the entire economy and then demanding more than the economy be paid back. You only lend a portion of the money supply so that a slightly larger portion is repaid.
Even if that were the case, isnt that what QE does?
>You are not lending the entire economy and then demanding more than the economy be paid back.
You are right that you are not lending the entire economy, I was just making the example as simple as possible. But, the second interest is being charged then the demand of money back exceeds the actual money supply. What companies and investors do to increase revue for 1 particular organization has no effect on the money supply. All companies are doing are vying to try and redistribute the money that already exists in their favor, they aren't creating money (if they are that is called counterfeiting and is illegal).
> Even if that were the case, isn't that what QE does?
Yes, QE increases the money supply. I am not saying that the money supply doesn't get increased (by the Federal Reserve), merely pointing out the fact that once you get on this treadmill it just goes faster and faster and faster, and there is no way to get off without a disaster (bubble).
Jax, I’m sorry but this is just fundamentally incorrect. The economy is not a zero sum game. Clearly there is annual economic growth, and that growth compounded over many years has lead to orders of magnitude growth in the size of the US/World economy.
Companies borrow money in order to invest in their own growth. Borrowing allows increased growth rate and in turn increased spending which has follow-on effects downstream (this is called the money multiple).
I very much enjoyed taking the intro Micro and Macroeconomics classes as part of my Econ degree. There are probably even great courses online for free now. I’d highly recommend it.
> But, the second interest is being charged then the demand of money back exceeds the actual money supply.
Not true, and I'm having a hard time finding your argument. You think if I loan you 1$ at 0% that's fine, but 1$ at 1% now exceeds the world's money supply? Even debt > total money supply is payable as long as interest payments are < payments being made.
> once you get on this treadmill it just goes faster and faster and faster, and there is no way to get off without a disaster (bubble).
Not strictly true. I have taken on debt with interest and paid that debt. Why is a disaster needed?
When a company pays back interest to a bank, the interest isn't magically removed from the money supply. So the bank also has $10k more profits, with which it pays its employees more, who can then buy more widgets from the company etc.
Yes, whether this is sustainable does depend on increased economic activity. Which is why it's so important to lend for (sustainable) productivity growth or you get a bubble which creates liquidity problems when it pops.
> You sill would need $105k at the end of the year to satisfy all debts and have an equilibrium within the economy. Where is the extra $5K coming from? Magic??
The extra $5K come from the same place the initial $100k came.
>What happens when there are new entrants to your economy?
Nothing.
>Are they all forced to split the 100k?
No, if the new entrant can provide value then someone that already has some that $100K can give it to them for a good or service.
>If not, where does new money come from? Magic?
Comes from the Federal Reserve, when they decided to increase the money supply. The problem is you are on a never ending treadmill that is designed to have bubbles and failures, not that new money has to sometimes be created.
> Comes from the Federal Reserve, when they decided to increase the money supply.
Wait, really? I was pretty convinced that the vast majority of new money is created by private banks, when they decide to loan out money that nobody has paid in. It's called fractional reserve banking.
Private lending actually destroys money supply, contrary to the "money multiplier effect". (Fed recently admitted this was bullshit) that has been taught for a long time. Government/public lending creates money supply
True; but the revenue / additional market share is never a sure thing. The company can't make a contract with the universe. The interest payments, however, are a contractual obligation.
Think of a restaurant that needs a new fryer because the one they had broke down. Wihout that new fryer , they will lose their business and livelihood. Debt allows them to make a risk calculation : they will take on an additonal overhead of deb servicing and in return they will keep their business.
Now think of a dentist who wants to open her own practice. Her savings may not cover the cost of buying equipment that is needed. An asset backed loan may be a better opion for her. Of course, there is a risk involved -- she may not generate enough revenues to cover the cost of servicing the debt or her other liabilities. Typically she would consult with her accountant before starting on this journey.
I would argue thay contractual obligations and regularity and severity with which they are enforced are a sobering influence on businesses. There are no contacts with universe needed for debt -- but there is an element of risk that needs to be accounted for.
The interest payment is partially because of the risk in the first place. Collateral if any is the only guarantee to the lender. They are taking the risk of losing it all or using a complicated yet sensible metainsurance plan at the cost of direct profit.
If hypothetically we could see the future perfectly the financial market would start to look downright weird as predestined to fail loans would always be rejected but approved loans would go low margin from competition.
You’re confusing stocks (such as the stock of debt) and flows (including payments), a common mistake. Every expenditure is another person’s income. Money is spent multiple times around the economy, and some agencies try to measure how quickly it happens, which is what the velocity of money is, and the concept of the fiscal multiplier comes into this.
If the economy is growing, it is true that continual money creation is required to stop deflation, but a lot of people don’t realise to what extent because it isn’t commonly known that not only can the Government create money, but that in fact all bank lending does and is expansionary [1].
But A is in the money business, they should have no interest in X and Y.
- A loans $100K to both B and C at 10%.
- B makes X and Y, C make Q and R.
- B and C can produce and sell X,Y,Q, and R to one another to their mutual hearts content, creating a lot of value, but in the end A can only be satisfied by $220K. Either B or C is going to end up short.
Why would A accept X or Y when it's detrimental to their business interests to do so?
Lets assume the product that B makes has a value which allows a 50% gross margin
A loans $100K cash to B at 10% markup (total value of system= 100K)
B buys raw material from A for 100K cash (total value of system now 200K as a magic 100K of raw materials were just added)
B creates product X and Y, now worth 200K (system is now at 300K)
A buys 60K of product X with cash (doesnt change value of system)
A cannot buy 60K of product Y with cash, though the total value of the system has increased.
There isnt enough cash in the system to settle all debts, but the total value of the system has increased. Cash would need to be printed to cover debts.
Fiat currency to some extent is balanced against the total GDP of the US.
The interest doesn't disappear, it lands in the pocket of the lender, only the principal does disappear.
If you do indeed lend 100k$ from a central bank and they "print" the money then the money supply increases by 100k$ for the duration of the loan. When you pay it back the money vanishes into nothingness again. Interest payments go to the central bank which makes a profit, governments spend the income and the money starts circulating within the economy again. [1]
Spending money doesn't destroy it, it can be spent more than once in a year; even with no additional money, you just need higher velocity of money for their to be more money spent in one year than another. The extra $10K doesn't need to come from anywhere, the same way the base $100K (which was already spent the first year and thus "consumed" if you mistakenly assume money is single-use) doesn't.
Interest is determined by the risk inherent in the debt. Think of it in terms of consumer credit. Whether a bank or credit card company lends you money at 5% or 15% has more to do with how creditworthy you are, then with how good a use you will make of the money. (Think TVs on installment plans)
> Interest is determined by the risk inherent in the debt.
That's the supply side consideration of the price of debt, but interest, like all prices, is determined by intersection of supply and demand, not supply alone.
Demand side consideration is “what new income in the future does taking on this debt now enable?”
Loans fundamentally create virtual currency in the first place. Not to mention that if the economy has the same amount of value a year from now something has gone very wrong here - an entire nation of people working and yet they don't have more or better?
It brings to mind a reducto ad absurdum of fixed currency amounts with massive deflation where your grandfather's couch cushion change is worth more than a new couch as why absolute fixed currencies are unviable.
Value is created out of thin air through work. Sometimes you need to invest before you can do that work. If your money supply doesn't reflect the increase in value that the economy provides through work, then you get deflation.
apples and oranges. Sure technically they are both provide "internet", but this day in age DSL speeds are just plain unacceptable. You might as well make the argument that residents don't have to go with Comcast, they can get AOL.
...and that's why AMD didn't miss revenue forecasts, right? EPYC was pretty anemic, I would have expected an explosion in sales with such a product, not the underwhelming sales performance it experienced. There are obviously other factors holding it back.
How do you know AWS/Azure etc. aren't using them just for price haggling with Intel, as it was done with AMD in the past all the time? The fact you can get EPYC servers doesn't mean they are wide-spread anyway.
>I would have expected an explosion in sales with such a product
That is just unrealistic expectations in the server space. These aren't consumer products where adoption is fast. Business don't upgrade their infrastructure as quickly as consumers, and when they do decided to upgrade it is months of planning. No company is going to jump ship to AMD when their current servers aren't fully depreciated by their accounting standards, and they still have several years left on their support contracts.
The EPYC sales will come, but not overnight.
EDIT: And I am not sure why are are so disappointed here. Epyc sales and adoption has been in-line with what AMD has given as guidance. Why would you expect adoption to wildly exceed AMD's own guidance? I think AMD had aggressive but realistic guidance and so far Epyc has been great success and will only continue to chip away at Intel. Also not sure what revenue miss you are referring to. Overall AMD beat their expected earnings per share by 1 cent last quarter. If there was a slight miss on the Epyc sales then they made up for it somewhere else, but it must not have been a very big miss otherwise they would have missed the EPS target.
They missed revenue because of video cards effecting them more then they expected, look at Nvidia, they expect backstock into several quarters next year. Stop spreading fud, their cpu revenue, ip etc is right on target where they said it would be.
>which implies already having high privileges. (How do users with such high UIDs come into existence?)
I am not so sure about that. I work at a smallish, place and by default my AD account has UID of 945004649. Still under the INT_MAX but not that far off. Our domain controller is running Windows 2012 R2, and nothing was changed or touched regarding UID's, everything was left at the default. We just create users and get whatever UID AD assigns.
You are already fucked at this point. I would focus my attention on prevent hackers from 1) gaining any unauthorized access. 2) from doing any sort of privilege escalation from a restricted account/service.
"Yeah, I just need to run to Home Depot and get some more nails"
A deck is that wooden structure on the back of your house. A power point presentation is an electronic file made up of "slides". There is also a "deck of cards", but no one calls a deck of cards just a "deck". Maybe if they called it a "deck of slides", or you know just use a term that makes sense, like "presentation".
It comes from "slide decks", because not too far long ago, presentations were made with actual 35mm transparencies which were slid into a projector, and were carried in decks.
I've always disliked it because a "deck" is stack of small, flat things, canonically, playing cards. A set of PowerPoint slides is not small (they are usually wall sized) and they are not an actual thing I can carry around. I think of a set of PowerPoint slides as a “PowerPoint presentation” or “PowerPoint file”. I guess I could let “slide deck” slide, because a stack of slides would be “deck”-sized, and I assume that sales presentations back in The Day actually were slides of some sort.
To me, a "sales deck" (current title is "The greatest sales deck I've ever seen") implies a stack of playing-card sized marketing material, or a joking reference to your stack of business cards.
I was really looking forward to an new SE phone, that was my upgrade plan (currently on 6). Now my upgrade plan is to transition to Andriod, or I am seriously considering going back to a "dumb phone". The cost of phones is out of control (including data plan prices), honestly not sure it is really worth it for me anymore.
The only features I want in a "smart" phone, are podcasts, camera, music, GPS/directions. I don't really even need a web browser, and I don't need any social media at all. And I certainly don't need any gaming capabilities (I still don't "get" mobile gaming, if I want to play a game I will do it on my desktop, with a mouse and keyboard, and large screen).
I might go back to carrying 2 devices, a MP3 (podcast/music player) and a dumb phone. Should cut my phone bill down significantly.
I wouldn't say that, there's just a wide range. You can spend four digits on a brand-new flagship model, or you can get a decent phone for under $150. And if you have WiFi where you spend the day, a data plan is mostly redundant.
A smart phone? If so please provide a link. The "cheap" smart phones I have found are $300 ish, which ins't terrible, but this general trend towards a $1,000 smart phone is insane. I am not spending more for a phone than the cost of a decent laptop.
I'm largely in the same boat. Have you considered a pay-as-you-go plan with an MVNO? I use H20 wireless [0], with an iPhone SE, and it can be pretty cheap.
I live in a remote area, and so far have found the only carrier that has any signal at all at my house is Verizon. So I am pretty much stuck with them, unless I get at network extender/signal booster for another carrier and install it in my house, which I am not too keen on doing.
My kids are almost ready for phones. We've already got one 2nd hand SE, and once they start actually using data we'll put them on our mobile providers "tablet" data-only yearly plan, 24GB for $100. At ~$8/mo that's pretty reasonable, and plenty for basic text/image usage. If they start streaming and burning through the data, they can pay for that themselves.
