I think the example could be better in this article. Let's say you have a function that takes a database id, an email address, and a name. They're all strings. If you pass arguments to this function and you mess up the order for some reason then the compiler has no idea. Hopefully your unit tests catch this but it won't be as obvious. Branded types solve this problem because you can't pass a name string as an argument that is expected to be an email address.
If you argue that this is not a common problem in practice, then I tend to agree. I haven't seen code with mixed up arguments very much, but when it does happen it can have bad consequences. IMO there is not a big cost to pay to have this extra safety. In TypeScript it's ugly, but in other languages that natively support this typing like Scala, Rust, Swift and Haskell, it works nicely.
Whether the term "vaporware" applies to SC is kind of subjective IMO. The server meshing feature has been advertised for a long time and it still hasn't been shipped. Though they did add object persistence a few patches ago which really changed the game for salvaging.
I bought the game based on what I see people doing in it already, and it was fun enough for me. That definitely won't be the case for everyone and I recognize that. So to me it's not vaporware and there are lots of other people still enjoying the game today.
There's quite a lot you can do in game and there are tons of ships with many different specializations (cargo, salvaging, mining, exploration, fighters, bombers, corvettes). Some need multiple players to crew effectively
PVE
- Cargo delivery missions (from small to large size)
- Bounty hunting (in space and on planet)
- Mining
- Salvaging
- Cave exploration/rescue
- Escaping from prison
Over the past two years I've played maybe 10-20 hours of SC. I paid $45 for the starter ship and then made some money moving boxes and doing bounties to upgrade my ship and then have enough to buy a bigger one. The game is pretty fun if you're used to MMO style grinding. The only problem is that during the past two years there have been many server state wipes so you lose everything except for the starter ship you purchased. On top of that there have been intermittent stability issues which would cause you to disconnect in the middle of doing something. It seems that it's become much more stable. So yeah, you're at minimum paying $45 for a game that's alpha, which is questionable value. My justification for this was that there isn't really any other game on the market that gives you the same experience. Starfield is releasing soon, but that's all single player, and I don't think it has space flight sim combat like SC does. Despite this, it's still a fun game with a lot of things to do, however it will not be everyone's cup of tea. Check out https://www.youtube.com/@CaptainBerks and https://www.youtube.com/@Morphologis for a better idea.
I really hope server meshing pans out, but I'm skeptical that RSI has the chops to pull it off. The number of objects in SC is huge and the world is seamless. This not something that's entirely new though. EVE Online has meshed servers for persistence of tens of thousands of concurrent players in a single universe successfully for decades now.
I've been running Xubuntu on a Lenovo X1 Carbon 5th gen with since 2016 with no issues. Totally wiped Windows from the beginning. The only frustration I have is when using a non-hidpi external screen I have to change the dpi to match what the external screen is capable, so the laptop screen effectively becomes very small.
How is Plasma in terms of CPU, memory, and graphics load? When I switched from Mac OS X to Linux six years ago I tried Ubuntu but I found Gnome to be incredibly slow and resource intense. Then I tried Xubuntu and I've used it ever since. I'm pretty happy running XFCE on two 4K screens with my desktop and on my hidpi Lenovo laptop. I've noticed Plasma continuing to improve and people recommending it so now I'm more keen to test it out.
Besides the improved UX are there any other advantages of Plasma over XFCE?
I've noticed the same over the course of my life but recently I drove through the interior of Florida to go on a camping trip and the front of my car was plastered with dead bugs.
Foiling has made it possible to do all of these sports with less power. I can now go windsurfing in 12kts on the same size sail that I would use for 20kts.
I remember seeing foils in the late 90s and early 2000s but they weren't available to purchase. I wonder why. Maybe it's because the construction process hadn't been commercialized yet.
> Compounded by the money being printed by Fed which also doesn't have a lot of places to go.
I generally agree with your comment about the potential for a structural change in where disposable income is going, but this statement isn't technically correct. I would check out this podcast for a great explanation of it: https://www.macrovoices.com/921-macrovoices-248-jeff-snider-...
That's a good point. Sorry to hear that. I have the 5th gen which has a USB-C power port and another USB-C and two other USBs. The USB-C power definitely wiggles a lot when it's plugged which makes me concerned though I haven't had a problem. The new Dell XPS 15 has an aluminum chassis, so I wonder if that would eliminate this issue. https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-laptops/new-xps-15-lapt...
I didn't know about Darktable or Kdenlive, so I'll have to check those out. Peek is awesome for GIF recording.
I've been using a ThinkPad X1 Carbon running Xubuntu since 2016. Before that I was using a MacBook Pro.
The things I like about this machine/Linux are
- It's light
- The keyboard is great/better
- The battery is really good coupled with the low resource usage of Xubuntu (except when I have Zoom, Docker, and lots of Firefox tabs)
- Don't have any trouble with audio when using Bluetooth
- I don't have to worry about MacOS breaking my dev environment
- Setting up dev environment is a breeze
Things I dislike
- CPU is not as powerful as a MacBook Pro
- The most recent X/Ubuntu broke wake up from sleep
- Some software doesn't have a Linux equivalent (Webex)
- If you want to dual boot Linux and Windows, getting full disk encryption on X/Ubuntu is challenging
- Plugging into a non-hidpi monitor is janky because it can't change dpi per screen
- Speakers on this machine suck
For me doing strictly software development, the benefits of a stable and easy to use environment outweigh the warts of Linux.
If I were to get a new machine I'd consider Lenovo again. The new Dell XPS also looks great. I might also give Windows and WSL2 a try in my dual OS desktop. Windows feels a lot smoother compared to Linux (on a very powerful desktop though), but it's constantly notifying you about things which is a distraction.
I've come to accept that most OSes are inevitably broken in different ways. OS X has always broken my dev environment on every update. So over three years ago I switched to a ThinkPad X1 Carbon with XUbuntu and have no issues other than having to change my DPI when I connect/disconnect to a non HiDPI screen. Then I recently built a gaming PC with an AMD CPU and an Nvidia GPU, which did not go as smoothly with Linux: I had to install experimental Nvidia drivers, audio is a little wonky, and sometimes the wifi doesnt work and I have to restart. But overall I'm quite happy on XUbuntu and it gives me fewer problems or annoying prompts than Mac OS or Windows ever did. For gaming I use Windows of course.
ChatID is a quickly growing platform for brands and consumers to directly communicate via chat across any website and on any device. Our chat product is live for partnered brands on Walmart.com, Sears.com and Newegg.com
- We're 40+ people based in NYC, Austin and San Francisco
- Our chat services are written in Lua and powered by Prosody [https://prosody.im/] an open source XMPP server maintained by two of our cofounders, one of which is a member of the XMPP council
Technologies we use:
- CoffeeScript, Backbone.js, Angular.js, Flux and React, D3, SASS/LESS
ChatID is a quickly growing platform for brands and consumers to directly communicate via chat across any website and on any device. Our chat product is live for partnered brands on Walmart.com, Sears.com and Newegg.com
- We're 25+ people mostly based in NYC, but also SF and Austin
- Our NYC office is in Flatiron between Union Square and Madison Square
- Our chat services are written in Lua and powered by Prosody [https://prosody.im/] an open source XMPP server maintained by two of our cofounders, one of which is a member of the XMPP council
Technologies we use:
- CoffeeScript, Backbone.js, Angular.js, Flux and React, D3, SASS/LESS
ChatID is a quickly growing platform for brands and consumers to directly communicate via chat across any website and on any device. Our chat product is live for partnered brands on Walmart.com, Sears.com and Newegg.com
Our current openings:
* Data Engineer - join our data team and work on building our analytics solution which gives brands and retailers a view into how chat is driving their business.
* Frontend Engineer - join our frontend team and work on our core product which is a 3rd party JavaScript chat widget that runs on desktop and mobile web
About the company:
- We're 20+ people mostly based in NYC, but also SF and Austin
- NYC office is in Flatiron between Union Square and Madison Square
- Newegg.com recently awarded us a 2014 Eggie award for "Best Marketing Platform"
- For our chat server we use Lua and Prosody [https://prosody.im/] an open source XMPP server started by two of our cofounders, one of which is a member of the XMPP council
- CoffeeScript, Backbone.js, Require.js, Angular.js, Flux and React, D3, SASS/LESS
- Python, Flask, PostgreSQL, InfluxDB, RabbitMQ
- Chef for infrastructure automation, but we're working on switching over to using Ansible and Docker
ChatID is a quickly growing platform for brands and consumers to directly communicate via chat across any website and on any device. Our chat product is live for select brands on Walmart.com, Sears.com and Newegg.com
Our current openings:
* Frontend Engineer - we're building real-time communication interfaces for mobile and desktop web using Backbone.js, XMPP, and BOSH
* Client Services Engineer - work with frontend and client services to help technically support new and existing clients
* Data Engineer - help us build a data pipeline and analytics service to give our clients insights into chat and consumer behavior on retailers. (this one isn't listed yet but if you're familiar w/ Python and skilled in SQL, and NoSQL, please reach out to us)
* You can find full job descriptions for these openings at https://chatid.gethired.com/ as well as other non-technical openings we have
About the company:
- We're 16 people mostly based in NYC, but also SF and Austin
- NYC office is in Flatiron between Union Square and Madison Square
- Newegg.com recently awarded us a 2014 Eggie award for "Best Marketing Platform"