valw

4 yıl öncediscuss

Or, you know, use a time-aware database like XTDB or Datomic.

4 yıl öncediscuss

I absolutely agree - one of the biggest shortcomings of SQL is that its primary programming interface is based on text and intended for human, instead of being based on data structures and intended for programs.

valw

4 yıl öncediscuss

> There’s not much difference in expressiveness

> However SQL is declarative

Pick one :) the way I see it, if declarativeness is not a factor in assessing expressiveness, then expressiveness reduces to the uninteresting notion of Turing-equivalence.

valw

4 yıl öncediscuss

Thanks for sharing this. I believe we essentially agree: chaining method calls is inexpressive compared to composing expressions in an algebraic language.

valw

4 yıl öncediscuss

Btw, am I alone in thinking that DataFrame abstractions in OOP languages (like Pandas in Python) are oftentimes simply inferior to relational algebra? I'm not sure that many Data Scientists are aware of the expressive power of SQL.

valw

4 yıl öncediscuss

Well, to be also fair, we also want quantum electronics to be deterministic in their behaviour. The difference lies not so much in randomness as in leveraging intrication.

valw

4 yıl öncediscuss

I made the same remark in reply to another comment which used the phrase "factoring primes" :) Wikipedia does use the term "prime factorization": that seems legit to me, as prime is used as an adjective. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integer_factorization

valw

4 yıl öncediscuss

> factoring prime numbers

factoring into prime numbers ;-) (factoring a prime number is trivial, that's why it's called prime)

valw

4 yıl öncediscuss

> Are quantum computers overhyped?

Well, let's see:

> When given the same problem, a quantum computer should be able to trounce any supercomputer in any problem in terms of speed and efficiency

LOL, no, not any problem, far from it. Some problems, rather specific ones, such as prime factoring.

> Our current system, for example, taps into electrons and cleverly-designed chips to perform their functions. Quantum computers are similar, but they rely on alternative particle physics.

Um, no, they both rely on the same physics, that is a combination of Quantum Mechanics and electromagnetism. Note to the author: an electron is a quantum system, and classical electronics definitely rely on that.

So yes, quantum computers are overhyped, through no faults of their own, and this article contributes to the trend.

valw

4 yıl öncediscuss

> the annual worldwide energy usage of blockchain technology is roughly equal to the annual US energy waste from machines plugged in while in standby mode. It is also significantly lower than the annual worldwide usage of Christmas lights, and wash dryers.

... and it benefits much, much fewer people.

That's analogous to the pro-air-travel disinformation argument: "air travel is only 2% of CO2 emissions". It is only so because air travel is only adopted by a small minority of people: that doesn't stop it from being insanely carbon-intensive.

valw

4 yıl öncediscuss

April fool's joke : we'll pretend that bugs in software are distributed as a homogeneous Poisson process, AND that Poisson distributions are bounded, while we're at it.

Poisson d'avril!

valw

4 yıl öncediscuss

Reminder that the Computer Languages Benchmark Game itself recommends against using it to draw general conclusions about performance of languages in real-world apps: https://benchmarksgame-team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/...

> We are profoundly uninterested in claims that these measurements, of a few tiny programs, somehow define the relative performance of programming languages aka Which programming language is fastest?

Now, I challenge you to find a major bloated software where the main source of overhead is Python interpretation. IME it's always something else, like the surrounding UI framework.

The Office suite is written in C++ and is badly bloated, obviously not because of language execution overhead but because of technical debt, which if that's any indication recommends against using low-level languages.

valw

4 yıl öncediscuss

> Sir Tony Hoare famously said: “Premature optimization is the root of all evil.”

Er, wasn't it Donald Knuth? https://wiki.c2.com/?PrematureOptimization

valw

5 yıl öncediscuss

I submit that Event Sourcing (or at least something very close to it) can be easy, once you've removed some technology locks. I've seen it happen with Datomic (https://vvvvalvalval.github.io/posts/2018-11-12-datomic-even...), but it can probably happen similarly with other tech, such as XTDB (https://xtdb.com/).

valw

5 yıl öncediscuss

I wrote the blog post you cited (thanks!) but I disagree with both statements: that is not what is meant in the article.

1. I don't think Event Sourcing sucks - I think we are lacking accessible technology for supporting it. 2. For most difficulties encountered in Event Sourcing, I would rather blame distribution taken to the extreme.

valw

5 yıl öncediscuss

Folks, just to clarify: "catalyst" is a very broad chemistry term for "something that helps a chemical reaction take place without being a reagent nor product of said reaction." So don't get the wrong idea: catalysts have quite specific uses, and you cannot substitute any one catalyst for any other.

valw

5 yıl öncediscuss

Reminder: this sort of metric is sensational but hardly relevant. The relevant metric is how much fossil production is left, not how much low-carbon production we add. All the more so because production peaks of renewables tend to be outliers.

valw

5 yıl öncediscuss

A shameless-because-related plug: https://www.reddit.com/r/patient_hackernews/

A Hacker News mirror biased in favor of thoughtful discussion, by enforcing that you cannot comment on something in less than 24 hours.

This might help you spend less of your attention on Hacker News, by:

  1. Showing you a subset of hot posts
  2. Enforcing high response delays (thus suppressing the impulse to frantically refresh for new comments).

This particular post can be discussed here: https://www.reddit.com/r/patient_hackernews/comments/ofqb6n/...

Please give feedback!

valw

5 yıl öncediscuss

Compiling means translating a program from one representation to another. Executing a program always involves a combination of compilation and interpretation (example: Java usually runs by compiling it to Java bytecode, which is then interpreted by a Java Virtual Machine).

The widespread belief that compilation and interpretation are mutually exclusive is unfortunate, as is the artificial distinction between 'compiling' and 'transpiling' we sometimes hear, because these misconceptions show that programmers today are a bit confused about the essence of how programs actually run. It's a pity we don't have more cultural interest in such things, because mastering those notions can really improve software engineering.

valw

6 yıl öncediscuss

Interesting example, but it's funny how parts of the abstract read like an intro probability class:

> The framework estimates the climate change risks in economic terms by modeling the main activities that a mining company performs, in a probabilistic model, using Bayes’ theorem. The model permits incorporating inherent uncertainty via fuzzy logic and is implemented in two versatile ways: as a discrete Bayesian network or as a conditional linear Gaussian network. This innovative quantitative methodology produces probabilistic outcomes in monetary values estimated either as percentage of annual loss revenue or net loss/gains value.

Submissions

What Datomic brings to businesses

Using Datomic in your app: a practical guide

Branching reality with Datomic

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