Bits and PCs - a Computers and Tech Miscellany

[Ensign Steve]

Originally Posted by Ari

I decided to start learning python, it’s amusing what things it’s picky about and what it’s ok with. Somewhere in previous programming I got in the habit of using indents to make things more readable to me, this is both good and bad. Omg yes Python, I know that’s not supposed to be indented.

This still makes me itch on a fundamental level. Whitespace choices should be made for the benefit of a human reader, not the compiler/interpreter.*

My previous programing experience includes a variety of different basics and a little bit of C but where I spent most of my time was a combination of assembly and hypercard (which is a hilarious combination, given hypercard is basically scripted powerpoint and in assembly you’re controlling individual clock cycles and memory registers), which means I focused on fighting with the languages to do what I wanted as much as actually making things.

Wow. You're right, that is hilarious.

I wrote a quick Fizz Buzz* program and a terminal tic tac toe game, and my versions feel quite kludgy and BASIC style, so now it’s time to find some videos and do some reading, if anyone has any suggestions of Python for intermediates, I’ve found lots of Python for beginners but some are a bit too beginner.

There are a lot of code in my tic tac toe game that feel like there should be an option to condense things and let the language take over, like I’m sure there’s a way to make an array or matrix for my tic tac toe board instead of faking one with a few dozen independent variables.

I like this video:

Transforming Code into Beautiful, Idiomatic...

It's not really beginner or intermediate, it's about taking your existing (and possibly inherited) code base and making it more pythonic.

*Fizz Buzz was stolen from a youtube video and is said to be an interview question. Write a program that outputs 1 to 100 but where ever there’s a multiple of 3 say Fizz, whenever a multiple of 5 say Buzz and a multiple of 3 and 5, FizzBuzz. I think FizzBuzz should be adopted as the thing after Hello world, since Hello World always felt a bit too simple to me for any language beyond assembly.

This was a very popular interview question here before it got banned for being leaked all over the internet. It's still one of my go-to mock interview questions.

* I can think of at least two exceptions to this, but they are esoteric as hell. Don't @ me.

[Ari]

As a kid I liked the early cd puzzle game Myst and discovered that not only was it written in Hypercard with a bunch of add on libraries but that the game on the mac disc was just a bunch of hypercard stacks hiding as game files and could be copied out and fed back into hypercard in an editable way. Which means a bunch of my early programing experience was from a game that hacked around the pitfalls of hypercard.
I also learned 68k Assembly on the same machine, and I think anyone who programs seriously should be forced to work in some sort of assembly just so they can thank the many features of a higher level language. Which may or may not have to do with friends being unimpressed when telling them I made a line and animated it to spin in a circle (to the detriment of any input besides a hard debugger break, Computer: “I guess spinning this line is my life now...”)

Oow, that looks interesting!

I like that there are a couple different ways to tackle Fizzbuzz and IMO *take in a sequence, perform a check or operation on it and output a modified sequence* is so much more computery than *show static text*

[JoeP]

inb4 ceptimus recommends Project Euler - yes they are mathematical puzzles but quite a range of different kinds, and that will help you look at different kinds of programming approach.

Learning Python is a laudable goal, but I find (my experience and others') that "learning a language" as a goal gets pretty tedious. You get a lot further if you try to build something that interests you, and learn the language as you go along. Don't feel you need to learn anything more than you probably already know before tackling something big. Don't feel you need to make your first efforts "Pythonic". But do embrace the idea of rewriting what you've done to make it more pythonic, to make it more modular, to make it more flexible - those are things we should all be doing at all stages (do what I say not ...)

I don't remember any single tutorials or sites being particularly helpful, just a lot of googling for answers and advice, and a lot of reading the official documentation.

You could always post one of your programs for feedback here

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by Ari

I like that there are a couple different ways to tackle Fizzbuzz and IMO *take in a sequence, perform a check or operation on it and output a modified sequence* is so much more computery than *show static text*

You mean like this ...

print(1)
print(2)
print('Fizz')
print(4)
print('Buzz')

...?

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

What is it called when you're reading a web page and some ad shoots you through a series of pages to make it hard to back up from?

[JoeP]

A fuckup of history-button proportions?

[JoeP]

Redirect chain abuse?

I have a feeling the problem you describe does have some semi-informal name.

[Pyrrho]

I use a MacBook for iOS programming. It is managed by the company. I have to change passwords every 3 months. The login is connected somehow to my company network login. What happens is that I change my password as required...and the MacBook lags behind the rest of it all, meaning that I have to log in on the MacBook using the previous password. Then I get a prompt to enter the new password, separate from the Mac login window. Then I get a prompt to update the Keychain password. Which seems to fail silently, generating a new login Keychain. Then my signing certificate for Xcode for the MacBook can't be found in the new Keychain. I've learned how to find the previous Keychain and rename it and add it to the Keychain Manager but then I have to enter the password for that old keychain. It is driving me nuts. Is there a way to import items from the old keychain into the current login keychain, and how am I to know which oneses I needses? At least I have the signing certificate available but geez oh man I do not understand the nefarious intricacies of Keychain management.

[lisarea]

Originally Posted by Kamilah Hauptmann

What is it called when you're reading a web page and some ad shoots you through a series of pages to make it hard to back up from?

It's a type of callback, but I don't know if it has a name of its own other than back button hijacking.

Here is me complaining about them before. I went back to find that to see if anyone had said what they're called, but nobody did.

[Ari]

Ok 6 problems in to projecteuler and Im hooked. There are clearly some I can’t do but ones I can are just enough of a challenge to feel like a small accomplishment getting a green check.

[Pyrrho]

Er um yeah about that button that is supposed to close the overlay but isn't there in the app build I sent today...it's there but it's not visible because I set the underlying view layer to a Z-index > 0 which kinda sorta obscures that button...just tap where it used to be, up there in the corner. Maybe draw one on your iPad screen with a Sharpie for now.

[Ari]

Patch notes: print on transparency and patch this overlay on to the ipad screen to fix bug where overlay close button wasn’t appearing. Notice: this button does not close the overlay on the screen but does close the on screen overlay.

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by Pyrrho

Maybe draw one on your iPad screen with a Sharpie for now.

I have drawn an additional on my screen for this point alone.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Shout out to Tom from MySpace. Homie cashed his check, and bounced. He never tried to influence elections, be an advocate for "free speech," purchase competitors, sell our information or any of that. Just taught us all some basic HTML and rolled out. pic.twitter.com/PCZdUJhGtP

— Blerds Online (@BlerdsOnline) December 28, 2019

[Pyrrho]

Website I manage...has a contact form...sends email via standard PHP mail() function to an account on the server which we access via webmail and/or email client specially set up for that purpose. New bosses have demanded that the form send the email directly to them. Explained the concept of spam to them. Also explained that their corporate email system automatically blocks emails from their web server because it's on a different system from their in-house system and the form emails will go into a bitbucket someplace that we can't do anything about.

Them: WE DEMANDS R EMAILS!! CONFIGURE FORM TO SEND DIRECTLY!!

Okay then! One less thing for me to monitor.

It's okay though, because the form gets like 2 or 3 spammers filling it out each week. Even the spambots are staying away in droves.

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by Pyrrho

It's okay though, because the form gets like 2 or 3 spammers filling it out each week. Even the spambots are staying away in droves.

Want that to change?

[Ari]

E-mail’s so slow and outdated, we want to stay on the pulse, clearly the form send to their personal sms instead!

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Soviet Calculators History

[JoeP]

My metadata has metadata.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

SCOOP: AT&T is suspending all broadband data caps during coronavirus crisis, showing that these are bullshit nonsense caps anyway https://t.co/k39ANimGzM

— Jason Koebler (@jason_koebler) March 12, 2020

[JoeP]

Isn't exactly the reverse of what Verizon did during the California fires last year? (Or some ISP during some event in some recent year)

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

jVjQCSF.jpg

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Security and Privacy Implications of Zoom - Schneier on Security

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

[SR71]

Anyone know COBOL? The news says some states need people to help get their mainframes to process unemployment requests or something like that. Hard to find people who can work it.