The point goes to Haskell On the surface, it may sound silly to compare these two languages because they’re about opposite as you could get: Python is interpreted, dynamically typed, and slightly weakly typed as well. Haskell on the other hand, is compiled, statically and strongly typed. But they’re both open source, and they both…More
Engineering with Empathy: how do we decide when to fix?
It’s a sappy title, but bear with me. I’m wondering if the best lessons of diversity and inclusion can be applied to software development? For example, if something is offensive to others, then it’s worth looking for an alternative — even if I’m not personally offended. I witnessed an interesting disagreement on a software project:…More
Why I don’t use let/let! in my RSpec
At work, we’re deciding on our test-writing style: let/let! blocks like let(:arg) { 5 } vs. instance variables defined in a setup method like @arg = 5. I’ve found no advantage to let; but I have experienced disadvantages. I’ve found no disadvantages to instance variables. And so, đź‘Ť for instance variables. I’ve written many specs…More
The Benefits (not features!) of Programming with Haskell
I’m just a couple of months in, and have written my first production Haskell app, a PDF parser for Oregon laws. Programming it feels different, in a good way. Looking over the list below, two themes — easy and fast — stand out. Compared to OO languages: It’s easy to jump back in to previous work; easy to test my…More
Wifi LAN Performance Test comparing 3 routers and 6 computers
In the past year, I noticed that my wifi had gotten too slow to smoothly ssh from one computer to another. Screen sharing was also very rocky. I began to suspect that either my Macs or my Apple router were seriously under-performing. Ping times are a great performance indicator for the apps that I use as…More
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