Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit | Sad90sNerd's commentslogin

These extensions are Ada features.

Ada has:

- Labels in the form of: Call (Param_A => 1, Param_B => "Foo");

- Underscores can be used in numbers of any base: X : Integer := 1_000;

- Nested subprograms

- Range based tests


As mentioned in the article, Pascal had these even before Ada, and a task type with an entry is effectively a generator. I think people often forget that C was incredibly primitive for its time compared to multiple other languages.


Many are sold on the story of C's greatness design, without bothering with historical fact checking.

C rode the wave of UNIX's success, it is like someone getting into computers in 2024 and praising Javascript's greatness for Web development.

ESPOL in 1961 already had unsafe code blocks, almost a decade before C came to be.


Bin Laden - what a non-sense. We buried him at sea for religious reasons even though that goes against Muslim beliefs.

If you still believe that Sadam Hussan had weapons of mass destruction and ties to Al Queda then I have a domino theory Ukraine war to sell you.

...Remember kids, jet fuel and office furniture melt steel beams.


Even the center for computing history can't spell "Ada" right... :(


Well, in fairness to them, one of the two books in the list spells it all caps right there on the cover.


Same is true of the Java books, and yet it's not JAVA.


Well, I wasn't arguing that the language is actually named ADA. I was just saying it seems like a common mistake.

Plus for some reason (not sure why, exactly), ADA looks more likely to me to be an acronym than JAVA does. Also, way more people are familiar with Java than Ada, and I'm sure the number of programmers who do not remember (or never knew) who Ada Lovelace was closely resembles the number that are unfamiliar with Ada the language.


Waymo is a money hole it has never got close to making a profit. Think of all that equipment attached to a luxury SUV and the upkeep. The purpose of Waymo is research - you just get the privilege of paying to be a guinea pig. There is no market for Waymo - just Google who dumps money on it.

Another important thing to think about is that Uber and Lyft are operated by people. Often these working people need the meager salary to live - wouldn't you rather support your local economy instead of being a research subject?


No. Next question.

Any business that relies on charity over market validation is done.

Waymos don't even ask for tips, the debate about it has been completely leapfrogged.

I spent the last 10 years riding ubers, the next 10 in waymos. Very easy call.


How is Google sponsoring a company hemorrhaging money not charity as well?


I only care about the consumer experience

Uber and Lyft subsidized their service with VC capital for a long time as well


This is great news for people who want to buckle themselves into an uncontrollable 70 mph thin-metaled panopticon : P

I remember reading that these Waymo cars haven't been allowed onto highways until now. If thats true I wonder how that will change these statistics since that dramatically increases the need for the vehicle to think and perform...


how so? driving around sf is way harder. its rainy foggy weird blind turns and alleys and steep gradients, cars and pedestrians coming from all directions, stop lights, unusual parking demands...


So muckbang videos are acceptable, but fitness videos aren't.. oh my

I would say probably the best thing to come out of the social media tiktok and instagram obsession has been a renewed focus on health: workout, diet, food, lifestyle, etc.

The fact that YouTube would announce this instead of just implementing behind the scenes is also shocking - they are getting bold with their manipulations


I don't understand why people are so eager to give up autonomy. I doubt the software is certified in any meaningful way (see DO-178B), the algorithms are unknown, and the NHTSA sits on its hands whenever these vehicles have accidents.

Here is a litmus test: would you allow Waymo to drive schoolbuses with your children? I know I certainly will never allow my family or myself to get into a metal box going 80 mph without a driver.


Show me the statistics. If there is data which shows that autonomous vehicles are significantly safer than than the 90th percentile driver, then I absolutely will put my children in it. In fact, it might be irresponsible for me not to.

School buses are an interesting case because they drive fixed routes, so you can imagine some intense mapping and route planning process which makes them even safer than a normal autonomous vehicle. They could also afford to have a larger number of higher quality sensors.


[dead]


I've seen that study before and it's not exactly hard numbers. There's nothing to show the data set used ("Researchers analyzed tens of millions of QuoteWizard by LendingTree insurance quotes") is suitable for such an analysis.

If you want actual crash data, it's here: https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics


Correction: Ram is at the top, while Dodge is fairly low down. Ram is exclusively trucks (formerly Dodge Ram) and was spun off in 2010, and is now owned by Stellantis.

No muscle cars, just oversized pickup trucks with a high rate of DUI (second to BMW).


Thanks, I missed that


One of the last times I took a taxi, the taxi driver explained at length how he worked extra shifts so he could afford to buy meth which he would take in order to work more shifts which allowed him to buy even more meth which he would take in order to work more shifts etc.

I won't be the first in line to take Waymo on a freeway but at some point the results will speak for themselves.


This is a good point. Life is full of risks and challenges, but I guess in my case I choose to trust in humanity in cases like these... god knows Ive seen enough production software in my life to be skeptical for two.

> I won't be the first in line to take Waymo on a freeway but at some point the results will speak for themselves.

Indeed - lets hope we do get to actually see the numbers in due time.


> Here is a litmus test: would you allow Waymo to drive schoolbuses with your children?

Waymo's obey all traffic laws and never drive tired, drunk, or distracted.


I had a Lyft driver who nodded off several times during a ride to the point we had him leave us at the nearest corner as soon as it was safe. It was genuinely scary.

I messaged Lyft and they really didn't seem to take it seriously or care. They of course worded it in a way to avoid any potential legal problems, and I doubt anything came of it. That driver should not be on the road.

There have been several other less notable incidents where I was worried for my safety.

I'm here for the robotaxis


Assuming the children are still supervised by an adult, I don't see the issue. As a rider, Waymo generally feels safer than a human driver.


>> As a rider, Waymo generally feels safer than a human driver.

This was my experience too.

Way more smooth and smart about its SF driving than for instance, my elderly parents. It manages to be assertive without being aggressive.


Does your family ride roller coasters, is that not giving up your autonomy? Waymo has done enough rides to have statistically significant risk data, and they are very safe and SF strikes me as hard a city to drive in as almost anywhere with all the rain fog pedestrians traffic, and weird routes and elevation changes.


Automotive has a similar standard called ISO 26262. ISO-26262-6 is closest to DO-178B, though ISO-21448 is also highly relevant. Both are widely used throughout the industry, including Waymo. The norm in the US is self-certification. European homologation generally requires third party certification, and Waymo is almost certainly in that process right now, as part of their discussions with European regulators.


> would you allow Waymo to drive schoolbuses with your children? I

Yes, obviously. Humans are provably more dangerous.


Aren’t many/most airline flights auto-landed? (Certainly autopiloted.)

Does that bother you?


They also have two highly trained proffessionals ready to take control and tight SoPs for everything.


Avionics software has a much more stringent and regulated software process (and pilots still there just in case). Are you advocating the same for cars?


It does actually, my father was a pilot for Delta and he saw the automation come thru and there are horror stories there too.

On top of this, the software quality is certified, built over decades, and continuously tested on each plane regularly - and of course the pilots are still there ; )


think of the children!


think of yourself! the point of the analogy is to replace yourself (which you might not regard if you are a risk taker) with someone you care about.


There is no way that matches reality, where does the person publishing such a chart even live? Do they buy eggs or pay rent?

Here is a real alternative - John William's shadow stats. He simply measures inflation as the government used to in the 80s and 70s, and surprise surprise its more like 10% or 14% - no phony "Owner's equivalent rent".

http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts


I wonder if we all tabulated all our expenses in the most fine grained detail and calculated our own personal rates of inflation how meaningful it would be to have percentiles of our population to say things like 50% of citizens experience a personal inflation rate of x.xx%. That would be very fascinating. I'm almost there myself with some web order scraping I've been playing with. It's a lot of work but once I tackle another big vendor of mine I should be able to look at trends for given products over time that I regularly buy.


Sampling bias is going to be a real issue because there's going to be a strong incentive for people who think inflation is high, or is actively experiencing high inflation to participate. Also, if you're only tracking your expenses and not using a fixed basket, the index will end up including lifestyle inflation as well.


that's an excellent point. Clarify a bit the notion of the fixed basket, I'm thinking mostly of unit prices. I think that could get a bit fuzzy too because of practices like shrinkflation cluttering up the analysis. I think SKUs should actually be tied to fixed things like weight where applicable. I wonder what the rules are surrounding that, basically make it so that if you change the weight of a product you have to issue a new SKU. Might be a messy figure overall but still capable of shedding some insight people would be interested in I'd think.


By "fixed basket" I'm talking about the issue of people getting higher quality goods as their income increase, or buying more or less of something (eg. takeout) as their lifestyle changes.


yah those instances I would think would break a given "SKU run" if you will, it would have its run in an individual's life under a given time regime. It would phase in and it would phase out.


I had to lookup some of these points on SKUs, this is good background https://www.shopify.com/retail/what-is-a-sku-number


That's a pretty novel concept - you've inspired me : )


hey that's awesome, what are you planning to do with it. Sounds like something to look forward to. Keep me posted.



They are making flat assumptions and trying to recreate the charts from the government CPI, its also a reddit post and not a serious bit of research which examined their actual methods. It could all just be correlation - who knows? All I know is that prices are rising very fast, and I tend to not believe the government. Food pyramid, Iraq war, COVID numbers, etc.

I think the FED and our banking regulations are the true "bad economics" and if you trust that, just go ahead and leave your deposits in the bank or invest in 4% yielding bonds : P


> John William's shadow stats. He simply measures inflation as the government used to in the 80s and 70s, and surprise surprise its more like 10% or 14%

I don’t understand how anyone who knows about basic compound growth can take this seriously.

10% annual inflation from 1970 would mean prices have increased by 150X since 1970.

That would mean houses would have cost a couple thousand dollars and a dozen eggs would have been about four cents.

And that’s only using the lower 10% estimate, not the higher 14% estimate. It’s obviously not even close to reality.

It’s a quack website that can’t even hold up to the most basic scrutiny.


Basic stuff like eggs, noodles, rents align quite consistently with shadowstat. Even iPhone top model prices after 2010s seems to follow shadowstat numbers. The problem is China production. We enjoyed years of "deflations" pressure from "Made in China" and USD being hugely popular. Going forward with immense dedollarisation pressure (petrorubbleyuan) and rising cost of Made in China and lower quality from Made in India (India is currenrly in early stage of manufacturing curve so quality is not there yet) would increase our inflation. Even if it is not going Turkeye style, a persistent high inflation of 6-9% EVERY YEAR without strong USD demand will make shadowstat numbers more and more realistic than government's.


Things other than inflation can cause prices of specific XYZ to rise. Wasn't there some bird flu thing that constrained the egg supply? Rent and housing costs were going up before the pandemic. Add this to the existing inflation and it's bad, esp. for housing costs.


Ok, if you were the government and I asked you to measure rent increases - what would you do? Would you look at the cost of renting on average in a city and compare them to last years? Seems like the most obvious way...

Well, that is not how the government does it now. It currently uses a metric called "owner's equivalent rent". Where instead they call up people who own there houses and ask them how much they would rent it for. It is essentially a survey instead of hard data. This has the effect of hugely underestimating the value of housing - and thats just housing!

Lets talk about measuring food prices, well according to the US government you can have "substitutions". If you think measuring the price of steak is as easy as comparing the number between the years you'd be wrong again, because what they currently do is say "well people are really buying ground beef instead of steak so well use those prices instead". What's next substituting in dog food?

Thats not even to mention "hedonic adjustments"...

When the government relies on a statistic for policy it stops becoming a reliable statistic because the incentive is just too high to not manipulate the numbers


> Ok, if you were the government and I asked you to measure rent increases - what would you do? Would you look at the cost of renting on average in a city and compare them to last years? Seems like the most obvious way... Well, that is not how the government does it now.

Except, in fact, it actually is how they do the rent portion of CPI. (Well, its not city rent averages, they do same-unit rent changes and average those.)

> It currently uses a metric called "owner's equivalent rent".

No, OER is used for...OER. Rent is used for rent. They are two separate subcomponents of the housing component of CPI.

More complete description:

https://www.bls.gov/cpi/factsheets/owners-equivalent-rent-an...


Even if that is true (which I am doubtful of), what is the merit of OER at all? Why use it if its A) not really what people are paying B) relying on people not in the market to guess what the going rate is and C) consistently underestimates actual rent.

I see no purpose for it besides the government liking the C) part...

Remember folks, inflation is "temporary" or, i mean, "transitory", or I mean, yes we have inflation, but its the COVID supply chain, OH oh sorry its Putin's fault. Yes lets stick with that...


> Even if that is true (which I am doubtful of), what is the merit of OER at all?

The merit of OER is that is a measure of the cost of using owned housing as housing instead of renting it out.

> Why use it if its A) not really what people are paying

It is a measure of what people are paying, as an opportunity cost.

> B) relying on people not in the market to guess what the going rate is

Potentially a legitimate concern.

> C) consistently underestimates actual rent.

Its not trying to measure actual rent and is not consistently below actual rent (which, again, is tracked separately.)


> The merit of OER is that is a measure of the cost of using owned housing as housing instead of renting it out.

I don't follow - can you help me understand? To me there are two metrics that matter: the price of property, and the price to rent property.

Hypothetical: If 50% of the houses in the US were bought by older folks in the 1970 - 1990 (when housing prices were more propositional to income) and they generally don't plan to sell until 2030 - what does it matter what they would rent at today?

I just don't understand the logic here, and to the fact that they are included in the CPI at all means that the CPI is necessarily skewed when it comes to housing imho


The BLS uses both actual rents and owner's equivalent rents as components of the overall Consumer Price Index inflation calculation.

https://www.bls.gov/cpi/factsheets/owners-equivalent-rent-an...


You have cause and effect inverted in your argument.

The specific reasons sum up to cause inflation, not the other way round.


My own personal rate of inflation (e.g. gas, eggs, etc.) is about 15% YoY which is inline with the shadowstats figure.


I wonder what people think of Mike Maloney's educational video on inflation:

"Inflation: The Biggest Scam In The History Of Mankind" https://youtu.be/iFDe5kUUyT0

Is there anything incorrect in that presentation? John William's shadowstats is mentioned.


On its announcement it made my 2014 netbook overheat and lag like an ssh terminal in south Peru.

RIP


That's because it was (and is) slow compared to true compiled applications. Just because VSCode has about 1000 tortured dev's making it usable doesn't mean its not fundamentally flawed on its face using a scripting language for text editing.

https://medium.com/commitlog/electron-is-cancer-b066108e6c32

Spread the TRUTH - praise be compiled programs...


You can compile web tech to V8 bytecode and run it in Electron – how do you feel about compiled programs now?


THERE IS NO GOD. I only program in Ada to keep my sanity 0.0


Indeed. I wonder if someone will write a text editor in Flutter so that we have cross platform support but also natively compiled code.


It's been a while when I've used VS code in production but on Linux the issues with Atom have been less from the very start and VS Code simply never delivered the performance increase everyone was talking about. Maybe because I never made it an IDE but used it as editor.

On Linux Atom simply was the "better" choice for a long time.


Having used Atom and VS Code on an old laptop in college, VS Code definitely does a better job when you throw it a large file, a first-gen i5, and 4GB of RAM. Likewise, at my first internship, I tried sublime on my work computer, which they had clearly just grabbed from the storage room (Windows 7! In 2018!). Sublime exploded into a million pieces.

My point is this: if we're being honest, all Electron-based editors suck. They're slow, and community-provided extensions are buggy and they integrate awkwardly with each other. But in my world (embedded firmware) there simply isn't a less-terrible option. VS Code is the least-terrible among them.


I honestly don't get that use case, I don't open large files in a text editor usually. But I agree that atom sucks in that degree.

Maybe slow never was the problem is kinda what my point is. In the end it's just an editor for text.


I like to reverse-engineer web APIs (working on the NBA's stats API right now) and sometimes I have to open/autoformat JSON files with 500k+ lines.

As a firmware engineer, it's also frequently useful to be able to do hexdumps of large binary files in VS Code.


Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: