• 24 Posts
  • 285 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 11th, 2023

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  • Python’s major pro is its simple, straightforward syntax, which excels at data handling. This has made it popular with novices of all shades […]

    For first-timer coders, Python is easier to learn, understand, and adapt than many low-level programming languages […]

    Is python being easy to learn actually true? I can see it being easier than low-level programming. But there’s other alternatives like C# and Java that certainly seem much better and easier to me. Especially when you consider the ecosystem around only writing code.

    Plus, the Python language is a steadfast feature in the desktop Linux software landscape. It’s preinstalled on most Linux distributions, boasts extensive library support, and can be used to fashion very cool (as well as very basic) Qt, GTK, and other toolkit UIs.

    It’s certainly available, and more readily available on Linux. The whole v2 v3 mess was lackluster. But I guess preinstalled is convenient, and more accessible than installable Java or whatever.

    I’ve never seen JavaScript or Python popularity as evidence or correlating with actual qualities. More with a self-promoting usage. Python was being used in science, then in AI, then AI became popular. To me, it seems like a natural propagation consequence more than simplicity or features over other frameworks and languages.




  • I found it hard to follow despite C# being my main driver.

    Using ref, in the past, has been about modifiable variable references.

    All these introductions, even when following C# changes across recent versions, were never something I actively used, apart from the occasional adding ref to structs so they can contain existing ref struct types. It never seems necessary.

    Even without ref you use reference and struct types, where reference content can be modified elsewhere. And IDisposable for object lifetimes with cleanup.




  • Release must be documented

    It’s not a must [unless you put it into a contract], it’s a should or would be nice

    Many, if not most, projects don’t follow a good, obvious, transparent, documented release or change management.

    I wish for it, too, but it’s not the reality of projects. Most people don’t seem to care about it as much as I do.

    I agree blind acceptance/merging is problematic. But for some projects (small scope/size/personal-FOSS, trustworthy upstream) I see it as pragmatic rather than problematic.



  • I would consider three four approaches.

    1. Commit and push manually and deliberately

    I commit changes early and often anyway. I also push regularly, seeing the remote as a safe and remote (as in backup) baseline and reference state.

    The question would be: Do I switch when I’m still exploring things in the workspace, without committing when switching or moving away from it, and I would want those on the other PC? Then this would not be enough.

    2. Auto-push all local git references into a separate space on the git remote

    Git branches are refs, commit pointers, just like other refs are. And they can be put under arbitrary paths. refs/heads/ holds branches. I can replicate and regularly update all my branches under refs/pcreplica/laptop/*. And then on the other PC, list or fetch those, individually, or all of them, regularly automatically, or manually.

    git push origin refs/heads/*:refs/pcreplica/laptop/*
    git ls-remote
    git fetch origin refs/pcreplica/laptop/*:refs/laptop/*
    

    3. Auto-push the/a local branch like you suggested

    my concern here would be; is only one branch enough? is only the current branch enough?

    4. Remoting into the other system

    Are the systems both online? Can I remote into / connect into it when need be?



  • we should just write the code how it should be

    Notably, that’s not what he says. He didn’t say in general. He said “for once, [after this already long discussion], let’s push back here”. (Literally “this time we push back”)

    who need a secure OS (all of them) will opt to not use Linux if it doesn’t plug these holes

    I’m not so sure about that. He’s making a fair assessment. These are very intricate attack vectors. Security assessment is risk assessment either way. Whether you’re weighing a significant performance loss against low risk potentially high impact attack vectors or assess the risk directly doesn’t make that much of a difference.

    These are so intricate and unlikely to occur, with other firmware patches in line, or alternative hardware, that there’s alternative options and acceptable risk.


  • Code before:

    async function createUser(user) {
        if (!validateUserInput(user)) {
            throw new Error('u105');
        }
    
        const rules = [/[a-z]{1,}/, /[A-Z]{1,}/, /[0-9]{1,}/, /\W{1,}/];
        if (user.password.length >= 8 && rules.every((rule) => rule.test(user.password))) {
            if (await userService.getUserByEmail(user.email)) {
                throw new Error('u212');
            }
        } else {
            throw new Error('u201');
        }
    
        user.password = await hashPassword(user.password);
        return userService.create(user);
    }
    

    Here’s how I would refac it for my personal readability. I would certainly introduce class types for some concern structuring and not dangling functions, but that’d be the next step and I’m also not too familiar with TypeScript differences to JavaScript.

    const passwordRules = [/[a-z]{1,}/, /[A-Z]{1,}/, /[0-9]{1,}/, /\W{1,}/]
    function validatePassword(plainPassword) => plainPassword.length >= 8 && passwordRules.every((rule) => rule.test(plainPassword))
    async function userExists(email) => await userService.getUserByEmail(user.email)
    
    async function createUser(user) {
        // What is validateUserInput? Why does it not validate the password?
        if (!validateUserInput(user)) throw new Error('u105')
        // Why do we check for password before email? I would expect the other way around.
        if (!validatePassword(user.password)) throw new Error('u201')
        if (!userExists(user.email)) throw new Error('u212')
    
        const hashedPassword = await hashPassword(user.password)
        return userService.create({ email: user.email, hashedPassword: hashedPassword });
    }
    

    Noteworthy:

    • Contrary to most JS code, [for independent/new code] I use the non-semicolon-ending style following JavaScript Standard Style - see their no semicolons rule with reasoning; I don’t actually know whether that’s even valid TypeScript, I just fell back into JS
    • I use oneliners for simple check-error-early-returns
    • I commented what was confusing to me
    • I do things like this to fully understand code even if in the end I revert it and whether I implement a fix or not. Committing refacs is also a big part of what I do, but it’s not always feasible.
    • I made the different interface to userService.create (a different kind of user object) explicit
    • I named the parameter in validatePassword plainPasswort to make the expectation clear, and in the createUser function more clearly and obviously differentiate between “the passwords”/what password is. (In C# I would use a param label on call validatePassword(plainPassword: user.password) which would make the interface expectation and label transformation from interface to logic clear.

    Structurally, it’s not that different from the post suggestion. But it doesn’t truth-able value interpretation, and it goes a bit further.








  • So it really is that simple: a small bash script, building locally, rsync’ing the changes, and restarting the service. It’s just the bare essentials of a deployment. That’s how I deploy in 10 seconds.

    I’m strongly opposed to local builds on any semi-important or semi-complex production product or system.

    Tagged CI release builds give you a lot of important guarantees involved in release concerns.

    I’ll take the fresh checkout and release build time cost for those consistency and versioned source state guarantees.