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Joined 4 months ago
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Cake day: January 31st, 2025

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  • I think C-suite’s maniacal push to be early adopters of an unproven technology reveals just how bereft they are of good ideas.

    Any leader with business sense would say, “Ok, we’re doing good now. Let’s investigate AI and see if/how it can help our business. Also, fuck no I’m not gonna go online to tell everyone what we’re doing because that would only tip off our competition.”

    Instead, what we’re seeing is a large number of C-suites thinking AI is fullfilling their wet-dream of firing everyone else and driving their stock prices to infinity by verbally masturbating in public media.




  • In the earlier days of StackOverflow, the founders try to fight the toxicity. I don’t know whether they got overwhelmed or just gave up, but the trolls wound up taking over. Maybe good moderators aren’t willing to put up with both overwhelming toxicity AND no pay.

    I still love what StackOverflow once was. I tried coming back and giving a chance a few times. My last question got “answered” by people who clearly had not taken time to read the question. After updating the question with, “Note: I’m am NOT talking about ‘X’, its subtle, please read the question fully.” I was told that I didn’t know what I was talking about.

    I eventually figured it out and didn’t bother posting the answer to the issue. Fly-by answers by people just looking to improve their stats made continuing to interact with SO frustrating and pointless.



  • … I start high level (Python, Lua, GDScript, etc), then move the slow, stable bits to something faster. That’s a really effective flow, and at the end, I get a great scripting interface for my game.
    That’s the way to do it. “Premature optimization being the root of all evil” and all. Something that is slow but works is always better than something fast that doesn’t.”

    But then, given the complaints, I’m not actually sure they do want to build a game, I think they really want to build a language, and maybe an engine.
    And there’s nothing wrong with that. I personally find no interest in programming for programming’s sake. I need a problem to solve first. But what if I don’t have a problem to solve? Create one! Generating a problem is a valid way to let myself “enjoy” the combined agony/pleasure of programming.



  • [Begin Soapbox]

    1. If your idea of demonstrating your programming creds online is bashing Python for being “too slow”, you’re just revealing that you don’t understand your job as a programmer.
    2. A programmer’s job is to figure out a good language to use for the application. Notice I didn’t say, “the best language”; because there isn’t one.
    3. Python too slow for your application? Great. Uncheck that box and investigate any of the innumerable other languages out there.
    4. There’s not a good language for your application? Some Really Good programmers create their own language. Other Really Good programmers just use assembly for fuck’s sake. If Margaret Hamilton can land people on the Moon in 1969 using 16kB of government hardware, you should be able to code a video game with computers several billion times more powerful. Or just ask ChatGPT to do it for you. I’ve read good things about it online.
    5. Never underestimate the utility of just requiring everyone to buy faster hardware to cover up crappy programming/business decisions. It’s been done since the first caveman programmed a computer by striking two transistors together.
    6. Most programmers have to make due with what they’re provided with at work. If you’re at work, get back to it and figure out how to solve the problem. That means stop your posing online about “there’s no programming language good enough for my application”. If explaining to your boss that you need a different approach didn’t work, work on your resume instead.

    [End Soapbox]