On Fri, 14 Jun 2024 15:56:26 -0400, Joel wrote:

> ... everything I need to do has been coded by someone, I never
> find that I would need to code myself.

You ever find the need to write little utility shell scripts, at least?

On Sat, 15 Jun 2024 06:20:03 -0000 (UTC), candycanearter07 wrote:

> ... (or by just cobbling together existing programs in
> a bash script :P)

Which is exactly what a shell like bash is for.

Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

>> ... everything I need to do has been coded by someone, I never
>> find that I would need to code myself.
>
>You ever find the need to write little utility shell scripts, at least?

To do what?

--
Joel W. Crump

Amendment XIV
Section 1.

[...] No state shall make or enforce any law which shall
abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the
United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws.

Dobbs rewrites this, it is invalid precedent. States are
liable for denying needed abortions, e.g. TX.

On Sat, 15 Jun 2024 21:28:37 -0400, Joel wrote:

> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>
>>You ever find the need to write little utility shell scripts, at least?
>
> To do what?

Example: I did one to mirror a selected subset of my programming
projects to my laptop. It only copied project directories that already
existed on the laptop.

dir=projects
remote=«main machine»
local=«laptop»

if [ $(hostname) != "$local" ]; then
echo "$0: run this on $local" 1>&2
exit 3
fi

IFS=$'\n'
flags="-AlprtX"
cd ~/$dir
# first matching rule applies, so put explicit includes before wildcard exclude
rsync ${flags} --delete --verbose \
$(for d in */; do echo --include="/$d"; done) --exclude=/\* \
$remote:$dir/ ./

Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote at 01:04 this Sunday (GMT):
> On Sat, 15 Jun 2024 06:20:03 -0000 (UTC), candycanearter07 wrote:
>
>> ... (or by just cobbling together existing programs in
>> a bash script :P)
>
> Which is exactly what a shell like bash is for.

Yeah, and it's great :D
--
user <candycane> is generated from /dev/urandom

Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote at 22:47 this Saturday (GMT):
> On Sat, 15 Jun 2024 06:30:03 -0000 (UTC), candycanearter07 wrote:
>
>> Stéphane CARPENTIER <sc@fiat-linux.fr> wrote at 16:42 this Friday (GMT):
>>>
>>> - with C++, you have a million ways to screw things up.
>>
>> YEAH. I still get confused between cstrings, std::string, and
>> std::string_view.
>
> Here’s another one I found (used in Blender):
><https://github.com/imageworks/pystring>

Oh yeah, I forgot about third party implementations too.
--
user <candycane> is generated from /dev/urandom

Joel <joelcrump@gmail.com> wrote at 10:05 this Saturday (GMT):
> candycanearter07 <candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid>
> wrote:
>>Stéphane CARPENTIER <sc@fiat-linux.fr> wrote at 20:38 this Friday (GMT):
>>> Le 14-06-2024, Joel <joelcrump@gmail.com> a écrit :
>>>> Stéphane CARPENTIER <sc@fiat-linux.fr> wrote:
>>>>>Le 09-06-2024, Tyrone <none@none.none> a écrit :
>>>>>> On Jun 8, 2024 at 7:42:16?PM EDT, "Joel" <joelcrump@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> What purpose does coding that serve? I can code, I choose not to
>>>>>>> because everything's already been coded, by someone else.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> What an extremely naive thing to say.
>>>>>
>>>>>You seem surprised. Is it the first time you read a message from Joel?
>>>>
>>>> I may not have the IT skills you have, but I know my way around
>>>> computers, everything I need to do has been coded by someone, I never
>>>> find that I would need to code myself.
>>>
>>> It's not about the technical skills. It's about the naive way you see
>>> things. If everything had already been coded, there would be neither new
>>> programs, nor improvements of old programs. Which is just plain wrong.
>>
>>Also, there's always going to be a small niche that you need filled. I
>>know I have a bunch of stuff I made after being frustrated I couldn't
>>find anything online (or by just cobbling together existing programs in
>>a bash script :P)
>
>
> I do understand that people have needs like that, and it's conceivable
> I would too, it's not like I couldn't code, I just haven't encountered
> that need apart from mIRC scripts in a long time.

Fair. I haven't written a complex one like upload.sh in a long while..
--
user <candycane> is generated from /dev/urandom

Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

>>>You ever find the need to write little utility shell scripts, at least?
>>
>> To do what?
>
>Example: I did one to mirror a selected subset of my programming
>projects to my laptop. It only copied project directories that already
>existed on the laptop.
>
> dir=projects
> remote=«main machine»
> local=«laptop»
>
> if [ $(hostname) != "$local" ]; then
> echo "$0: run this on $local" 1>&2
> exit 3
> fi
>
> IFS=$'\n'
> flags="-AlprtX"
> cd ~/$dir
> # first matching rule applies, so put explicit includes before wildcard exclude
> rsync ${flags} --delete --verbose \
> $(for d in */; do echo --include="/$d"; done) --exclude=/\* \
> $remote:$dir/ ./

Cool.

--
Joel W. Crump

Amendment XIV
Section 1.

[...] No state shall make or enforce any law which shall
abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the
United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws.

Dobbs rewrites this, it is invalid precedent. States are
liable for denying needed abortions, e.g. TX.

rbowman wrote:

> some dumb fsck wrote:
>>
>> Yep. In the big stats program I posted I messed around with using a
>> malloced array of 20,000. It ran a bunch of times just fine, but all of
>> a sudden I got nonsense results.
>>
>> So I filled it with 0s before using it, and no problem.
>>
>> But calloc saves a line of code, so that's what I used.
>
> Yeah, that's the joy of undefined behavior.

And one reason compiler warnings can be so valuable. Testing does not
always reveal problems with the code.

Not that all problems will result in warnings, of course.

Believe it or not, I realize that some software "bugs" get past
warnings and errors and testing, and make it into "released" code!

--
'[chrisv] literally said it was "stupid" to test the code vs relying
on compiler warnings.' - DumFSck, lying shamelessly

On Sun, 16 Jun 2024 18:47:00 -0500, chrisv wrote:

> Believe it or not, I realize that some software "bugs" get past warnings
> and errors and testing, and make it into "released" code!

I fixed a three year old bug last week that didn't throw warnings and made
it past testing.

if (x != last_x && y != last_y) {
do some initialization
}

The intent was to avoid an expensive PIP search if the passed in x/y
matched the previous search. There is nothing syntactically wrong with
the statement and it avoided the duplication on the same address x/y. An
address with a different x/y would be initialized. However, if you ran two
addresses with the same y back to back the second address would return the
polygon information for the first. With three years and who knows how many
addresses on multiple sites, I'd give it at least a one in a million.

I've fixed bugs that were over 20 years old. Bad implementation, but
nothing a compiler would pick up and a very limited number of edge cases
that would trigger the bug.

Back at Lunar Lander:

https://www.technologizer.com/2009/07/19/lunar-lander/

I downloaded the Vintage BASIC package and the 1969 version and it does
run. For kicks I decided to do a Python version. I forgot how hideous
BASIC was. A snippet:

140 A=120:V=1:M=33000:N=16500:G=1E-03:Z=1.8
150 PRINT L,INT(A);INT(5280*(A-INT(A))),3600*V,M-N,:INPUT K:T=10
160 IF M-N<1E-03 THEN 240
170 IF T<1E-03 THEN 150
180 S=T: IF M>=N+S*K THEN 200
190 S=(M-N)/K
200 GOSUB 420: IF I<=O THEN 340
210 IF V<=0 THEN 230
220 IF J<0 THEN 370
230 GOSUB 330: GOTO 160
240 PRINT "FUEL OUT AT";L;"SECONDS":S=(-V+SQR(V*V+2*A*G))/G
............
420 Q=S*K/M: J=V+G*S+Z*(-Q-Q*Q/2-Q^3/3-Q^4/4-Q^5/5)
430 I=A-G*S*S/2-V*S+Z*S*(Q/2+Q^2/6+Q^3/12+Q^4/20+Q^5/30):RETURN

At least there are no computed GOTOs. I forget if BASIC had those or if it
was a FORTRAN thing. If you're really perverted you can set up an array of
function pointers in C to do it.

This should be right up Dufus' line with all the math. Meanwhile I may try
to figure out what the hell it's doing. I don't know if this version has
the divide by 2 bug or not. Spreading out the polynomial might help. For
added obfuscation 420 has Q*Q and 430 has Q^2.

rbowman wrote:

>I downloaded the Vintage BASIC package and the 1969 version and it does
>run. For kicks I decided to do a Python version. I forgot how hideous
>BASIC was.

The early versions, sure. With more modern versions, such as M$
QuickBASIC, well-structured programs could be written. Back in the
day, I often used QuickBASIC as the fastest, easiest way to a
stand-alone exe.

>At least there are no computed GOTOs. I forget if BASIC had those

No.

--
'[chrisv is] the same dimwit who thinks that determining if software
works or not is accomplished through "compile time warnings" and not
by actually testing the software.' - trolling fsckwit "Ezekiel",
lying shamelessly

On 17 Jun 2024 04:25:50 GMT, rbowman wrote:

> Back at Lunar Lander:
>
> https://www.technologizer.com/2009/07/19/lunar-lander/
>
> I downloaded the Vintage BASIC package and the 1969 version and it does
> run. For kicks I decided to do a Python version. I forgot how hideous
> BASIC was.

There are Fortran and Rust versions already available:
<https://www.cs.brandeis.edu/~storer/LunarLander/LunarLander.html>.

> Spreading out the polynomial might help. For added obfuscation 420
> has Q*Q and 430 has Q^2.

The guy’s father was a physicist, who helped him with the maths. This is
the kind of code that physicists would write.

On Tue, 18 Jun 2024 08:19:25 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

> There are Fortran and Rust versions already available:
> <https://www.cs.brandeis.edu/~storer/LunarLander/LunarLander.html>.

I'd found the C version. The comments on the globals helped a lot. Z, the
thrust per pound of fuel is arbitrarily set to 1.8. I'm not sure about
setting G (gravity) to .001. As a game it doesn't make a difference but I
don't think it's correct.

>
>> Spreading out the polynomial might help. For added obfuscation 420 has
>> Q*Q and 430 has Q^2.
>
> The guy’s father was a physicist, who helped him with the maths. This is
> the kind of code that physicists would write.

I worked with a PhD chemist with a similar style but he used FORTRAN.
Unraveling it and converting it to 8049 assembler for a handheld device
was interesting.

On 18 Jun 2024 18:58:23 GMT, rbowman wrote:

>>
>> The guy’s father was a physicist, who helped him with the maths. This is
>> the kind of code that physicists would write.
>
> I worked with a PhD chemist with a similar style but he used FORTRAN.
> Unraveling it and converting it to 8049 assembler for a handheld device
> was interesting.
>

Big fucking deal.

What, pray tell, does this fucking boorish bullshit have to do
with GNU/Linux advocacy?

Huh? What?

If you want to have a private gossip about some antiquated
technology, then, like with IRC, form your own bullshit
channel.

Farley Flud <ff@linux.rocks> wrote:
>On 18 Jun 2024 18:58:23 GMT, rbowman wrote:
>
>> I worked with a PhD chemist with a similar style but he used FORTRAN.
>> Unraveling it and converting it to 8049 assembler for a handheld device
>> was interesting.
>
>Big fucking deal.
>
>What, pray tell, does this fucking boorish bullshit have to do
>with GNU/Linux advocacy?
>
>Huh? What?
>
>If you want to have a private gossip about some antiquated
>technology, then, like with IRC, form your own bullshit
>channel.

Get over yourself, Jesus Christ.

--
Joel W. Crump

Amendment XIV
Section 1.

[...] No state shall make or enforce any law which shall
abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the
United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws.

Dobbs rewrites this, it is invalid precedent. States are
liable for denying needed abortions, e.g. TX.

Joel wrote:

> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> ... everything I need to do has been coded by someone, I never
>>> find that I would need to code myself.
>>
>>You ever find the need to write little utility shell scripts, at least?
>
> To do what?

To sort/move/rename/manipulate files, for one example.

--
"[What Micheal Dell said] negates every 'idiotic lie' cola losers have
ever drooled about Microsoft controlling OEMs." - DumFSck, lying
shamelessly

chrisv <chrisv@nospam.invalid> wrote:
>Joel wrote:
>> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>>>
>>>> ... everything I need to do has been coded by someone, I never
>>>> find that I would need to code myself.
>>>
>>>You ever find the need to write little utility shell scripts, at least?
>>
>> To do what?
>
>To sort/move/rename/manipulate files, for one example.

Fair enough, I tend to just accumulate files, using the GUI file
browser to navigate them.

--
Joel W. Crump

Amendment XIV
Section 1.

[...] No state shall make or enforce any law which shall
abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the
United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws.

Dobbs rewrites this, it is invalid precedent. States are
liable for denying needed abortions, e.g. TX.

On 18 Jun 2024 18:58:23 GMT, rbowman wrote:

> I'm not sure about setting G (gravity) to .001.

I figured it out: the units are miles/second/second, and that value is
about correct for the Moon.

I posted a version with nicer variable/subprogram names (and avoiding
gotos) on comp.lang.fortran.

On Mon, 24 Jun 2024 01:10:16 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

> I figured it out: the units are miles/second/second, and that value is
> about correct for the Moon.

Yeah, I should have picked that up.from 1.62 meters since everything else
was in miles and pounds.

https://github.com/chrislgarry/Apollo-11/blob/master/Luminary099/
CONTROLLED_CONSTANTS.agc

At least they appear to have used metric units consistently unlike the
Mars probe. It's interesting Lockheed Martin was still working in pounds
that late. Who knows what Boeing is using these days. It sort of sucks
when your ride home is leaking like a '65 Buick and some of the thrusters
aren't thrusting.

On 24 Jun 2024 06:05:40 GMT, rbowman wrote:

> At least they appear to have used metric units consistently unlike the
> Mars probe.

During the Apollo missions, you would frequently hear them talking about
speed in “knots” at one point, while giving distances in “miles” at
another point. And sometimes even “nautical miles”.

I wonder how they kept things straight.

> Who knows what Boeing is using these days.

They measure things in “happy feet”.

On Sun, 9 Jun 2024 01:11:33 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

> On Sat, 8 Jun 2024 21:48:32 -0000 (UTC), vallor wrote:
>
>> My go-to language has always been perl ...
>
> I did Perl for some years, but always felt that there were things
> potentially going on that I could never quite understand.
>
> When I tried Python for the first time, that feeling went away. It was
> always clear to me what the code was doing, and why--no mysterious
> magic,
> no surprises.

Then you haven't delved deeply enough into Python.

I had to debug a project where code similar to the following was
calling invisible methods:

foo.bar = 'baz'

It turned out that the statement above does not overwrite
the value foo.bar with a string, because bar's value was
a special object that overrode the assignment operator
by virtue of being the value of an attribute on another
object. "foo.bar" without an assignment was also overridden,
for the same reason.

The thing that made foo.bar's actual value special was that its
class defined the magic methods __get__, __set__, and __delete__.

I don't remember how I discovered the existence of this object.
Even Python's getattr() and setattr() functions are overridden.
This "feature" of Python is little known.

The invisibility of these objects is so bullet-proof that the
only way you'd become aware of one is if one of the three
magic methods threw an exception.

On Mon, 24 Jun 2024 08:58:32 -0000 (UTC), Sebastian Wells wrote:

> Then you haven't delved deeply enough into Python.

Yes I have.

> I had to debug a project where code similar to the following was calling
> invisible methods:
>
> foo.bar = 'baz'
>
> It turned out that the statement above does not overwrite the value
> foo.bar with a string, because bar's value was a special object that
> overrode the assignment operator by virtue of being the value of an
> attribute on another object. "foo.bar" without an assignment was also
> overridden, for the same reason.

That’s called a “property”. It’s implemented via the same “descriptor”
mechanism that is at the root of all access to class/instance members.

In another OO language like Java, for example, you have to implement dual
“getXXX” and “setXXX” methods for each property. Python lets you wrap
these up in more convenient syntax.

> I don't remember how I discovered the existence of this object.

It’s documented in the manual. You *did* read the manual, didn’t you?

rbowman wrote:

>Who knows what Boeing is using these days.

Cutting costs so that they can make more money, presumably.

And this is when their only competition are Europeans. Imagine if
they had to compete with Asians. They'd just close-up shop.

--
"CTOs find it hard to choose a Linux with any certainty that that
distro will be around in 6 months." - "True Linux advocate" Hadron
Quark

On Mon, 24 Jun 2024 08:58:32 -0000 (UTC), Sebastian Wells wrote:

> The thing that made foo.bar's actual value special was that its class
> defined the magic methods __get__, __set__, and __delete__.
>
> I don't remember how I discovered the existence of this object. Even
> Python's getattr() and setattr() functions are overridden. This
> "feature" of Python is little known.

The use of dunders is a well known feature of the language.

On Mon, 24 Jun 2024 07:39:26 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

> During the Apollo missions, you would frequently hear them talking about
> speed in “knots” at one point, while giving distances in “miles” at
> another point. And sometimes even “nautical miles”.

A nautical mile is one minute of latitude which can be handy on Earth but
I don't know how useful it would be in this context. The ICAO gave up on
knots when it came to using SI units. Apparently pilots are stubborn.