Notices by Don Romano (alt) (thor@noagendasocial.com), page 2

@zingbretsen @alexcleac Well, that would be the legacy compatible solution. Except most mainstream languages can't handle the translation. You can't access the tokens in an expression like "a + b" using reflection in most languages. In fact, you can't even specify expressions in most Algol-like languages without evaluating them.

@alexcleac @zingbretsen To pull something like this off with the languages we have today, we would need to transpile, I suspect.

@alexcleac @zingbretsen Suppose that instead of this:

SELECT CONCAT(a, b) FROM foo

You'd type:

db.foo.map(r => r.a + r.b)

And it would figure out on its own that this needs to be executed remotely, with the result sent back over the network.

The idea is still rough and I'm kind of making up things here as I go, but that's the premise, at least.

@alexcleac @zingbretsen The closest you can get to a unified interface to all data as of today is to write your business logic into the database using stored procedures... but stored procedures are not a general purpose language. What you want is perhaps procedures you can execute on the database server in the language of your choice. A sort of RPC mechanism for data, but with no special syntax needed once you've got your database object.

@alexcleac @zingbretsen A file on disk can be mapped to a memory region with mmap() in a C program, and then you can do disk accesses with pointers. This removes a barrier between you and the data.

What is the equivalent thing for a database?

@alexcleac @zingbretsen So you sit there and you wonder... where did my simple data structures go?

Why can't I just access my data directly? Why can't I use my .map(), .filter() or .sort() from JS directly on these remote data structures?

Perhaps we've been taking the wrong approach?

@alexcleac @zingbretsen Later on, someone tells you about NoSQL databases, and you feel relief, because they let you simply stuff your objects in there and get them back. It's still not as good as the in-memory data structures, but it's better.

Unfortunately, the much of the ability to perform list processing on this data is now gone, because there is no SQL syntax to describe it.

You end up using Elastic Search to replace it, but the syntax is awful.

@alexcleac @zingbretsen ...and that you'll have to either use something called an ORM to get access to in-memory objects, or write these SQL statements.

In any case, you'll end up needing to refactor much of your code, because there is now an artificial barrier between the persistent data structures in your program and the persistent data structures in the database.

You accept this, but only grudgingly.

@alexcleac @zingbretsen Suppose that a guy then walks up to you and starts to sell you on the concept of relational databases and SQL. You're currently using various pointers/references across your different lists to encode your relationships, and the relational model seems good.

You also like that there is a powerful list processing system.

Then you're told that you'll need to learn a new language called SQL...

@alexcleac @zingbretsen Well, suppose for a moment that databases haven't been invented yet, but there are languages with functional list processing constructs such as Lisp and modern JavaScript.

Suppose that we've mostly been using native data structures in memory for storage, together with serialisation to disk, for storage up to this point.

Now suppose a need emerges to share these data structures among multiple simultaneously running programs across the network...

It feels like every developer I explain this idea to gets confused. It's such a simple concept, but it runs counter to conventional thinking.

I think I just managed to lose the other developers at work when trying to explain an idea. I talked about it in the chat room all morning. I got them half of the way there, but they kind of lost me near the end of it and the chat room went completely quiet.

A decent laptop has always cost about $1000. A very good one has always cost $1500 and above.

We now expect this technology to cost much less than that, and also: It should fit in our pockets and have a long battery life.

Det finnes egentlig ikke noe seriøst allment nyhetsmedium i Norge som inntar et høyrestandpunkt i sin journalistikk. Det eksisterer heller ikke noen reelt klassisk liberalt parti i Norge etter at Høyre skiftet klær. Vi er for venstrevridde i Norge til at noe slikt skal være levedyktig, og det syns jeg egentlig er litt skummelt. Hvis du er uenig med sosialistene er Frp og Resett eneste alternativ, og da gjelder plutselig ikke fakta lenger.

Just read a thread on Reddit started by a guy who wants to get rid of his sex drive because he doesn't want to be in a relationship and finds it annoying and distracting.

He was instantly questioned about it but didn't have any deep reasons for wanting to get rid of it excerpt for being annoyed with it.

The overall sense you got from the thread was that everyone thought it was abnormal to want that, and they then attempted to turn it into something deep and psychological.

Bed time. Radio to fall asleep to, fan to blow fresh air into the room, and window with daylight to wake up to.

@thatbrickster It's possible that they're being very strict since they have the guarantee, and that I would pass the real test. But I kind of doubt it. They test you on things that aren't common sense too, like the meanings of certain signs, and specific rules about what to do in certain situations. Many of the answer options sound common-sensical and are designed to mislead you if you don't pay attention.

@thatbrickster I get 75% of the questions right when I take it, but that's not enough. The app I'm using has a passing guarantee: If you take their test a certain number of times and pass it, you should also pass the real one. I don't know what the limit for passing is, but it's higher than 75%, apparently.

I'm fairly awful at studying for the driving theory test so far. I've got a very good app for it that tests my skills, but I'm hardly using it.

I'm no better at this than I was in school. I never did any homework and I didn't study for tests. I tended to pass them anyway, but I was very close to flunking math, which is the only subject where you can't wing it and actually need to study the material.