dabeaz

dabeaz, 1 day ago

@vy No, but I just looked it up and it seems interesting.

dabeaz, 1 day ago

@vy Getting an answer? You mean like with awk or something?

dabeaz, 1 day ago

@brohrer That sounds like something that could be a handy tool.

dabeaz, 2 days ago

@vy The people writing that code think that it's good.

dabeaz, 2 days ago (edited 2 days ago)

Did I say that you should do be doing this with "production" at work? I did not. I said learning. As in learning something new. Which by definition means you're probably not that good at it yet (because if you were, what's the point?). If you're writing bad code at work, then that's just bad. Maybe you should spend more time learning....

Edit: ... and hopefully have your employer pay for it.

dabeaz, 2 days ago

@gvwilson Do we expect doctors to be learning a new surgical procedure while they are doing the same surgical procedure on someone? We do not.

Yes, musicians rehearse. And it might sound bad at first. Because they're learning.

Not sure where you're getting this "unpaid" part of it. I'm talking about learning. When you're learning something, you're going to be bad at it at first. That's all I'm talking about.

dabeaz, 2 days ago

@glitzersachen @gvwilson What I'm saying is that learning probably should be separate from "production" whatever that might mean in the context of work. You're not going to go tinker with production on some kind of experimental learning project (nor would most employers want you to).

On the other hand, there's basic competence called being "good enough" to do your job. That's fine. But if you're telling me that being bad at that is somehow "learning", then I'm going to disagree.

dabeaz, 2 days ago

@bignose My comment on "spending more time learning" did not specify where. If you're employer won't support it, then yeah, that's a bad employer.

dabeaz, 2 days ago

@onelson Nah, you're just good enough. Which is good.

dabeaz, 2 days ago

@PeterLudemann Reflection upon past mistakes is almost certainly part of learning. But, it assumes mistakes. If you never make mistakes at all, maybe that's admirable, but it doesn't sound like much growth going on either.

dabeaz, 1 day ago

@vy Well, at least it's formatted correctly.

dabeaz, 1 day ago

@bignose I think part of the problem is that I'm not thinking about work at all. And especially not what I would call job-related "training."

What I am thinking about is the fact that my time on this fine planet is measured in decades and that over that time, I might not want to do the same thing over and over again. I might want to improve my skills by challenging myself with things I'm curious about, but not so good at (yet). That's on me.

dabeaz, 1 day ago

@robpike But maybe, just maybe, the bad code your wrote today is part of learning tomorrow's good code.

dabeaz, 4 days ago

@brianokken This seems like it could be a job for AI (sic).

dabeaz, 4 days ago

@brianokken @mistersql In the interest of full disclosure, my comment was partly inspired by some thing I recently saw about AI misidentifying deadly mushrooms as edible.

dabeaz, 4 days ago

@vy @PeterLudemann Aren't you worried about what others might think?

dabeaz, 4 days ago

@vy @PeterLudemann But aren't you worried about preserving semicommutative transitivity?

dabeaz, 4 days ago

@AlSweigart I'd sometimes get asked about it when seeing help messages for built-in functions such as abs(). For example:

abs(x, /)
Return the absolute value of the argument.

Saying that it's there to keep the ) from falling over does not qualify as a helpful answer.

dabeaz, 4 days ago

Clearly the best way to handle my last school 5K walk was to walk to the 5K walk. So, a nice send-off to the last 10 years by actually walking an 11K. ;-).