@ovid@fosstodon.org
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

ovid

@ovid@fosstodon.org

Well-known software developer. American living in France.

I have a poetic license to kill.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

ovid, to javascript
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

I started programming in 1982. Though I'm known as a developer, I tried to remember every other languages I've programmed in.

, #C, 6809 Assembler, , VBScript (and its many variants), , , , , , , Easytrieve, and probably a few others.

I wish I had gotten a job in Prolog, primarily because I loved what I could create with it. I don't love programming; I love creating.

What are you languages?

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

This is not a software glitch, it's the Y1C problem: old mainframes were so storage-constrained that they only allocated two decimal digits for passenger age, and adding another digit would mean rewriting software that in some cases has been in use and constantly patched since the late 1950s.
https://press.coop/@BBCNews/112345996328670433

ovid,
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

@cstross As an ex-COBOL programmer who was knee-deep in the Y2K mess, one of the issues is that many of those old COBOL programs were compiled, but the source code was lost.

In some cases, corporations were worried COBOL vendors would disappear, so they created incompatible, in-house COBOL compilers, making the mess even worse!

Naturally, there were no tests to verify that the software functioned correctly ...

ovid,
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

@DanielEriksson @cstross

My favorite bit? In 2000, I was trying to fix a COBOL program which included the comment "Converted from punch cards in 1968." I was born in '67, so I'm sure it was written before I was born, yet it was mission-critical software for that company.

I was in my 30s at the time, which would have made me one of the older devs in many companies, but for COBOL I was the youngest. They were confused when I complained about the use of GOTO for all flow control ...

ovid,
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

@jackwilliambell @DanielEriksson @cstross The paucity of features in COBOL coupled with JCL are part of why it's so powerful! You'd write a simply COBOL project, save the data, the next step in the JCL would use that data, and so on.

I've always found it fascinating that it was so powerful because it could do less. Definitely a lesson that's been lost.

isotopp, to random German
@isotopp@chaos.social avatar

MySQL folks take a lot of things for granted that are not present in this form in Postgres, and that may be a bad surprise when you try out "the other system".

MySQL for example has a stable and upwards- and slightly-downwards-compatible on-disk format, mostly. Oracle sometimes forgets how important that is and makes changes, or unannounced changes, and then needs to be corrected, hard, by their development partners and testers.

But in general the following things are true:

ovid,
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

@isotopp I definitely prefer PostgreSQL to , but deciding that collation derives from your system's locale settings when PostgreSQL installed means identical setups on different boxes can behave differently. This is NOT FUN to debug.

I've heard that there was discussion to change this, but I don't know if it happened.

ovid, to ChatGPT
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

Waiting for the Hollywood movie where a 1950s computer programmer mysteriously connects a teletype to ChatGPT, but doesn't realize it's not human

"I'm sorry, but I have no knowledge of events after December 2023.".

ovid, to python
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

Someone on Reddit was asking if there is any way of detecting something in an exoplanet atmosphere which would have no other explanation than life. I'm pretty happy with my answer.

You might be surprised that it even includes #Python code.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Astrobiology/comments/1caudbn/can_telescopes_actually_find_biosignatures/l0vzq3e/

#AstroBiology #Science #Astronomy #Life #Software #NASA #SpaceX

Alice, (edited ) to random
@Alice@beige.party avatar

How good can Harriet be if EVERYONE knows she's a spy?

ovid,
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

@Alice @amiserabilist People hate me for this, but as someone who used to be less embarrassed to say "Asperger's" instead of "autistic," I speak up when I see the term.

Pre WWII, Asperger belonged to organizations with strong Pan-German and anti-Semitic leanings,. He referred to his patients as "autistic psychopaths," helped legitimize "racial hygience," and clearly collaborated with Nazis in Vienna.

We should normalize the term "autism."

Fuck Nazis.

https://molecularautism.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13229-018-0208-6

ovid, to linux
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

BitMover's closed-source product, BitKeeper, was used for source control for the kernel. Larry McVoy, CEO of BitMover, was upset because someone tried to figure out how the BitKeeper worked and he pulled the BitKeeper licenses from Linux developers.

Needing distributed source control, Linus Torvalds created in a couple of months.

BitMover is gone and BitKeeper is now open-source, gathering dust, in a git repository.

https://github.com/bitkeeper-scm/bitkeeper

ovid, to opensource
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

Just stumbled across an old interview with my on the @changelog. I think it stands the test of time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcZcfDOP8QU&ab_channel=Changelog

#Perl #OpenSource #Programming

ovid, to Software
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

I love stumbling across great comments in code. Today's example found in client code:

"If [condition X] occurs, this will result in an infinite recursion loop until the heat death of the universe, possibly taking down a server just before that."

#software

ovid, to random
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

Social media today:

  1. Make a strong, controversial opinion for everyone to read
  2. Have someone disagree, stating that evidence is needed
  3. Have the original, well-meaning poster turn get furious and attack you for asking for evidence

They're blocked, but damn it, why is asking for evidence bad? Why is having divergent opinions bad?

(No need to comment. I'm just venting, which I probably shouldn't)

dgar, to random
@dgar@aus.social avatar

ovid,
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

@dgar This needs to be liked if for no other reason than that first hashtag 😜🍄

ovid, to linux
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

I keep telling myself that I will never break down and add the following to my .bash_aliases file

alias mdkir=mkdir

But it's so, so tempting.

#linux

ovid,
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

@isotopp Nope. Just fat fingers. I haven't touched MS-DOS in decades.

ovid,
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

@luap Close, but what you really want is:

alias emacs=vim

Makes pair programming so much more fun!

:wq

#emacs #vim

ovid,
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

@luap @l13u7anant

Reminds me of years ago when a new developer (switching from C++ to #Perl) joined a team I was on. We asked him if he preferred #emacs or #vim. He replied, "nano."

He didn't last long.

ovid,
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

@holgerschurig @luap @l13u7anant Though I recall a time at the BBC where they concluded an unmaintainable Perl monolith was too slow and spent years rewriting it in C++. They not only created a new, unmaintainable monolith, but it was also too slow. Turns out no one profiled the original software to find out the real reasons it was slow.

ovid, to writing
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

Hey, #WritingCommunity, a while ago I wrote a somewhat complex short story that I'm proud of, but would love feedback on. "The Names We Never Say."

https://ovid.github.io/blog/short-story-names.html

What works, what doesn't? I've received some very helpful feedback from a writing circle, but would love to reach outside voices.

For a more accessible story, here's some fantasy flash fiction: https://ovid.github.io/blog/flash-fiction-charlatans.html

Please boost for visibility ❤️

#AmWriting #Writing

ovid, to random
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

Having trouble keeping you house warm during the winter? Consider fine-tuning an LLM.

I'm not used to my Apple Silicon Mac ever getting warm, or the fans coming on.

ovid, to random
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

I think one the best things about AI today is I'm hearing a lot less about blockchain and cryptocurrencies.

That alone is a vast improvement in my quality of life.

ovid, to random
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

I really should put together an introductory course on how to use ChatGPT effectively. There are some amazing techniques you can use to get great productivity out of it.

ovid, to random
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

I should change my name to #Perl Horber.

ovid, to ai
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

I've noticed that when I share #AI related material ANYWHERE, I get less engagement. I sometimes get outright hostility. If I respond to AI-naysayers anywhere, I try to give detailed, thoughtful answers, always with personal experience and often with resources to back up my claims.

The hostility to generative AI is real and the outright denialism is amazing. People are regularly making bold claims that were true a year ago, but not today.

Why does opinion trump evidence?

ovid, to ChatGPT
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

At university, my speech professor marked me down several times for not summarizing my speeches if my summaries didn't begin with the words, "in summary" or "in conclusion." He insisted that without those words, the audience wouldn't recognize the summary! o_O

Today, reading an article with "in summary" or "in conclusion" almost always sets off my #ChatGPT alarm.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • Leos
  • thenastyranch
  • magazineikmin
  • vwfavf
  • InstantRegret
  • hgfsjryuu7
  • rosin
  • Youngstown
  • slotface
  • khanakhh
  • everett
  • osvaldo12
  • kavyap
  • DreamBathrooms
  • anitta
  • PowerRangers
  • Durango
  • tacticalgear
  • ngwrru68w68
  • ethstaker
  • modclub
  • GTA5RPClips
  • mdbf
  • tester
  • cisconetworking
  • normalnudes
  • cubers
  • provamag3
  • All magazines
    •