Nope I chose Python because it has libraries and it's fast to get things done. I like the syntax a lot. The combination of executable pseudocode and the right blend of LISP's finer points (list processing) makes it very expressive and powerful for me. That's why I chose it. The batteries included standard library is a huge advantage too. I briefly worked on a couple of projects (not my own) in flutter/dart and also rust and the need to dip into third party libraries was a bit of a turn off frankly. You can't just download a rust program and expect to compile it without downloading dozens of third party dependencies. There's something about requiring an Internet connection to compile a program that is a bit unsettling.

I shouldn't need to state my qualifications but this is slashdot so I must. I've programmed in a bunch of different languages for 44 years. Probably used C++ the most.

Whether or not you use Linux, the phrase "Linux is fine if you are a tinkerer" is most certainly outdated and should be dropped from common use, as it's not really untrue. At their request I've set up Linux for several very normal users (borderline computer illiterate), and none of them are tinkerers!

As much as Windows sucks, I agree most non-techie users just live with it and have no need or desire to move to macOS let alone Linux. But they could all if they really wanted, which isn't something I would have said 20 years ago. I'm completely ambivalent about encouraging them to change.

Seems like I end up tinkering far more with Windows than Linux to get it working for me. And it's always been that way, and is not getting any better. Lots of annoyances and paper cuts. And initial setup is quite time consuming compared to my Linux installs. A solid hour of downloading the packages I need including many GB of Visual Studio's command-line compiler tools. To say nothing of absolutely asinine things like requiring an internet connection and to be logged into your MS account just to get the system booting, and now the OneDrive virus thing. I think the paper cuts are finally starting to bleed people out with Windows 11. But I have no illusions there's plenty of blood left for MS to bleed out of their users.

As the song says, "every OS sucks" and Windows is certainly not getting any better, nor is macOS. Both are getting worse and less usable in every release. Whereas most linux distros seem to get more usable in every release (disclaimer, I'm not a Gnome user). I'd say we've at least caught up to Windows which is starting to pass us in the opposite direction.

Have not used Gemini so I can't compare to that. I'm sure they are somewhat comparable.

I primarily use Claude Code cli. I do not use Claude Code web.

Claude has been generating pretty good Qt code for me. Most of it is boiler plate of course. I haven't personally had it litter my code with exception handling, but I have seen it do that to others.

You can always add to your CLAUDE.md file a note to tell it to avoid using exception handling. I'm pretty sure you could tell it to only catch exceptions that the code specifically is set to deal with, and let all others go on up.

That's certainly fine. They are welcome to not use middle-click paste. But I actually doubt any of those users have any reason at all to try Linux. That's what I mean about the mythical new user.

Claude is very good at documentation and general text generation. I frequently have Claude write documentation in MD files describing the plan, detailed API docs, progress reports, etc. For the most part it's coherent and not as slop-sounding as I expected. Sometimes I have it write git commit messages which I have to say are often way better than the ones I write. More descriptive yet more concise than my own style. I just have to remind it to not use emojis in the messages (no icons basically). Claude loves to use emoji icons such as check marks.

Yes, it's important to appeal to newbie users. But it's also important not to alienate long-time power users.

Ahh the mythical new users. I'm not convinced they actually exist. All that ever happens in my experience is you do alienate the long-time power users.

Gnome can do what it wants. I don't use any gnome applications anymore. The minimalist, hide-everything UI fad has been really bad for usability for me. No thanks. I once loved developing in GTK+ but now I just use Qt. Kind of sucks to be stuck with C++isms, but it is a very nice toolkit. Oh and it supports middle-click paste, even on Wayland so it can't be that hard. Besides that I prefer the KDE traditional way of doing things. I sincerely hope firefox does not follow down this road of removing useful features. I use middle click paste in firefox quite often. It's totally handy to have two clipboards essentially. Please keep it, firefox devs!

It's interesting that he chose not to co-opt public broadcasting for his own propaganda and instead chose to shut it down and rely on his good friends at Fox to do the propaganda for him. Had this been Russia, Putin would have put money into public broadcasting (and thumb screws of course), not cut it, and use it as a propaganda tool. Along the way of course Putin eliminated and co-opted private media companies until now there really only is the state-run media for news and political opinion, and dissenting voices are very effectively quelled and even disbelieved by most Russians. This is happening in the US now too under the threat of civil litigation by the president (so weird that people now think this is normal and acceptable). It's just a slightly different path is all.

Let's be clear. No one thing is a prelude to fascism. But it's certainly an interesting step and one of many. The GOP has wanted to end public broadcasting for decades. I think it's mainly about money and power. They want to control the narrative and make money off of it (Rush Limbaugh was one of their heroes). They used to be afraid to cut things like public broadcasting when they were in power just like how until recently all Conservatives in Canada would never have dared to try to eliminate the Canada Health Act. Trump has certainly emboldened right wingers' worst and most base instincts. Oh there I go with my TDS again. Need more meds. Oh wait, can't afford them now.

This whole thing sort of reminds me of a funny line from Yes Prime Minister where Humphries is explaining that even though most people don't (or can't) go to the National Theatre. they want it funded because it's nice to know that it's there, similar to the Church of England.

That's true. In a western, democratic capitalist society, the sociopaths end up running for office and very successfully tricking the normal people into voting for them, probably because normal people want no part of the toxicity that surrounds the halls of power. The civil service seems to, at least until recently, attract fairly honest, altruistic people who want to serve their country and fellow citizens.

In fact HPUX was the first Unix I was introduced to as a CS student back in 1997. I remember the large monitors that were super high resolution and CDE looked great. You didn't need anti-aliasing because the fonts (well-designed bitmap fonts) looked crisp and readable on those enormous 19" 1600x1200 CRTs. When LCDs came out they were a real step backwards compared to those monitors. Has take a long time to finally exceed the quality of those 1600x1200 displays with modern 2k and 4k displays.

When I got my first job as a sysadmin at a uni in the CS dept we had a whole bunch of HPUX workstations, and also a file server running HPUX. I've forgotten nearly everything I knew about HPUX but I vaguely remember the SAM utility. Around that time I was introduced to Linux. Eventually as Linux got better and better I managed to convince the department to let us roll out Linux in one computer lab as a test. It was so popular with the students compared to the Solaris and HPUX labs that by around 2000 we had replaced all of the open lab HP and Solaris workstations with Linux on x86 PCs (RedHat if I recall) and everyone from the faculty to the students were quite happy with them.

I feel somewhat bad at helping an entire CS department migrate away from HPUX machines as they really were high quality machines, but it was good move, for the department, the students, and for me professionally.

In Europe there are quite a few electric semis on the road, with gvw up to 48 tonnes. Real world range of about 500 km. So Tesla s numbers are realistic. In Europe the average seems to be about 1.2 km per kwh fully loaded. And as long as you come back down there other side with regenerative braking, you can get that same efficiency going up mountains.

It's nice that a big diesel can hold fuel for 2000 miles but no driver is going to or be allowed to drive that without stopping for breaks. In Europe charging during breaks and during the mandatory rest periods (including at night) works quite well. If you're interested watch videos from electric Trucker. He's a long haul ev truck driver. Some of his trips span 5000 km across Europe.

Yes. In fact the company he works for, Nano Janssen runs a fleet of electric semis across Europe. He's driven across all of Europe, including a 5000 km trip to Central Turkey. Fascinating stuff. Shows that with a little bit of infrastructure, ev trucking is viable. And if you coordinate charging with mandatory breaks, it works out well even at just 300 kw charging.

Some people on slashdot think that Europe is smaller than the United States for driving distances. It's not. Europe is a vast place. The difference is the population density is much higher so there's more infrastructure for charging along the long routes.

If aircraft did have multi-constellation GNSS receivers, then the answer to that is, it depends. Already GPS runs on two frequency bands, L1 and L2, so jamming on one frequency might not affect the other frequency if the receiver was multi-band. Galileo also has a couple of different bands including E2 and E5 if I recall. But the problem is all of them are exceptionally weak signals and jamming across all of their different bands is not terribly difficult. Certainly it would reduce the accuracy of the fix if there was partial jamming of some of the constellations but not others.

But as others have said, I don't know of any commercial aircraft using multi-constellation GNSS yet.

Thank you. Although I wish I shared your certainty. I'm not talking about Canada being the "51st" state here, I'm talking about the rhetoric of national security and using military means to achieve such ends. In my mine there is a definite non-zero probability that one of our largest, most imperialistic neighbors will invade at some point: Russia, China, or the US. I don't think it will be China since they don't need to invade to control the things they want to control. Now that you've removed all restraints from the president thanks to the supreme court, there's absolutely nothing stopping Trump or some other future, would-be dictator from coming in and taking what he wants. The way he's bragging about the Venezuelan invasion and stealing their oil proves he's doing exactly that. That is what is so shocking and what really makes us wonder up here when we're going to be next.