- commandlinefanFar be it from me to disagree with Kernighan but... when I think of "clever" code, I think of things like Duff's device. That's clever as hell. It's also perfectly debuggable. When I deal with undebuggable code in the wild, it's usually due to people doing things like declaring global (sorry, "public static") variables that connect to live databases and start downloading definition tables into memory before the code can run.
- > They were responsive, professional, and took the findings seriously, patching the issues promptly.
The "issue" is that they're returning the entire PNR dataset to the front-end in the first place. He doesn't detail how they fixed it, but there's no reason in the world that this entire dataset should be dumped into Javascript. I got into pretty heated arguments with folks about this at Travelocity and this shit is exactly why I was so adamant.
- From not paying close attention :)
- I did it in my head but got 4 (3 * 3 - 5), so I fail, too. Hopefully I'd be paying closer attention if I was actually applying for a job.
- > about text editors
I get where you're coming from, but the analogy sort of breaks down here - those of us who work with text editors all the time love our tool of choice because it has features that make our lives easier. I can't see how a font could have or lack a "feature".
- I remember him as Meathead, and my 22-year-old son remembers him as the dad from Wolf of Wall Street. It's really amazing how many generations his work spans.
- "Why is government so inefficient?"
"I would never hire anybody who worked for the government during an administration I didn't vote for!"
- > It is not economically sound to continuously import technically‑skilled people
Interesting take.
- Reminds me of Java's GridBagLayout layout manager, which was practically unpredictable in actual use.
- > Why does the backlog need to be prioritised?
We know _why_ you want to know how long everything will take. It seems to escape these guy's attention that if software development was as predictable as they seem to insist it must be, they could be replaced with a spreadsheet.
- I bought Microsoft Word, years ago, before it was "licensed". However, it auto-updated itself with my permission from time to time. A few weeks ago, I went to edit a document and was presented with a pop-up that said I needed to update my license fee in order to be allowed to make modifications to it.
This is doubly frustrating when Word is the standard for resumes.
- > being born here is the only reason that I'm considered a citizen
What was the test for citizenship before the 14th amendment?
- > those people are clearly subject to US jurisdiction by virtue of the application process.
But the wording doesn't apply to the parents, it applies to the baby: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof", not "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and whose parents are subject to the jurisdiction thereof".
- Lol I'd love to live in Ireland, it's beautiful there, but I don't think they'd let me.
- It's tricky - the 14th amendment was passed following reconstruction as a way of ensuring that freed slaves couldn't be denied citizenship. Much later, the Wong Kim Ark case argued that it should cover the children of immigrants, and the supreme court agreed. Quite a while after that, the Wong Kim Ark decision was interpreted to include children of non-citizens as well, and _that's_ what's never been tested in court until now.
- > People were happy when Netflix was the streaming service
That was also before they started aggressively pushing their own content. For a while, it looked like Netflix was going to be the place you go to stream any movie that ever existed (which was pretty much what they were with mail-in DVDs before the streaming service came along). Now it seems like they don't really want to be in that business either.
- I agree with you that modern streaming service are a hassle, BUT - I'm old enough to remember Blockbuster, too. It used to be that if you wanted to watch a movie, you drove to the video store, found a copy, paid $2 to rent it for 24 hours, tried to remember to rewind it and got it back to the store before it was late. Streaming services are _definitely_ more convenient.
Right now, you can pretty much rent any movie you want through Amazon Prime with not late fee or rewind penalty, but you have to pay a couple of (extra!) dollars to do it. This is, undebatably, a massive improvement over the way it used to be in every way, but it still bothers me even though I can't put my finger on exactly why.
- > appeal to web designers and non-professional programmers
Similar to COBOL and SQL - designed to be "accessible" by oversimplifying things and ended up being more complicated to actually use than better tools.
- Well, in fairness to the headline, all of the bad parts of Javascript introduced in those 10 days are still there.
- FWIW, this isn't new. I was an exchange student in Osaka in the early 90's and a girl in my class got picked for an exchange program in Canada and she said she was relieved she didn't have to worry about being shot.