What is Hackers' Pub?

Hackers' Pub is a place for software engineers to share their knowledge and experience with each other. It's also an ActivityPub-enabled social network, so you can follow your favorite hackers in the fediverse and get their latest posts in your feed.

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request for advice re: MacBooks

Someone I know, an obligate Mac user without much money, has an ancient and dying laptop. They'd been thinking maybe a refurbished 13" M2 MacBook Pro or Air as a replacement, given the M-series' reputation for long lifetimes, but are now tempted by this "Neo".

What should I advise here? One might hope that a newer machine would last longer, but is the "Neo" less built-to-last or otherwise bad? And there's the question of locking them into the reviled latest MacOS.

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The GTK file picker Firefox wants to use by default is meh. I'm not sure why it doesn't use the one provided by the OS when it's just one about:config tweak away. Change widget.use-xdg-desktop-portal.file-picker from 2 to 1 and you get the much, much better KDE file picker. Assuming you're using @kde of course.

It's been a problem for ages on multiple operating systems, not a new thing. At least now you don't have to set environment variables and change startup scripts.

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Just proposed a branch to rewrite the applications menu’s grid view using Gtk.FlowBox. This gets rid of a ton of nasty custom keyboard navigation code and should be the last thing before I can propose the GTK4 port:

github.com/elementary/applicat

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LLMs for coding (thread)

Equally, most those most vocal about the benefits of LLM-coding were bullish about dev before the bubble. They didn't see the flaws of the earlier state of affairs so they don't see what's wrong with magnifying that dysfunction 10x

Hence the divide in the discourse

Both see LLMs as a mechanism for scaling up existing software practices with minimal human observation

One group thinks this'll make the world 10x richer. The other thinks it'll be a catastrophe

LLMs for coding (thread)

There is nothing either group can say to the other to shift them because the disagreement is down to a fundamental difference in world view

But if you aren't in tech and are wondering which to trust, just ask yourself: do you really think the chucklefucks of tech, the clowns who have been running the show over the past couple of decades, have got coding completely figured out?

/end

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LLMs for coding (thread)

This has led to a field whose standard practices are a cluster of bad habits and superstition. Most of the ideas of user-centred design are alien to modern devs. Misconceptions about test-driven dev abound.

When devs says that LLMs make them more productive, you need to keep in mind that THIS is what they're automating: dysfunction, tampering as a design strategy, superstition-driven coding, and software whose quality genuinely doesn't matter

LLMs for coding (thread)

And they are right. LLMs make it easier for devs to do work that doesn't matter in an industry that doesn't care, where the only thing that's measured is some bullshit measure that's disconnected from actual outcomes

Many of those most vocal about the dysfunctions of LLM-coding were ALREADY WARNING ABOUT THE DYSFUNCTIONS OF THE SOFTWARE INDUSTRY BEFORE "AI". The dysfunctions predate this particular bubble and many in software have been concerned about them for years.

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Ugh, I guess I can't use that VM for local testing, even. Despite having a valid Windows license, and signing in with the account that license is attached to, the Windows install on that VM refuses to activate, just returning some obscure HRESULT.

That leaves me with either troubleshooting why it can't find the license I already have or spending $140 getting a new one. Fucking hell.

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Seems painfully obvious that, whatever you think about code, anyone using it is heading for a code-review logjam. Assuming that the org requires code review; if yours doesn’t, nothing I can say will help you. Anyhow, Rishi Baldawa writes smart stuff about the problem and possible ways forward, in ˚The Reviewer Isn't the Bottleneck”: rishi.baldawa.com/posts/review

[My prediction: A lot of orgs will *not* do smart things about this and will suffer disastrous consequences in the near future.]

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Hmm.. In case you're wondering which topics could be discussed on an unconference about fediverse integration in/for public institutions...
check out this preliminary overview:
fedivariety.org/noaw-session-p

wow... all kinds of topics still to be shaken *and* stirred at noaw.org of course—looking fwd!

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