CircleCount helps you better understand Google+

2013-04-14 18:33:44 (0 comments, 2 reshares, 9 +1s)

http://jmoiron.net/blog/whats-going-on/

Both authors blame bad habits and bad APIs for the slowness of scripting languages.  Specifically, using hash maps instead of objects, and APIs that force you to allocate objects in order to do simple stuff.

While I agree that you shouldn't use a hash if you could instead use a real object it doesn't actually make any difference in V8.  foo["x"] compiles to exactly the same thing as foo.x.

And as for allocation/GC overhead, I think it's overrated, at least if your language has a real generational GC.  Bump allocation is very fast and young-space GC is also very fast.  The suggested cures of reusing objects and buffers and designing more complex APIs that allow that will complicate your program considerably and expose you to a bunch of potential bugs.  His example non-allocating C code looks very simple:more »

2012-07-13 21:53:55 (0 comments, 2 reshares, 11 +1s)

2012-05-31 16:53:24 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

2012-03-16 05:19:51 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 8 +1s)

+Douglas Napoleone enjoying the sprints.

2011-08-27 19:42:37 (5 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

If you were asked to design a piece of code that would take an input type, and an output type, and design something which emitted the instructions necessary to cast from the input to the output, using the primitives "cast_int_to_float" and "cast_float_to_int" (which operate on platform native words, and doubles) and general arithmetic operations, how would you design it?

a) I think this might make an interesting interview question
b) I don't have an answer I'm happy with ATM (and yes, this is actually being implemented, the current design is painful).

2011-08-17 18:34:58 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

No place like home.

2011-08-17 07:01:27 (10 comments, 2 reshares, 0 +1s)

Given that one's current status in life is L(start state of the universe, decisions made by self, decisions made by others), where L is some sort of life function, the two decisions sets are allowed to have causal relationships, both within themselves, and with each other, one wonders which decisions within our own control cause the biggest changes in our live, or are necessary (and/or sufficient) to produce given events.

2011-08-02 07:50:27 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

I just finished watching the season finale of the second season of The West Wing, Two Cathedrals. I've heard over and over again that it was a brilliant episode, including from +James Bennett. However, I was frankly underwhelmed by it. It was a good episode, very good even, and so to a certain extent I'm left wondering how it could have ever lived up to the hype. Like a lot of other really good show's best episodes, it makes extensive use of flash backs (c.f. House or Stargate SG-1). Unlike them, it doesn't use the flash backs to let the viewer understand what they already know, instead it lets the past parallel the present (hence the title) and allows the President to choose a new direction. Ultimately, the episode is centered around two (perhaps three) pivotal events, any one of which could have been both an episode unto itself, as well as the opportunity of a lifetime for a speech... more »

2011-07-31 22:21:20 (0 comments, 2 reshares, 5 +1s)

+Joe Tyson looks like someone took your idea on how to improve documentation and ran with it for the DjangoDash: http://smartlinky.com/

2011-07-29 03:27:04 (8 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

I'm curious if this code is understandable by people: https://bitbucket.org/pypy/pypy/changeset/184d7477fc30

Essentially this adds a new tool to RPython,@unroll_if, which allows you, the RPython program author (read: us, the authors of the PyPy python interpreter) to say a function should be unrolled by the JIT sometimes. An example of this is in the general case you don't want to unroll str.join, because the list could be huge, but what if you can prove the list is small? e.g. ", ".join([a, b, c]), then it would be nice to unroll it. This sets in motion the possibility of that.

This is why working on PyPy is fun, in this patch I: did some Python metaprogramming, including code generation, taught the JIT a new operation, wrote some tests, and wrested with code that is too smart for it's own good.

Coming soon to a PyPy near you ;)

2011-07-25 09:32:01 (6 comments, 0 reshares, 17 +1s)

Anyone who's read Ender's Game (or Ender's Shadow I believe) likely remembers the scene where Ender tells Bean that he thinks he can't lose a single game, or it would shake the confidence of the teachers. That it wasn't enough to be the best, to win most of the time, he had to win in any circumstances, no matter how stacked against him. That's how I feel about PyPy sometimes, it's not enough to be faster on nearly every benchmark on speed.pypy.org, or to compare ourselves to C code on some benchmarks, but rather we can never lose, we must compete with languages that have 101 advantages, and compilers that have been tuned for 20 years. Because it feels anytime we're slower, no matter what the reason, we lose a bit of people's confidence. So we'll compete, we'll fight on the code that was microoptimzed for CPython, we'll get creative and find ways to... more »

2011-07-24 17:26:19 (7 comments, 0 reshares, 11 +1s)

Are people still whiing about needing to use their real names here? The nonsense names, useless URLs and other things were some of the worst aspects of facebook. When the vanity URL feature was released I believed it was so stupid I actually go the URL "this.feature.sucks", I stand by it too.

2011-07-22 17:56:38 (8 comments, 4 reshares, 12 +1s)

Anytime someone dares to suggest that not everything needs to be an insane compromise, and that often doing things the right way has no higher cost than making a mess of everything, even in the shorterm, they seem to get pushback from every angle, including other really talented developers (including being accused of being elitist, what a meaningless word nowadays). I wonder how long I'll need to be a professional developer, making a career out of doing things the right way, before people stop arguing that making a mess is faster.

2011-07-18 00:09:22 (7 comments, 0 reshares, 25 +1s)

And I've now committed to CPython with the help of +Brett Cannon, the cycle is complete! http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/2eb8789e30e7

2011-07-17 02:18:26 (9 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

Sometimes people ask me how I think PyPy has so much room to get faster, even as we often win benchmarks easily. The answer? Cause we still generate dumb shit like this: http://paste.pocoo.org/show/440509/

2011-07-16 20:52:09 (5 comments, 2 reshares, 18 +1s)

The spirit of PyPy development:

me: "it's amazing, we are fast at this but there is still tons of nonsense"
fijal: "well, sky is the limit :)"
me: "C is the limit actually"
me: "(pun intended)"

2011-07-14 05:31:30 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

"With multiple inheritance, the method called by a super call can be determined with where the call appears. With traits, the method call is determined by a linearization of the classes and the traits that are mixed into a class"

1996 called, they want their novel OOPSLA paper back.

2011-07-13 21:08:22 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 17 +1s)

Just flagged an answer on Quora as "doesn't directly answer the question", the answer was from a congressman. Wish I could do that at the debates and other forums.

2011-07-13 02:16:21 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

At Twitter intern thing. Wtf is with companies.talking at us, this was significantly better when I was talking vms with someone.

2011-07-12 00:52:59 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

+Sean McQuillan did I see you the other day at Super Happy Dev House?

2011-07-11 02:52:37 (6 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

The Programming in Scala book appears to recommend using ScalaTest, without ever mentioning that it isn't included with Scala and that you have to download it. I can't even begin to describe how mindbogglingly confusing that is.

2011-07-11 01:03:25 (6 comments, 2 reshares, 30 +1s)

For completeness. So you want to write a fast Python? http://alexgaynor.net/2011/jul/10/so-you-want-write-fast-python/

2011-07-10 01:05:21 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 6 +1s)

Enjoying a Super Happy Dev House at google. I'm making stuff faster!

2011-07-09 03:04:25 (8 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

"Using a val [...], and it helps you in much the same way as a final variable in Java"

So it doesn't? Seriously, last I checked Hotspot just ignores final decls, and I as a human don't need my compiler to hold my hand to tell me not to reassign math.pi and friends.

2011-07-09 02:17:41 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Upside: 1 line less of code.
Downside: Doesn't work in most cases, doesn't work with threads, slower on many platforms.

Why on earth would you bother to add this to you language?

2011-07-09 02:10:02 (6 comments, 1 reshares, 6 +1s)

"one way in which Scala is more object-oriented than Java is that classes in Scala cannot have static members"

WTF who comes up with this crap, "more object-oriented"? Is there a competition? How do you rank these things? Apparently by this metric Python isn't object oriented at all, and it's got side effects so it's obviously not a functional language. I think Python might not be a programming language.

2011-07-09 02:00:48 (3 comments, 2 reshares, 3 +1s)

Scala has the appearance of being a catastrophic troll.

Premise 1: I want to make an HTTP request
Premise 2: In a language written in this millenia, for general purpose computing, that should be easy.

Evidence 1:http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/9860/pythonhttpgooglesearchc.png
Evidence 2: http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/1580/scalahttpgooglesearchch.png

Conclusion: WTF WTF WTF

2011-07-08 05:31:19 (5 comments, 1 reshares, 10 +1s)

Reading stuff like https://twitter.com/#!/ketralnis/status/89202925045424129 makes it so easy to remember why open source is worth it.

2011-07-06 20:56:56 (1 comments, 4 reshares, 20 +1s)

Open sourced mysql-ctypes: http://www.quora.com/Alex-Gaynor/Announcing-MySQL-ctypes

Thanks to Quora for letting me open source this!

2011-07-05 01:47:14 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

BBQ party: excellent

Sunburn: not so excellent

Do they sell SPF 9000?

2011-07-04 14:46:27 (3 comments, 1 reshares, 5 +1s)

Some of my personal favorite lines from the Declaration of Independence:

"a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation"

"We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness"

"to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed"

"whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles"

"it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new... more »

2011-07-02 20:04:12 (6 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Anyone who appreciates a good, proper bagels should come here. It's a taste of home. Between this and patxi's I have no reason to ever leave the area.

2011-07-02 19:36:43 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Saturday is a different day then Sunday.

2011-07-02 03:12:37 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

2011-07-01 02:45:26 (19 comments, 1 reshares, 9 +1s)

Listening to the color CEO talk. At an intern event. Seems like a bit of an idiot.

2011-06-30 16:46:55 (7 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

WHY WOULD YOU CHECK THIS BY DEFAULT: http://img843.imageshack.us/img843/6580/selection056.png

2011-06-30 16:46:41 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

I has a copy of +Doug Hellmann's book, and I is going to read and review it.x

2011-06-30 06:58:29 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

Here you go - Announcing the new speed.python.org machine! - http://bit.ly/iFjTzy

2011-06-30 06:41:13 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Pleasant dinner with +Eric Florenzano +Noah Kantrowitz and +James Bennett , then we hit the philosophy discussions ;)

2011-06-30 00:03:42 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 6 +1s)

I think my original twitter status was "WTF is this thing", so the same to you google+.