On 11/19/2011 8:58, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Is it actually true that the /entire/ phone system is Erlang? I know Ericson
> use it, but is it really running *everything*?

I don't know. It runs the critical 100%-uptime infrastructure.

> I should think that /any/ system is eventually going to come to a point
> where you need real documentation. There are those who say "the source *is*
> the documentation". But looking at Yesod, with almost 100 packages, I
> wouldn't want to have to read all that lot to try to /guess/ what the
> designer's intensions were. :-P

I find it annoying when I get 50 source code files, and there's not even a 
single sentence anywhere saying "this file deals with users" or "that file 
handles cookie storage" or something. How f'ing lazy do you have to be?

I got complemented on my comments the other day. They asked which tool I 
used to generate them. I said "Easy: I write the comments first to tell me 
what I need to implement."

> "The fmap function must satisfy fmap id == id and fmap (f . g) == fmap f .
> fmap g". Or you can say "fmap applies a function to every element of a
> container without affecting the structure of the container itself". The
> latter tells you what the function is *for*.

Yes. I usually include both. But unit tests tell you the first, so the 
people who tell you that unit tests serve as documentation are also wrong. :-)

>>> I've never heard of a system which actually /compiles/ templates.
>>
>> Any template system written in a compiled language, like ASP.NET.
>
> It's also news to me that ASP.NET is compiled. I thought it was just another
> scripting language.

ASP was. ASP.NET is C# or VB.NET implementing the logic.

>> Heck, GWT takes Java code and compiles the half that runs on the browser
>> into optimized javascript.
>
> That's pretty hardcore, right there.

It's really quite insane, yes.

>>> I'm not seeing how type erasure is in any way related to the ability or
>>> inability to dynamically load new code.
>>
>> If you don't know what types are in the code you're loading, how do you
>> load it?
>
> Doesn't seem to stop C. :-P

That's because C isn't strongly typed.

> Well, yeah, being able to smoothly transition from one to the other is much
> nicer. I suppose you might perhaps be able to do that by having multiple
> physical servers and bouncing them one at a time? (I'm just trying to think
> of obvious ways that might go wrong...)

Yes. That's my point. If you don't have enough servers you can do that, then 
you don't have enough servers that you can repair your hardware.

> (I'm assuming here that you're only using a user ID in the URL to allow
> people to view somebody's public user profile. You should NOT be using this
> for actual authentication or anything like that...)

Yep. Unless you sign it or something.

> Required XKCD quote: http://www.xkcd.com/934/ [Esp. the alt. text.]

Indeed. He missed HTTP fumblingly reinventing all the stuff that others had 
already implemented, like persistent connections, chunked downloads, etc etc 
etc.

> But WTF do I know?

I agree entirely.

> I am *definitely* not one of those people. I doubt I'll ever write anything
> that actually gets hit by more than 2 users concurrently.

Not at your current job, for sure. :-)

> Dude, accountants *invented* the concept of "transactions"! :-D

Heh. Pretty much, yes.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   People tell me I am the counter-example.

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