For those who don’t know:

Speaking at a software conference in 2009, Tony Hoare hyperbolically apologized for “inventing” the null reference:[26] [27]

I call it my billion-dollar mistake. It was the invention of the null reference in 1965. At that time, I was designing the first comprehensive type system for references in an object oriented language (ALGOL W). My goal was to ensure that all use of references should be absolutely safe, with checking performed automatically by the compiler. But I couldn’t resist the temptation to put in a null reference, simply because it was so easy to implement. This has led to innumerable errors, vulnerabilities, and system crashes, which have probably caused a billion dollars of pain and damage in the last forty years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Hoare

Hey, IT, I imported this data set twice, and now there are a lot of duplicates. Is there something wrong with the tool?

– Yes, that happened.

To be fair, just because obj.foo is undefined, that doesn’t mean the key is missing. It could also be assigned the value undefined. const obj = { foo: undefined } vs const obj = {}

If an attribute is null, I would prefer to simply not serialize it.

That’s interesting. I’m on the opposite team. If a customer model defines an optional birthday, for instance, I’d rather have it serialized as a null value if it’s not available for a specific customer.

Indeed, and that turns out to be a problem if the JavaScript expects the key not to be there, but instead it is there. And then you try to tell the backend dev that the key shouldn’t be there, but he’ll try to convince you that it’s the same whether the key is not there or whether it’s assigned null and then you wonder if he’s messing with you, but actually he isn’t and then the only thing keeping you sane is bitching about it in meme form on lemmy.

Sure, Java can tell the difference. But that doesn’t mean that the guy writing the API cares whether or not he adds a key to the dictionary before yeeting it to the client.

In my experience it’s the other way around.

Speaking of rate limits: Github recently blocked me because I went over a ‘secondary rate limit’ by visiting the site for the first time in a month. Has anybody experienced this?

Yay, a likeminded person!

For Microsoft I fully understand that they’d rather have a subscription model for Windows. After all you’re getting updates every fortnight and critical patches ASAP. I wonder they let you buy their shit for so long.

Just in case someone brings it up—and someone will bring it up regardless—: I’m not defending their recent enshittification and “always online” mindset.

I used to think that at least the parts that are Fairtrade wouldn’t be affected as much.

Chocolate production is infested with slave labor, child labor and child slave labor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwHMDjc7qJ8

For long hair it helps with combing. Just like the old silicone spray for ballpoint mice, it reduces friction with the comb.

I’ve seen this guy referenced twice today. If only he knew how to write instead of giving talks…

The libraries underneath will still allow nonsense at runtime

Only if you use a badly written library. Most libraries have types provided by DefinitelyTyped. Those who don’t are (in my experience) so tiny that you probably aren’t using them; or, if you really wanted, can check yourself.

In the end, if you encounter a bug, it’ still 99% of the time not a library’s fault, even if it’s written in plain JS.

Do you know how often users actually restart their machines without being forced?

If Windows would actually shut the fuck down when asked to do so, this wouldn’t be a problem.

If I can control my fans and my GPU in Linux the way I can in Windows I will.

Guess I lost that gamble.

This neo: https://neo-layout.org/Layouts/neo/

That’s an en dash. This is an em dash: —

Found the neo user.

Don’t you guys have dead keys? On German keyboards there’s a key that does nothing on its own. When you press it twice, you get ‘`’, and when you press that button and ‘e’ you get è.

Many people confuse this for the apostrophe which brings me into a murderous rage every time I see it.