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  • Showing only topics in ~comp with the tag "ask". Back to normal view / Search all groups
    1. Advice on sharpening skills for career pivot

      After spending a couple years in management I want to get back into more individual contributor roles. It's where I can apply the skills I actually enjoy. Preferably I'd work as a dev or data...

      After spending a couple years in management I want to get back into more individual contributor roles. It's where I can apply the skills I actually enjoy. Preferably I'd work as a dev or data scientist, but what I want is to spend time solving technical/mathematical problems and less herding cats and politicking.

      EDIT: US with ability to relocate; willing to take a paycut.

      Background
      • About 9 years as lead dev in a start up (2004-2013). It was the golden era of 2005 when we started and I got the role strictly on skills I developed as a teenager. The start up failed shortly after I left but an associated passion project has lived on. In this role I built video streaming software client side, server side, web apps, and iOS apps. I used C#, javascript/node, mongodb, redis, SQL, PHP, objective-c, and C++ as well as functioning as sys admin and webmaster. Pretty much solo dev except for a contractor or intern occasionally.
      • Went back to school (homeschooled, no high school so I needed some pieces of paper), BS-MS-PHD, in mathematics (number theory) and published several papers. One of which launched a bit of a cottage industry for my collaborators. I haven't been involved post graduation but get updates when friends see me cited at conferences, etc. Wrote more domain specific stuff (Python, MAGMA, GAP).
      • During my last year of grad school I got very jaded towards the grind I saw before me that more that likely ended with a job at a teaching school making less than I wanted. Pretty much as soon as I made my intentions public covid happened so I was job searching during 2020 while finishing my doctorate.
      • Got my break early 2021, an entry level data analyst role for a major corpo. In this role I had a lot of time to just explore data, find patterns, test out some of the ideas friend in topological data analysis were thinking about, tested early ML models. Pretty much strictly Python and SQL. Went to manager in 2022 and then People Analytics Director in 2023.

      Current plans:

      • Attend more meet ups, there are a couple about an hour south of me. Hoping to build some connections with the local industry.
      • Private server and website stood up, plan to host projects etc here for interested parties.
      • Runs through exercism.io to refresh on some stuff.
      • Find some open source projects to contribute on? There is also a local group of indie game devs, perhaps offer my services where possible.

      So my question to you all is how would you go about sharpening skills and building up a portfolio?

      8 votes
    2. What programming/technical projects have you been working on?

      This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's...

      This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?

      17 votes
    3. Why do the arrow functions won't return "this" object in a jquery event handler?

      Consider the following simple jquery event handler code I've been using since ages: $("body").on("click", ".dome .btn", function() { console.log(".dome .btn onclick::"); console.log($(this)); });...

      Consider the following simple jquery event handler code I've been using since ages:

      $("body").on("click", ".dome .btn", function() {
      	console.log(".dome .btn onclick::");
      	console.log($(this));
      });
      

      The this object here returns the button element in question which is the proper way. But today, I decided to use arrow function just to upgrade myself with the modern times:

      $("body").on("click", ".dome .btn", () => {
      	console.log(".dome .btn onclick::");
      	console.log($(this));
      });
      

      But in this case, the this object won't return the button element. It will return the window object instead which is the parent of all parents! What kind of atrocious quirk is this? Few days ago, someone on the /r/webdev subreddit told me that arrow function is just a modern way of writing the old function(){} syntax.

      10 votes
    4. What programming/technical projects have you been working on?

      This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's...

      This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?

      9 votes
    5. Is Emacs or VIM worth learning in today's day and age?

      I'm a full stack webdev and gotten through almost everything in life without using these legendary editors. For Linux work, I mostly use the nano CLI editor which does the job fine and while on...

      I'm a full stack webdev and gotten through almost everything in life without using these legendary editors. For Linux work, I mostly use the nano CLI editor which does the job fine and while on desktop, there are superior ones like gedit and geany. On Windows, my preferred code editor is Notepad++ though I've experienced Eclipse, Visual Studio and Android Studio in various situations. Guess there isn't any substitute to AS when it comes to Android APK development?

      But these two legendary editors (Emacs/VIM) come highly recommended and a programmer is considered incomplete in the long beard circles until they learn one of them, isn't it? But I want to understand what can I hope to gain by learning them in terms of utility or usefulness? Can I somehow bring efficiency to my workflow by reducing my development time or adding a feature?

      30 votes
    6. How do you organize your Linux packages?

      Hello everyone. I am planning to get back into Linux development after working with Mac only for almost a decade. On Mac, one of the most important lessons that I learned was to always use...

      Hello everyone.

      I am planning to get back into Linux development after working with Mac only for almost a decade. On Mac, one of the most important lessons that I learned was to always use Homebrew. Using various package managers (e.g. Homebrew, NPM, Yarn, Pip, etc.) creates situations in which you don't know how to uninstall or upgrade certain pieces of software. Also, it's hard to generate a complete overview.

      How do you Linux folks handle this?

      Bonus question: How do you manage your dotfiles securely? I use Bitwarden, and it's a bit clunky.

      If that helps, I want to try Mint and always use Oh My ZSH!.

      6 votes
    7. Honest Question: Why did PHP remove dynamic properties in 8.x?

      I understand PHP has had many criticisms in the past but I'm not sure the existence of dynamic properties of instantiated objects was ever one of them. In fact, dynamic properties are pretty much...

      I understand PHP has had many criticisms in the past but I'm not sure the existence of dynamic properties of instantiated objects was ever one of them. In fact, dynamic properties are pretty much the hallmark of most interpreted or dynamic programming languages. Python allows it all the time and so do many others like Ruby, Perl, etc.

      I don't know what PHP developers achieved by removing dynamic properties feature from the language but one thing that resulted out of this is that many applications based on widely used veteran PHP frameworks (such as CodeIgniter and CakePHP) came to a halt all of a sudden due to an error like this after upgrading to PHP 8:

      A PHP Error was encountered
      Severity: 8192
      Message: Creation of dynamic property CI_URI::$config is deprecated
      Filename: core/URI.php
      Line Number: 102
      Backtrace:
      File: C:\xampp\htdocs\inv_perpus\index.php Line: 288 Function: require_once
      

      The influence of Corporate IT in various open source foundations is pretty well known and also well known is the extent to which corporate greed goes to achieve its interests and objectives across the world. The only way to assuage this uncomfortable thought (at least in this particular case) is to ask if there was any technical merit at all in removing dynamic properties feature from a dynamic programming language?

      I for one couldn't find any such merit here.

      12 votes
    8. Is PyGame still alive?

      So it was a long time ago in the good old Python 2.x days (circa 2010 probably) that I had learned PyGame with some tutorials at my former work place. But nowadays since I mostly freelance with...

      So it was a long time ago in the good old Python 2.x days (circa 2010 probably) that I had learned PyGame with some tutorials at my former work place. But nowadays since I mostly freelance with business apps, I never felt the need for it.

      But since such a game development project is on the horizon after all these years, I was wondering if PyGame can still be up for the task with Python 3.x? Or is there a better Python library available these days?

      I don't need any advanced gaming features of modern day VFX or anything, all I need is some basic Mario/Luigi style graphics, that's all!

      9 votes
    9. Opinions or experiences on Corsair build kits

      I am looking to replace my PC that I mostly use for gaming for close to 10 years. While I used to work in data centers, I've never been into building custom PC, particular the planning and...

      I am looking to replace my PC that I mostly use for gaming for close to 10 years. While I used to work in data centers, I've never been into building custom PC, particular the planning and research portion on what parts to get.

      I am currently eyeing the Corsair build kit, and wonder if anyone has any experience to share.

      Thanks in advance.

      6 votes
    10. Best news sources and blogs to keep you informed about IT and Software Development

      To be honest, I've bookmarked many but I'm too busy to actually read any of them! But from now onwards, I've decided to give them a try at least once each day, I just want to know from you which...

      To be honest, I've bookmarked many but I'm too busy to actually read any of them! But from now onwards, I've decided to give them a try at least once each day, I just want to know from you which ones are better sources of information and which aren't. Feel free to add more to this list. In no particular order:

      12 votes
    11. What programming/technical projects have you been working on?

      This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's...

      This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?

      10 votes
    12. What programming/technical projects have you been working on?

      This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's...

      This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?

      12 votes
    13. A variety of beginner home server questions

      I will soon have a home and figured now's the time to do a proper home server, especially since it's going to come with cat 6 run from the main panel to just about every room. I code for a living,...

      I will soon have a home and figured now's the time to do a proper home server, especially since it's going to come with cat 6 run from the main panel to just about every room. I code for a living, but at the same time network is a massive gap in my knowledge, as are servers, and I was hoping to use this as a learning moment as well as just a way to optimize things. I've been doing research for a few weeks now on and off and feel like I've got more questions than I started with, so I'll just vomit them out and if anyone has some guidance I'd really appreciate it.

      Some information:

      1. I'm willing/able to spend to get quality/simplicity. Time is the much bigger crunch for me right now, and I'd much rather buy something that works even if it costs more than cobbling together some deals.

      2. Related to 1, I'd like this to not become my fulltime second job/hobby. I will at some point try to expand to a full home lab, and do want to use this to learn about things I feel I should understand better for general knowledge and my career, but i'd love for core functionality to mostly "just work" after configuring so when I don't have time to do that I'm not stuck telling everyone "oh yeah it'll be broken until I find time to fix it".

      Things I know I want-

      1. Some sort of NAS. From my research Synology comes up a lot as the "it's expensive but it'll just work" option, and I probably want something like a 4 bay of NAS specific several TB HDD's in something like raid 5/6/10. Pricey as hell but I'm most willing to spend on this as the cost might very well be split by the family members who want me to guinea pig all this.

      2. I will have a camera system and would prefer to not have it sending data outside my network. This is the area i've looked at the least, as it's a little farther down the road, but I know others who have things like Arlo and lets just say i'm not super impressed. Obviously this brings up question like remote access to said camera's and where I'm storing the data (nas? Somewhere else?)

      3. I'd like to mess with a media server. Plex/Jellyfin constantly come up in my research, so I'll be looking into those, but I've also got a bunch of audiobooks that I'd love to be able to easily share, and I think there's software for that stuff as well.

      4. Pihole strikes me as the other "well if you're going to do this, you might as well" option that i'm aware of. Realllly need to better understand networking in general, but I hear these days it can kinda be installed and quickly configured and then left to do its job.

      5. Related to all of this, Casa OS keeps coming up as a very good tool for a beginner like me, since it streamlines the handling of docker containers and also file sharing. However it's not really an OS, since it must actually run on Debian (i think?) for now (zima OS still in testing?).

      Stuff I'd like to mess with but doesn't have to happen right away.

      1. Eventually the aforementioned NAS would be backed up offsite to another NAS at another family members house, once I know what the hell I'm doing.

      2. Proxmox constantly comes up as THE tool to use, but it leaves a lot of questions for me. Obviously if I start trying to do lab environments and screw with VM's it's going to be great, but my understanding is that I probably don't, as a beginner, want to say load up a device with proxmox and then have it host debian which installs CasaOS as it'll get a little more tricky to have everything talk right? Unsure on this part.

      3. Anything else I'm forgetting. One issue I keep having with this is a LOT of the information out there is either too complex for me to really grok or just says "well yeah you could do ANYTHING with this" and it just sorta assumes I know what the options are. If there's anything else worth checking out I'd love to know.

      Hardware I've come across-

      1. Synology - Already mentioned but seems like they're a common go to for a "more money than skill/time" situation like mine.

      2. Zimaboard - My understanding is it's underpowered for its price, but the main draws are that it's VERY low power, small, and quiet. What it could actually do from my list above is where i'm unsure. I see people are supposedly using it for Plex servers and what not, and I'm pretty sure it's not going to make any kick ass lab environments, but being quiet, small, and maybe a bit closer to plug and play seems tempting (I know they make the blade and a few other products but it all seems greek to me).

      3. Various mini computers - I've got a minisforum machine from several years ago that I currently use as a living room computer for light gaming and mostly playing movies and the like. Not sure if i could just wipe it and convert it to be the starting point (more on that later). I know used 1 liter mini pc's from companies like HP are also popular.

      4. The MS-01 - Similar pile as the last one but my understanding is this is the kind of thing that's probably really cool if you actually know what the hell you're doing. I'm 99% positive it is vast overkill for my purposes, but I'd like to eventually get to the point where I could understand why I might want something like this. My understanding is if I knew what I was doing I could probably drop proxmox on this and do everything I could ever want and more, but I feel quite far from that.

      Some general questions I have -

      1. The thing that kicked this all off is my new place likely having fiber, and cat 6 drops throughout the building. Architecture is something I'm still a little shaky on. I assume i'm going to need my own modem/router (just because the cox routers are meh and not really configurable from last I checked), and then that routes to the server first???...or something(seems like a must if you want the pihole to do anything)? I've seen lots of niffty network diagrams at this point but they're all from people WAAAAAAAAY beyond my skill level doing much more ambitious stuff, so it gets hard to understand. If anyone has a simple home network diagram/guide to look at I'd really appreciate it.

      2. I'm just in general going to need to learn more about networking, especially in a home environment. Should I eventually get those camera's set up, I want to understand how to let them talk to internal storage and what not ,but not get out to the web...or..something (again remote access seems nice, but also like a massive security concern). I know speed is also a big factor i'm going to need to better understand. Having a fiber connection in only to be bottle necked by a crappy router or a 1gigabit port is just a waste of money, so that's something else I'd like to better understand.

      3. I'm a little unclear on how to deliver the media in a media server to the various screens throughout the building. I've got cat 6 to all of them, but I suspect i'm still going to need, at the very least, a cheap computer to hook up to it and then display the image to the monitor/TV? This is why I assume I can't just wipe my current mini PC and reuse it as a server, because I still need it to receive the data from the home server (or at least a web browser?). A part of me feels like if I got a powerful enough server it should be able to server the media direction to the screen, but then you'd need some sort of HDMI/DP drops as well from the server to all your screens?...or something?

      Sorry for all the rambling but I've got an odd mix of knowledge and ignorance so it's been a little difficult to research when half the video is stuff I already get, and the other half blows past me or just assumes I know about the parts i'm trying desperately to learn about.

      27 votes
    14. What programming/technical projects have you been working on?

      This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's...

      This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?

      22 votes
    15. What programming/technical projects have you been working on?

      This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's...

      This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?

      17 votes
    16. Looking for help scraping and deleting a Reddit account

      I have a couple of old Reddit accounts I’d like to delete as fully as possible. However one of them dates back to my teenage years and it’s some of the only writings I have from that time. Any...

      I have a couple of old Reddit accounts I’d like to delete as fully as possible. However one of them dates back to my teenage years and it’s some of the only writings I have from that time. Any recommendations on good simple ways to scrape all the comments off of it and save them? Then what’s the best way to completely erase a Reddit footprint these days?

      Looking for as simple a solution as possible, I’m not tech illiterate by any means but it’s also not a real strong suit for me.

      18 votes
    17. What actually-useful questions should someone ask when hiring a cybersecurity professional?

      Imagine you’re the manager hiring someone for a technical cybersecurity job. What non-obvious questions help you judge the candidate’s skill/suitability? What makes those questions useful? That...

      Imagine you’re the manager hiring someone for a technical cybersecurity job. What non-obvious questions help you judge the candidate’s skill/suitability? What makes those questions useful?

      That is, assume you’ve done the standard complement of job interview questions such as background and tool familiarity. I’m looking for stuff specific to some part of cybersecurity. It’s okay to get specific to your part of the field.

      21 votes
    18. Linux Distro Recommendations

      I know this can be a bit of a heated debate sometimes, and with so many choices people will have their preferences. I wanted to hear some noob-friendly suggestions for me and some friends. What...

      I know this can be a bit of a heated debate sometimes, and with so many choices people will have their preferences. I wanted to hear some noob-friendly suggestions for me and some friends.

      What distros would work well for an old laptop repurposed as a glorified Chromebook (web browsing, Netflix, emails, etc) with some light Steam 2D indie game usage? It would be borrowed by less tech savvy people.

      What distros would work well for gaming desktops? Either current high end desktops or desktops that are a few years old.

      47 votes
    19. Need help planning a pseudo-upgrade for my computer tower

      Pseudo because upgrading some of the parts might have a knock-on effect for other parts. Might end up leading to an upgrade of the whole system, idk. So here's a list of parts that I've already...

      Pseudo because upgrading some of the parts might have a knock-on effect for other parts. Might end up leading to an upgrade of the whole system, idk. So here's a list of parts that I've already acquired. I was originally going to use some of them to fill out the Framework laptop that I pre-ordered... but I had an expensive couple of months earlier this year and figured I could wait on it. :(

      Part
      AMD Ryzen 7 7700x
      Crucial P5 Plus 2TB PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD
      (2) 16GB GSkill Flare X5 DDR5 6000 RAM
      $50 Microcenter gift card

      Now here's what I have in my tower currently.

      Part
      Rosewill Thor V2 ATX Full tower case
      Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4670K CPU
      (2) 8GB GSkill DDR3 RAM
      Rosewill 650W 80 Plus Gold PSU
      MSI Z97-GD65 MOBO
      Gigabyte Nvidia 970x Windforce GPU
      1 SanDisk Ultra Plus SSD 250GB
      1 Seagate HDD 1TB

      I'm looking to keep the tower at the very least and reuse it for new components. Right now, I know that the mobo will absolutely need to be replaced IF I'm throwing the ryzen chip in. And with knock-on effect, probably the psu as well since these components are drawing more power. The goal is to get a solid 60 fps on Helldivers (which I can't do at the moment, even on the lowest graphical settings) since it's the most intensive game that I play. With this goal in mind, does it make sense to start using the components I have from the first list, or might it be cheaper to keep them for the framework and get older (still compatible) parts that would fit right in to the system as it stands?

      8 votes
    20. What programming/technical projects have you been working on?

      This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's...

      This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?

      6 votes
    21. [help] Tips on resolving git conflicts, for the faint hearted

      I’ve been using git to keep revisions of my website. Since I work alone I only need three commands: git add -A git commit -m “<description>” git push Soon I’ll be adding a second person, and I...

      I’ve been using git to keep revisions of my website. Since I work alone I only need three commands:

      git add -A
      git commit -m “<description>”
      git push
      

      Soon I’ll be adding a second person, and I remember from experience that conflicts can happen even with two people. So I have two questions:

      • Is there a way we can avoid that happening outright?
      • Are the commands to resolve fairly standard or does it differ much on a case-by-case basis? I’m hoping to keep the number of commands as small as possible.
      10 votes
    22. What programming/technical projects have you been working on?

      This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's...

      This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?

      17 votes
    23. What programming/technical projects have you been working on?

      This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's...

      This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?

      9 votes
    24. What useful tasks are possible with an LLM with only 3B parameters?

      Playing with Llama 7B and 13B, I found that the 13B model was capable of doing a simple task, rewriting titles in sentence case for Tildes submissions. The 7B model doesn't appear capable of the...

      Playing with Llama 7B and 13B, I found that the 13B model was capable of doing a simple task, rewriting titles in sentence case for Tildes submissions. The 7B model doesn't appear capable of the same task, out of the box.

      I heard about Android's new AICore available on a couple of new devices. But it sounds like Gemini Nano, which runs on-device, can only handle 2B or 3B parameters.

      Is this size of model useful for real tasks? Does it only become useful after training on a specific domain? I'm a novice and wanting to learn a little bit about it. On-device AI is an appealing concept to me.

      12 votes
    25. Looking to Llama. Help?

      Hi folks I'm progressing a project but I could use some insights. I need to teach a LLM (preferably an open source and locally host-able) information about TV shows. I plan on using the show name,...

      Hi folks

      I'm progressing a project but I could use some insights.

      I need to teach a LLM (preferably an open source and locally host-able) information about TV shows. I plan on using the show name, title, running time, episode quantity per series/season, and full transcript.

      Where do I even start?

      Pointers to sites to learn to do this would be much appreciated. If anyone can summarise how I need to prep the data then that would be a bonus too.

      Bonus points for a Llama GUI that can be network hosted and allow different people to connect as individuals, a little like ChatGPT interface now.

      Thank you in advance.

      16 votes
    26. What programming/technical projects have you been working on?

      This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's...

      This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?

      16 votes
    27. Please proofread this AI-generated AutoHotkey script

      For my job I need to copy a person's name out of a field and split it into first and last names. I have a AHK script that can do this but my version only works with simple, one-word,...

      For my job I need to copy a person's name out of a field and split it into first and last names. I have a AHK script that can do this but my version only works with simple, one-word, non-hyphenated names. I tried prompting Gemini as below.

      There is a line of text consisting of one or more words, a comma, then one or more words. write an autohotkey 1.1 script to select everything before the comma, store it to a variable called firstname, then select everything after the comma and store it to a variable called lastname. thanks

      (the firstname and lastname variables should be swapped as the last name would come before the comma, that was my error)

      Here's the AutoHotkey 1.1 script to achieve what you described:

      ; This script splits a text line into first and last name based on a comma
      
      #NoEnv  ; Recommended for performance and compatibility.
      SendMode Input  ; Simulates keystrokes for reliable input.
      
      ; Function to split the text
      Func SplitText(_text, firstName, lastName) {
        StringSplit, parts, _text, `,`
        if (parts[1]) {
          firstName := parts[1] ; Assign first name
          lastName := SubStr(_text, 1 + StrLen(parts[1])+1) ; Extract last name after comma (including space)
        } else {
          firstName := _text ; Handle cases without a comma
          lastName := ""
        }
      }
      
      ; Hotkey to trigger the script (replace F2 with your desired key)
      F2::
        Send, ^c ; Copy the selected text to clipboard
        clipText := ClipboardAll  ; Read the clipboard content
        SplitText(clipText, firstName, lastName) ; Call the function to split the text
        MsgBox, First Name: %firstName%`nLast Name: %lastName%
      
        ; Optional: Clear clipboard to avoid unintended pasting (comment out if not desired)
        ; Clipboard := 
      Return
      

      Explanation:

      #NoEnv and SendMode Input: These lines are included for performance and reliable input simulation.
      Func SplitText(_text, firstName, lastName): This function takes the text (_text) as input and assigns the split parts to variables firstName and lastName.
      StringSplit, parts, _text, ,:** Splits the text based on the comma (,`) delimiter.
      if (parts[1]):** Checks if there's a second part (i.e., text after the comma).
      If true, the first part is assigned to firstName and the text after the comma (including the space) is extracted using SubStr and assigned to lastName.
      else:** If there's no comma, the entire text is assigned to firstName and lastName is set to an empty string.
      F2::: This line defines a hotkey. When F2 is pressed, the following actions occur:
      Send, ^c:** Copies the selected text to the clipboard.
      clipText := ClipboardAll:** Reads the copied text from the clipboard and stores it in the variable clipText.
      SplitText(clipText, firstName, lastName):** Calls the function to split the copied text into first and last names.
      MsgBox:** Displays a message box showing the extracted first name and last name.
      Optional: Clear Clipboard: The commented line Clipboard := clears the clipboard content after processing. Uncomment this line if you want to avoid accidentally pasting the copied text elsewhere.

      Edit: To answer questions, and provide info I probably should have from the beginning: I'm a medical transcriptionist using AHK with my job's software (Emdat Inscribe) and a word expander (Instant Text). Inscribe seems to be browser-based but functions as a standalone app. I already have dozens of AHK 1.1 macros; my .ahk file has over 2000 lines, although I'm sure it's terribly written code. This is also why I'm disinclined to switch to AHK 2.0 since I have no desire to rewrite everything unless absolutely necessary. The first part of this macro is a bunch of keypresses to jump to the relevant patient info field, then this part would be used to store the names appropriately. I already have hotkeys to use the variables as needed and most macros are limited with #ifwinactive to Inscribe.

      6 votes
    28. What programming/technical projects have you been working on?

      This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's...

      This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?

      6 votes
    29. What programming/technical projects have you been working on?

      This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's...

      This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?

      12 votes
    30. Learning new programming languages with limited time: Rust, golang, or otherwise?

      I want to learn a new language that I can use for personal projects. But I want to pick the right one for me, given the fact that learning it will be a time investment and I don't have a ton of...

      I want to learn a new language that I can use for personal projects. But I want to pick the right one for me, given the fact that learning it will be a time investment and I don't have a ton of time for "fun" stuff these days.

      I've spent a decent amount of time tinkering around with Rust and my experience has been decent so far, if I'm trying to filter it through the lens of the current Rust craze. It just seems that the code has a somewhat... ugly(?)... aesthetic to it? I'm not willing to cast it aside yet and I think the "ugliness" just comes from me not really recognizing the syntax very well.

      I started looking at golang and was immediately interested in the marketing message of it being "a better C". Aside from Hello World, I haven't done anything else with it.

      Some random notes/points about my experience and what I'm looking for:

      • I am very accomplished with PHP, quite accomplished with C, somewhat accomplished with C++ and Python. Of those, I find Python to be too "free and easy", PHP (Symfony specifically) and C++ to be so OOP-oriented that I just end up writing a bunch of boilerplate, and C is just... C (I'd rather pull out a tooth than have to work with C strings).
      • Aside from the obvious pains of C, I think it's the most fun of the bunch. I don't know why I think this, because again, I absolutely hate C strings.
      • I appreciate the package management and ecosystem of Rust, from what I've seen. C-with-Cargo would be awesome.
      • The older I get, the more I appreciate strong typing.
      • I like a language that allows me to systematically and logically organize my code into various modules, directories, etc. This is where PHP/Symfony shines in that there's a place for everything, as opposed to a bunch of .c and .h files all dumped into a folder.
      • Ideally, I'd like something that can compile into a binary that doesn't require JVM, etc.

      I'm open to suggestions outside of Rust and Go... those are just the ones I've been seeing mentioned the most over the past decade.

      26 votes
    31. What libraries do you use for implementing web forms, if any?

      I recently ran across Modular Forms, which is a new and rather obscure JavaScript library for doing form validation that claims good support for TypeScript (type safety) and low download size. It...

      I recently ran across Modular Forms, which is a new and rather obscure JavaScript library for doing form validation that claims good support for TypeScript (type safety) and low download size. It has variants for a few frameworks like React and Preact.

      I’m wondering what else people use? I ended up writing my own Preact hooks to help out, with the actual validation done using Zod.

      6 votes
    32. What programming/technical projects have you been working on?

      This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's...

      This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?

      11 votes
    33. GUI dev using Godot

      Most of my professional work involves the plumbing side of things (e.g. APIs, integration etc.) So I've come to front end quite late, and dabbled in HTML/CSS/JS frameworks, and tried to create a...

      Most of my professional work involves the plumbing side of things (e.g. APIs, integration etc.) So I've come to front end quite late, and dabbled in HTML/CSS/JS frameworks, and tried to create a thing or two using Python GUI frameworks too.

      After spending a bit of time learning about game development in Godot, I decided it might be fun to try and build a simple desktop app in the engine, and it surprised me how easy it was, it took me a day or two to build a basic git front end.

      Of course, if you ever need to build something outside of GDscript, it'll require building an extension, probably in C++, but it makes me wonder if those sorts of tools exist outside of games engines? It feels like game devs get a wonderful tool that they use as a garnish on top of the real work (the game).

      I'd be keen to know what people who regularly build front end tools tend to prefer to use.

      ETA: I just realized the title is a poor summary of what I'm actually asking about, sorry!

      22 votes
    34. What programming/technical projects have you been working on?

      This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's...

      This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?

      12 votes
    35. What programming/technical projects have you been working on?

      This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's...

      This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?

      12 votes
    36. What programming/technical projects have you been working on?

      This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's...

      This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?

      19 votes
    37. Advice on expanding storage in starter homelab/media server

      I've been slowly fiddling around with setting up a little homelab and media server for the last few months. As a web developer, I've always wanted to learn a bit more of the infrastructure side of...

      I've been slowly fiddling around with setting up a little homelab and media server for the last few months. As a web developer, I've always wanted to learn a bit more of the infrastructure side of things, hence the homelab part. The deteriorating quality of major streaming services finally pushed me to set up a media server as well.

      Right now, my setup is very basic. I've been using an old repurposed office laptop. It's a simple dell latitude 5540 I got ridiculously cheap due to it's barely usable crusty keyboard, but since I mainly SSH into it that's not really an issue. I formatted it, doubled the ram, and installed the latest stable Debian release. (Headless)

      After that, I chose to install yams which was recommended here. Definitely saved a lot of time there! Finally, I added an old unisex raspberry pi I had lying around. The idea is that it's the only part of the setup that is on 24/7, since it has an almost negligible footprint. Whenever I want the main server running, I SSH into the raspberry and use wakeonLAN to start the main server. I'm probably gonna make a tiny web interface for that soon.

      Now on to the part I need advice for. The laptop and attached HD are quickly running out of space. I know just slapping on extra hard drives has a limit, and am vaguely aware of things like unraid existing, but am a bit overwhelmed right now with all the information and options in this space.

      Does anyone have some advice on something I can tackle for a reasonable amount of work/budget? Something basic, but with the possibility of expansion in the future?

      Any other tips on where to go next in general are of course also appreciated. (On that note, I'm right now not opening up the server to ingress from outside. I only interact with it on the home network, as I primarily work from home)

      17 votes
    38. Using work OSX machine while travelling

      I will shortly be travelling for work. I do not have the capacity to bring anything other than my work machine. In addition to working every day I would like to: legally stream movies in the...

      I will shortly be travelling for work. I do not have the capacity to bring anything other than my work machine. In addition to working every day I would like to: legally stream movies in the evening, work on writing, email friends etc. At home of course I use a separate laptop for this but in this case I won't have that option. Any thoughts on how best to achieve a separation of concerns while travelling? How do people on Tildes manage this case?

      p.s I know in a best case scenario it's not ideal, hence my behaviour at home, I just need a working method for this particular case.

      12 votes
    39. What Is A Secure Note-Taking App?

      I've been using Google's Keep Notes for all my note-taking, but I would like to shift away from that and use an app that is more secure. I've heard of Notion and Evernote but I'm not sure about...

      I've been using Google's Keep Notes for all my note-taking, but I would like to shift away from that and use an app that is more secure. I've heard of Notion and Evernote but I'm not sure about their level of security/encryption. Any suggestions?

      20 votes
    40. Are any of you AI gurus?

      As per subject really. I'm creating a project with the CEO at work and it's going to need some serious AI. I'm happy to speak about it here and take advice and tips for direction and resources....

      As per subject really.

      I'm creating a project with the CEO at work and it's going to need some serious AI. I'm happy to speak about it here and take advice and tips for direction and resources. I'm going to definitely be hiring real human resource to get this going though.

      The project is a masters library of video. Anyone that has seen me post before might know I run a server of roughly 10k of videos, all company IP, of TV shows from over the years. What I'd like to do is point AI at the video library and have it build out a serious database of information, or at least a sidecar JSON of information next to every video. Some things I really don't need AI for and can easy generate, such as video length, type, audio channels, codec, bitrate, etc. All of that can be gleamed with the usual suspect tools such as mediainfo or ffprobe. What I'd like AI to do is scan for faces and identify names of celebs (if possible), sections of video at 5 seconds in length containing railway, trees, cars, etc logged to build out a database of video that we have. It would also need to log time codes of where these clips are and for how long.

      I know it sounds like a crazy project, but it will be fun and possibly the start of a new product which I would open source. Don't tell my boss that but if we're using open source models and free shit to create these awesome beast, I'd want to give back to the community.

      So, ideas on where I would find people interested and talented with this sort of thing? Any thoughts on what else you'd think I should target to capture from a massive video library? I will be grabbing the clock card info too so OCR is a must.

      Soooo much to think about. Project plan coming up.

      21 votes
    41. Syncthing on a VPS questions

      I've been using syncthing for a while now and more recently I've started to use a VPS but I find it to be a mild pain in the ass to setup and I'm wondering if there's a better way or just how are...

      I've been using syncthing for a while now and more recently I've started to use a VPS but I find it to be a mild pain in the ass to setup and I'm wondering if there's a better way or just how are you administering?

      I've been just editing the config.xml file and restarting it. It feels clunky editing it in nano especially when I have to delete a folder or remove a device.

      I'm starting up on a new VPS and doing this initial setup again is mildly frustrating.

      Another question, a friend is also going to be backing up some files onto this server (both of us treating it as untrusted), would it be better practice to set up 2 users each running their own syncthing@user service or just have it all under one?

      9 votes
    42. What programming/technical projects have you been working on?

      This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's...

      This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?

      18 votes
    43. What service are you using for domain names?

      In light of Google's recent, tragic, and inevitable closure of Google Domains and sale of their customer list to Squarespace: what are you using for domain names? Google Domains checked most of...

      In light of Google's recent, tragic, and inevitable closure of Google Domains and sale of their customer list to Squarespace: what are you using for domain names?

      Google Domains checked most of the boxes for me: good price, availability of TLDs, features, interface. The company's reputation went both ways, as we're now dealing with. Can't even remember what I used for domains before GD.

      This thread is inspired by the recent thread on hosting providers, where I saw a lot of people were using Namecheap for domains. The name of the company sounds like a .biz from 2002, but if it's good it's good.

      Let's figure out the best option for domain name services as of October 2023.

      42 votes
    44. Any other developers also strongly resistant to adding secondary data stores to their software?

      I'm currently building an MVP for a startup, solo. We've got Postgres pulling triple duty as the go-to database for all normal relational data, a vector database with pgvector, and a job queue...

      I'm currently building an MVP for a startup, solo. We've got Postgres pulling triple duty as the go-to database for all normal relational data, a vector database with pgvector, and a job queue (With the magic of SELECT ... FROM "Jobs" WHERE ... FOR UPDATE SKIP LOCKED LIMIT 1). Every time I go out looking for solutions to problems it feels like the world really wants me to get a dedicated vector store or to use Redis as a job queue.

      Back when I was a Rails developer a good majority of the ActiveJob implementers used Redis. Now that I'm doing NodeJS the go-to is Bull which can only serialize jobs to Redis. They back this with claims that I can scale to thousands of jobs per second! I have to assume this theoretical throughput benefit from using Redis is utilized by 0.01% of apps running Bull.

      So I ended up implementing a very simple system. Bull wouldn't have been a good fit anyway as we have both Python and Typescript async workers, so a simple system that I fully understand is more useful at the moment. I'm curious who else shares my philosophy.

      Edit: I'll try to remember to update everyone in a year with the real world consequences of my design choices.

      16 votes
    45. What programming/technical projects have you been working on?

      This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's...

      This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?

      11 votes
    46. What programming/technical projects have you been working on?

      This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's...

      This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?

      14 votes
    47. Any good Youtube channels on learning Data Structures and Algorithms, especially the math part?

      Hello Tildes, I am currently taking DSA in college and struggling a lot with the math and algorithms. Recently had to solve Karatsuba questions and I don't even know what I wrote down on the...

      Hello Tildes,

      I am currently taking DSA in college and struggling a lot with the math and algorithms. Recently had to solve Karatsuba questions and I don't even know what I wrote down on the paper. I have been trying to look for videos on this and only really came away with a vague understanding.

      What I've noticed is that I struggle with solving the math part of the questions.

      For example: "Describe a divide and conquer algorithm to compute the square
      of an n-digit integer in O(n log3 5) time, by reducing to the squaring of five [n/3]-digit
      integers"

      I have zero clue how I am supposed to understand the latter half of the question. It makes no sense to me beyond I am supposed to be multiplying squared numbers. How do I even begin to turn this into an algorithm? What is the solution even supposed to look like?

      Needless to say, I've struggled with math my entire life and I've been trying for years to be decent with it, and I have nothing to show for it.

      So, do you have any recommendations that could simplify the math needed for DSA? Videos are preferred but I will textbook recommendations as well.

      Thank you, and have a good day!

      18 votes
    48. Looking for a good, modern alternative for PHP nuke

      Way back in the day, I used to run a fan site for a game that ended up teaching me a lot about PHP, perl, databases and so on. Currently, I'm looking to rebuild that site, but PHP nuke is now...

      Way back in the day, I used to run a fan site for a game that ended up teaching me a lot about PHP, perl, databases and so on. Currently, I'm looking to rebuild that site, but PHP nuke is now hopelessly outdated and joomla/Drupal are not the direction I want to go in. So far, I've found php-fusion (from GoDaddys cpanel installer) which seems close, but I'm curious if there is a closer analog out there.

      The ideal for me is the old school blocks down the sides with content in the middle layout, with add-ons like forums, image gallery etc. Cheers for any help 😁

      15 votes
    49. What programming/technical projects have you been working on?

      This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's...

      This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?

      13 votes
    50. What programming/technical projects have you been working on?

      This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's...

      This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?

      15 votes