What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.

If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're talking about and link to its pages on Anilist, MAL, or any other database you use!

Alright so some stuff happened preventing last week's list from coming together until late enough where it would be too close to this one. As a result, I'm going to rework this to make it easier for the person I'm working with and plan on these coming out on Friday nights. This week, we have a big-ass list with both weeks shoved together. Sorry for the delay...enjoy :)

Here's a list of a lot of things that came out in this past week (and this time, the week before). Of course, there's no way to be completely comprehensive with this and I avoided including things where information was too lacking, so feel free to mention anything that isn't on here that you think is worth mentioning. Beyond that, if you have any thoughts of any of these albums, it would be great to hear them :)

Thank you to @Cleb for the help and @cfabbro for the links!

Notes:
If you spot any mistakes please let us know.

Charlotte - Nowhere To Hide EP || Couldn't find EP, so linked to two singles included on it.

Jay Gwuapo - From Nothing, Pt. 1 || Linked to no "parental-advisory" version. So presumably NSFW language. ;)

Jeffrey Brooks - The Passion || No song.link. Linked to bandcamp instead.

Leven Kali - Leven Kali: Low Tide || Linked to no "parental-advisory" version as well.

Newsboys - United || "Deluxe" album linked to.

NOTS - 3 || No song.link. Linked to bandcamp instead.

PnB Rock - TrapStar Turnt PopStar || "Deluxe" album linked to.

Smokepurpp - Lost Planet 2.0 || Linked to no "parental-advisory" version as well.

Stunna 4 Vegas - Big 4X || Linked to no "parental-advisory" version as well.

Young Nudy & Pi'erre Bourne - Sli'merre || Linked to no "parental-advisory" version as well.

What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.

If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're talking about and link to its pages on Anilist, MAL, or any other database you use!

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

Edit: #19, not 18. Sorry I messed up the title again, if someone with the chance could fix it, I'd be grateful.

What are you reading currently? Fiction or non-fiction, any genre, any language! Tell us what you're reading, and talk a bit about it.

Past weeks: Week #1 · Week #2 · Week #3 · Week #4 · Week #5 · Week #6 · Week #7 · Week #8 · Week #9 · Week #10 · Week #11 · Week #12 · Week #13 · Week #14 · Week #15 · Week #16 · Week #17 · Week #18

week seven comes a bit early this week again because this week offers up what might be the most articles that i've covered in one of these so far. no [LONGFORM] articles this week, but we do have a lot of policy stuff, mostly from the secondary and lesser candidates!

the usual note: common sense should be able to generally dictate what does and does not get posted in this thread. if it's big news or feels like big news, probably make it its own post instead of lobbing it in here. like the other weekly threads, this one is going to try to focus on things that are still discussion worthy, but wouldn't necessarily make good/unique/non-repetitive discussion starters as their own posts.

Week 1 thread • Week 2 thread • Week 3 thread • Week 4 thread • Week 5 thread • Week 6 thread

News

General Stuff

• from NBC News: Democrats face defining 2020 question: Does defeating Trump outweigh all else?. this is possibly the biggest question democrats have to answer this election cycle, and it's not a question that is readily or easily answered since a lot of it ties into other problems like representation and electability. expect this to continue to be a major theme since it's already been one from the beginning.

• from Pacific Standard: The 2020 Democratic Candidates Are Split on Letting Incarcerated People Vote. one low-key issue that seems to be becoming a defining issue is the matter of incarcerated people voting. i imagine this is an issue that is not going to receive much coverage, nor be center fold in most candidate's platforms, but nonetheless, some people have already taken stances on it (sanders is a yes, buttigieg is a no).

• from Vox: Women of color want 2020 Democrats to work for their vote. this was also a point of note last week in the Guardian (see Black female voters to Democrats: 'You won't win the White House without us' with the 'She the People' forum, and i anticipate this is not an issue that's going to go away.

Joe Biden

• from NBC News: Biden is the Democratic front-runner, but a vulnerable one. we begin with NBC News and their big takeaway from biden's entry to the democratic primary:

Bottom line: 96 hours in, Biden looks more like John Kerry of 2004 (the slight front-runner in a volatile Democratic field) than Al Gore of 2000 or Hillary Clinton of 2016.

• from Jacobin: Joe Biden Is Not a Blue-Collar Candidate. jacobin offers up this take, arguing that biden is not a blue-collar candidate because his voting record suggests he sells out the working class often, and while he is generally acceptable at representing the white working class, he fails to really represent minority working class voters and therefore cannot be a properly blue-collar candidate.

• from the Atlantic: Biden Is Betting on Unions. They Might Bet on Someone Else. biden is of course angling for the union vote and union endorsements, which he's already winning to some extent with an endorsement from the (admittedly in the biden tank) International Association of Fire Fighters (membership: 300,000). he's going to have a hard time garnering labor endorsements, though, because he is far from the only candidate with union ties. as the article notes, among the other candidates vying for the backing of the unions are sanders, warren and harris, and each of them have arguably just as much claim to the working-class as biden does (see also last week's Democratic presidential candidates seek union support at workers' forum).

Bernie Sanders

• from CBS News: Bernie and Biden: Fighting for Trump voters. one of the side effects of how this primary is being waged is that obama-trump voters are being targeted significantly by just about everybody involved. this targeting by the two ends of the primary (and the related issues involved with that) is the subject of this article by CBS News.

• from Reuters: Bernie Sanders promises help for family farms, rural residents on trip to Iowa. policy-wise, sanders has focused on rural communities in recent weeks, promising among other things to "strengthen anti-trust laws to block new corporate agriculture mergers and break up existing monopolies" and "changes to farm subsidy programs to shift the benefits away from bigger farms to smaller and mid-sized operations".

Everybody Else

• from Buzzfeed News: Almost Two Months In, Beto 2020 Is Still In Flux. Staffers Know They’re Behind. despite looking like a relatively early frontrunner in the race, beto has been worse-than-stagnant in the past few weeks, dropping back behind warren, harris, and buttigieg. things aren't looking up either: as the article notes, the campaign is still in the process of trying to fill positions and not lose people (see also, week 5's somewhat related A Top Adviser To Beto O’Rourke Has Left His Presidential Campaign).

• from CBS News: Elizabeth Warren bets big on policy to break through crowded Democratic field. warren's focus on policy so far has been well documented, and this CBS news article mostly focuses on that in comparison to other candidates, who barely have sketches. it also tackles the electability issue, though, which it notes could be a problem that weighs down warren's prospects (cf. last week's Can a woman beat Trump? Some Democrats wonder if it's worth the risk):

New Hampshire is a state where Massachusetts candidates like Warren typically do quite well, but a Suffolk University survey of Granite State Democrats released earlier this week had her in fourth place behind Biden, Sanders, and Buttigieg. When asked why, nearly 1-in-5 non-Warren voters said the main reason they don't support her is because they doubt she can beat Mr. Trump.

• from the Atlantic: Mayor Buttigieg Is Working Remotely Today. this article mostly focuses on the interesting issue buttigieg has--which is, of course, that he is still the mayor of south bend while he's out campaigning. since buttigieg has state he has no intentions of stepping down from the mayoral position he holds (and his term expires in november), this is probably going to be an interested background note of his campaign for the next little while.

• from POLITICO: Gillibrand proposes public campaign financing plan. kirsten gillibrand has policy too, folks! admittedly, i have no idea why her policy takes this form, but she nonetheless proposes that:

...eligible voters could opt into her “Democracy Dollars” program and register for vouchers, provided by the Federal Elections Commission, to donate up to $100 in a primary election and $100 in a general election each cycle. Each participant would get $200 for each type of federal contest: House, Senate and presidential elections.
But there would be limits on both donors and candidates in order to use the public voucher program. Voters could contribute only to candidates in their state — including House candidates outside their district but within their state. In order to accept the public money, candidates would have to restrict themselves to accepting only donations of $200 or less.

• from Roll Call: Klobuchar plan to combat addiction draws on experience with her dad. klobuchar also has policy! this mostly focuses on addiction and mental health, and a summary was helpfully provided by a press release i don't have on hand:

“Amy will support incentives for state governments to enact ignition interlock laws for those convicted of drunk driving to help reduce repeat offenders. Since problems with alcoholism often start early, Amy will support educational initiatives that focus on the risks of alcohol as well as early identification and treatment of alcoholism,” a summary said.

supplemental reporting by CBS News also notes the following: "The Minnesota Democrat wants to pay for treatment for those addicted to opioids by charging a two-cents-per-milligram fee to companies that make the drug."

• from Vox: Cory Booker now has the most ambitious gun control proposal of any 2020 candidate. cory booker meanwhile is focusing on gun policy. as vox writes:

His plan includes the typical Democratic proposals: universal background checks, an assault weapons ban, better enforcement of existing gun laws, and more funding for gun violence research. But Booker’s plan goes further by requiring that gun owners not just pass a background check but obtain a license to be able to purchase and own a firearm. It’s a far more robust gun control proposal than any other presidential candidate has proposed.

in many respects this is similar (but more comprehensive in some respects and les comprehensive in others) to the current gun policy of massachusetts. booker's plan also includes a national database for tracking firearms, and also limits on purchases to prevent things like resale. vox's part of the writing here also has info on the underlying research and statistics with respect to whether or not these policies work (for the most part, they seem to).

• from CBS News: Jay Inslee unveils plan for 100 percent clean energy by 2030. jay inslee is a lower-rung candidate, but that hasn't stopped him from pushing the limits on climate policy. among other things, his ideas include: "100 percent clean energy, mak[ing] all new vehicles zero-emission, and [eliminating] the carbon footprint for all new buildings." you can find his policy specifically here.

• from Grist: A tale of two Washingtons: How Jay Inslee aims to take his climate plan nationwide. Grist goes into more detail on inslee's policy, mostly focusing on how they're being implemented in washington, inslee's home state, and how they compare to the other climate policies in the race already like beto's.

• from CBS News: 2020 hopeful John Hickenlooper unveils plan to "re-energize trade with the world". john hickenlooper has hitched his wagon to trade, of all things. the main planks of his policy on fair trade, which is possibly one of the least energizing seminal issues a campaign can run on, are:

• Ensure trading partners adopt and enforce fair labor and safety standards
• Ensure the protection of IP rights of American companies
• Require trading partners to enforce environmental and climate standards
• Ensure U.S. firms enjoy equitable and comparable investment rights abroad
• Ensure U.S. workers have assistance to adjust to job displacement from trade

if you're interested in that sort of thing, CBS also helpfully embedded the five-page outline going into more detail on those planks in the article.

Opinion/Ideology-driven

• from Pacific Standard: There's No Good Way to Determine Electability Other Than Holding Elections. this is an interesting piece which is hard to summarize, but probably the best summary of it is what it concludes on the matter of electability:

...the discussion around the topic is fraught, particularly for the Democratic Party, which has defined itself in recent decades as the party that embraces and seeks inclusion and diversity. If you're going to assert that a white man is better qualified for a job (the party's nominee) by virtue of being a white man, you really need to be sure on your facts. And the facts just aren't there.

• from Jacobin: Stick With Bernie. this jacobin piece argues that progressive/leftist types need to rally behind bernie given biden's strength, or else they risk a biden v trump general election which would likely (in their view) go the same way as clinton v trump did in 2016. it's pretty much impossible to tell this far out, but honestly, it's pretty easy to see their point here given biden's circumstances.

• from Truthout: The Era of “Centrist” Establishment Democrats Is Over. this op-ed from Truthout strongly rebukes the "centrist" tendency of the democratic party, arguing that there is basically no place for that tendency anymore and that it simply does not and cannot produce a winning coalition at this point. bold and new ideas which buck the traditional orthodoxy in this view are the only way to mobilize and produce a winning coalition, because otherwise either too many people stay home, or not enough people vote democratic.

• from the Guardian: Bernie Sanders needs black women's support. So what's his plan to win us over?. bernie's biggest failing so far between his two presidential runs has almost certainly been his failure to appeal to minority voters, particularly black women. this is of course an issue because he likely needs black women to win the primary and the general. as allison writes here: "Black voters and women of color do not want another president who does not see or value us. Sanders needs to let us know that he understands deeply how frightening, difficult and dangerous this political moment is for us, and for the entire country."

• from the Guardian: Joe Biden wants us to forget his past. We won't. perhaps the biggest failing of biden on the other hand is his absolutely god awful track record, for which he is raked here and will likely continue to be raked. the main crux of the op-ed:

As times have changed, Biden has expressed retrospective misgivings about some of those earlier actions and stances. For example, he very recently attempted to offer an apology of sorts, more like an unpology, to Anita Hill, which she quite understandably rejected. And he remains a pure, dyed-in-the-wool neoliberal, as much as ever a tool of Wall Street and corporations. We deserve better than a candidate who wants us to look past his record and focus only on the image he wants to project and, when that tack fails, can offer progressives only a “my bad”.

• from the Guardian: We can't save the planet with half measures. We need to go all the way. this is one part an op-ed written about climate change, one part an op-ed responding to beto o'rourke's climate plan. on one hand, it does note that o'rourke's plan is good--but it also notes that "good" is not nearly enough to avert the problem, and it's also a downgrade from what o'rourke originally endorsed, which was net-zero emissions by 2030.

• from the Guardian: Is Elizabeth Warren's college plan really progressive? Yes. this op-ed is pretty straightforward and argues against the somewhat-weird position that warren's college plan isn't progressive because it also helps middle-and-upper-class people that's been advanced by a few people.

anyways, feel free to as always contribute other interesting articles you stumble across, or comment on some of the ones up there.

What are you reading currently? Fiction or non-fiction, any genre, any language! Tell us what you're reading, and talk a bit about it.

Past weeks: Week #1 · Week #2 · Week #3 · Week #4 · Week #5 · Week #6 · Week #7 · Week #8 · Week #9 · Week #10 · Week #11 · Week #12 · Week #13 · Week #14 · Week #15 · Week #16 · Week #17

What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.

If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're talking about and link to its pages on Anilist, MAL, or any other database you use!

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

...Sunday isn't that far from Thursday...

...I'm sorry!

Here's a list of a lot of things that came out in this past week, mostly up through Friday. Of course, there's no way to be completely comprehensive with this and I avoided including things where information was too lacking, so feel free to mention anything that isn't on here that you think is worth mentioning. Beyond that, if you have any thoughts of any of these albums, it would be great to hear them :)

AJR - Neotheater (Electropop, Trap [EDM]) || Song.link - Spotify

Alan Parsons - The Secret (AOR) || Song.link - Spotify

Aldous Harding - Designer (Singer/Songwriter, Contemporary Folk) || Song.link - Spotify

Amon Tobin - Fear in a Handful of Dust (Electroacoustic, Progressive Electronic) || Song.link - Spotify

Aries - Juramento Mantarraya (Art Pop, Indie Pop, Psychedelic Pop) || Song.link - Spotify

Awaken I Am - The Beauty In Tragedy (Post-Hardcore) || Song.link - Spotify

Bailen - Thrilled To Be Here (Indie Rock, Americana) || Song.link - Spotify

Bear's Den - So That You Might Hear Me (Indie Folk, Indie Rock) || Song.link - Spotify

Billie Marten - Feeding Seahorses by Hand (Singer/Songwriter) || Song.link - Spotify

blackbear - ANONYMOUS (Alternative R&B) || Song.link - Spotify

Black Zone Magick Chant - Voyage Sacrifice (Ambient, Drone) || Song.link - Spotify

Catfish and the Bottlemen - The Balance (Indie Rock, Post-Punk Revival) || Song.link - Spotify

Chelou - Out Of Sight (Indie Pop) || Song.link - Spotify

Claude Fontaine - Claude Fontaine (Psychedelic Pop, Bossa nova, Pop Reggae) || Song.link - Spotify

Co Cash - F.A.C.T.S. (Trap Rap) || Song.link - Spotify

Craig Finn (of the Holy Steady) - I Need A New War (Singer/Songwriter) || Song.link - Spotify

The Cranberries - In the End (Pop Rock, Alternative Rock) || Song.link - Spotify

The Damned Things - High Crimes (Hard Rock) || Song.link - Spotify

Danko Jones - A Rock Supreme (Hard Rock) || Song.link - Spotify

Delsbo Beach Club - A burger in Åkersberga (Indie Pop, Indie Rock) || Song.link - Spotify

DJ Nate - Take Off Mode (Footwork) || Song.link - Spotify

Dub Trio - The Shape of Dub to Come (Math Rock, Dub) || Song.link - Spotify

Dylan Scott - Nothing to Do Town (Dylan Scott) || Song.link - Spotify

El Momo a.k.a Mario Maher - Sueños reales (Hip Hop) || Song.link - Spotify

Ezra Collective - You Can't Steal My Joy (Jazz Fusion) || Song.link - Spotify

Farruko - Gangalee (Reggaeton) || Song.link - Spotify

Foxygen - Seeing Other People (Glam Rock) || Song.link - Spotify

George Benson - Walking to New Orleans (Rock & Roll, Rhythm & Blues) || Song.link - Spotify

The Get Ahead - Deepest Light (Americana) || Song.link - Spotify

Guided by Voices - Warp and Woof (Indie Rock) || Song.link - Spotify

Hannah Cohen - Welcome Home (Art Pop) || Song.link - Spotify

Hardline - Life (Hard Rock) || Song.link - Spotify

Hembree - House On Fire (Alternative Rock, Indie Pop) || Song.link - Spotify

Hillsong United - People (CCM) || Song.link for "LIVE/VISUAL" - for "LIVE" - Spotify

IamSu! - Its Always Pure Love (West Coast Hip Hop) || Song.link - Spotify

In the Valley Below - The Pink Chateau (Indie Rock) || Song.link - Spotify

Jackie Mendoza - LuvHz (Indie Pop, Psychedelic Pop) || Song.link - Spotify

Jacob Latimore - Connection2 (Pop Rap) || Song.link - Spotify

James TW - Chapters (Singer/Songwriter) || Song.link - Spotify

JJ Cale - Stay Around (Blues Rock, Country Rock) || Song.link - Spotify

Josefin Öhrn + The Liberation - Sacred Dreams (Art Pop, Psychedelic Rock) || Song.link - Spotify

Josh Ritter - Fever Breaks (Indie Folk, Folk Rock) || Song.link - Spotify

Justin Garner - Imprint (Contemporary R&B) || Song.link - Spotify

Justin Moore - Late Nights and Longnecks (Contemporary Country) || Song.link - Spotify

Kelly Finnigan - The Tales People Tell (Soul) || Song.link - Spotify

Kevin Abstract - ARIZONA BABY (Alternative R&B, Pop Rap) || Song.link - Spotify

Kevin Morby - Oh My God (Singer/Songwriter, Folk Rock) || Song.link - Spotify

Kiefer Sutherland - Reckless & Me (Country Pop) || Song.link - Spotify

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Fishing For Fishies (Boogie Rock, Psychedelic Pop) || Song.link - Spotify

Lamb - The Secret Of Letting Go (Art Pop) || Song.link - Spotify

Local Natives - Violet Street (Indie Pop) || Song.link - Spotify

Lord Dying - Mysterium Tremendum (Sludge Metal) || Song.link - Spotify

Maddie & Tae - One Heart To Another EP (Contemporary Country) || Song.link - Spotify

Marina - LOVE+FEAR (Pop) || Song.link - Spotify

Marissa Nadler And Stephen Brodsky - Droneflower (Singer/Songwriter, Ethereal Wave) || Song.link - Spotify

Matt Martians - The Last Party (Alternative R&B) || Song.link - Spotify

The Mountain Goats - In League With Dragons (Indie Folk, Singer/Songwriter) || Song.link - Spotify

NBA Big B - 5th God (Trap Rap) || Song.link - Spotify

New Years Day - Unbreakable (Alternative Metal, Alternative Rock) || Song.link - Spotify

Nick Murphy (AKA Chet Faker) - Run Fast Sleep Naked (Indietronica) || Song.link - Spotify

Nils Lofgren - Blue With Lou (Heartland Rock, Singer/Songwriter) || Song.link - Spotify

Olivia O'Brien - Was It Even Real? (Contemporary R&B) || Song.link - Spotify

OLSSON - Tropical Cologne (Indie Pop) || Song.link - Spotify

OMB Peezy - Preacher To the Streets (West Coast Hip Hop) || Song.link - Spotify

Otoboke Beaver - Itekoma Hits! (Hardcore Punk) || Song.link - Spotify

P!nk - Hurts 2B Human (Pop) || Song.link - Spotify

Party Favor - Layers (Trap [EDM]) || Song.link - Spotify

Peakes - Absent In Person EP (Indie Pop) || Song.link - Spotify

Peter Doherty & The Puta Madres (Indie Pop, Folk Rock) || Song.link - Spotify

The Pilgrim - Walking Into The Forest (Psychedelic Rock, Folk Rock) || Song.link - Spotify

Pure Bathing Culture - Night Pass (Dream Pop, Chillwave) || Song.link - Spotify

Radical Face - Therapy EP (Indie Pop, Folk Pop) || Song.link - Spotify

Rob Thomas - Chip Tooth Smile (Pop Rock) || Song.link - Spotify

Rodrigo y Gabriela - Mettavolution (Acoustic Rock, Flamenco nuevo) || Song.link - Spotify

ScHoolboy Q - CrasH Talk (Pop Rap) || Song.link - Spotify

Sid Le Rock - Scenic Route (Electronic, House) || Song.link - Spotify

Sneakk - SAY LESS (Contemporary R&B) || Song.link - Spotify

SOAK - Grim Town (Singer/Songwriter) || Song.link - Spotify

Spotlights - Love & Decay (Post-Metal, Atmospheric Sludge Metal) || Song.link - Spotify

The Story Changes - To Hell With This Delicate Equation (Alternative Rock, Emo-Pop) || Song.link - Spotify

Sublime With Rome - Blessings (Ska Punk) || YouTube for "Light On" - for "Wicked Heart" - Spotify

SUNN O))) - Life Metal (Drone Metal) || Song.link - Spotify

Teen Daze - Bioluminescence (Chillwave) || Song.link - Spotify

Tesla - Shock (Hard Rock) || Song.link - Spotify

Tiny Fighter - Tell Me EP (Indie Rock, Indie Pop) || Song.link - Spotify

Trade Wind - Certain Freedoms (Alternative Rock) || Song.link - Spotify

Various Artists - For the Throne (Music Inspired by the HBO Series Game of Thrones) (Pop) || Song.link - Spotify

Various Artists - UglyDolls (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (Pop) || Song.link - Spotify

Walker Lukens - Adult (Pop Rock, Indie Pop) || Song.link - Spotify

The Well - Death And Consolation (Stoner Rock, Doom Metal) || Song.link - Spotify

Winnetka Bowling League - Cloudy With A Chance Of Sun EP (Indie Pop) || Song.link - Spotify

YFL Kelvin - Neva Lookin Back (Trap Rap) || Song.link - Spotify

Your Heart Breaks - Drone Butch Blues (Indie Folk, Indie Pop) || Song.link - Spotify

Spotify Master playlist, all albums (minus the two 'various artist' sets above)

Notes:
If you spot any mistakes please let us know.

Thank you to @Cleb, @cfabbro, and @Amarok for the help!

Hillsong United - People || has two versions? live and live/visual. linked both since they have different results.
Sublime With Rome - Blessings || album not due til May 31. linked 2 youtube singles, and spotify has 4 tracks.

it has not been about a month since the last thread, but it would probably be more convenient to just do these threads on the first day of each month instead of in the middle of the month and waiting for another twenty or so days to get on that track is ridiculous, so i'm going to just start this one now and then do the next one on may 1st. anyways, we're back again! here you can share/provide updates on some of the projects that you're working on. they can be of any kind--digital, physical, work related, passion project, whatever. pretty straightforward, i think.

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

Sorry about being a day late, also covering Whom again this week.

What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.

If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're talking about and link to its pages on Anilist, MAL or any other database you use!

Here's a list of a lot of things that came out in this past week, including many which are set to release on Friday. Of course, there's no way to be completely comprehensive with this and I avoided including things where information was too lacking, so feel free to mention anything that isn't on here that you think is worth mentioning. Beyond that, if you have any thoughts of any of these albums, it would be great to hear them :)

(oh and don't bully me for the genre tags, a lot of these things have very limited resources available and I couldn't individually listen to everything and determine what fits best, so I'm pulling from third parties and an artist's past work a lot of the time)

Thanks to @Cleb for the help again and @cfabbro for grabbing the song.link urls!

1THE9 - XIX (K-Pop) | Song.link

After the Burial - Evergreen (Metalcore, Djent) | Song.link

Allegaeon - Apoptosis (Technical Death Metal, Progressive Metal) | Song.link

Angélique Kidjo - Celia (Fon Music) | Song.link

Anna Tivel - The Question (Indie Folk, Singer/Songwriter) | Song.link

Ann My Dice - Thorn EP (Metal) | Song.link

Bananarama - In Stereo (Dance-Pop, Electropop) | Song.link

Beauty Queen - Out Of Touch EP (Indie Pop) | Song.link

Bells Atlas - The Mystic (Neo Soul) | Song.link

Bernard Fowler (of Rolling Stones) - Inside Out (Rock) | Song.link

Beyoncé - Homecoming: The Live Album (Contemporary R&B, Pop) | Song.link

Cage The Elephant - Social Cues (Indie Rock, Alternative Rock, Indie Pop) | Song.link

Cayucas - Real Life (Indie Pop, Sunshine Pop) | Song.link

Countless Goodbyes - Cycles (Metal) | Song.link

The Cringe - Everywhere You’ve Never Been (Rock) | Song.link

Daniel Norgren - Wooh Dang (Contemporary Folk) | Song.link

Diane Coffee - Internet Arms (Art Pop) | Song.link

Dinah Jane - 1 (Contemporary R&B, Dance-Pop) | Song.link

Drugdealer - Raw Honey (Psychedelic Rock) | Song.link

Erick Sermon - Vernia (East Coast Hip Hop, Boom Bap) | Song.link

Faith Eliott - Impossible Bodies (Indie Folk, Chamber Folk) | Song.link

Fat White Family - Serfs Up! (Neo Psychedelia) | Song.link

Field Medic - Fade Into the Dawn (Indie Folk, Singer-Songwriter) | Song.link

Flaural - Postponement (Psychedelic Rock) | Bandcamp

Foolio - Never Wanted Fame (Trap Rap, Pop Rap) | Song.link

Fredo Bang - Big Ape (Trap Rap) | Song.link

Grand Magus - Wolf God (Heavy Metal) | Song.link

Gus Dapperton - Where Polly People Go to Read (Hypnagogic Pop, Indie Pop) | Song.link

Heart Attack Man - Fake Blood (Pop Punk, Power Pop) | Song.link

Heather Woods Broderick - Invitation (Singer/Songwriter, Art Pop) | Song.link

Heavy As Texas - Heavy As Texas (Heavy Metal) | Song.link

Hit-Boy & SOB X RBE - Family Not A Group (West Coast Hip Hop) | Song.link

The Hot Sardines - Welcome Home, Bon Voyage (Jazz) | Song.link

Izzy Bizu - Glita EP (Pop Soul) | Official site

Jade Bird - Jade Bird (Singer/Songwriter, Contemporary Folk, Country Pop) | Song.link

Jahkoy - 404 (Contemporary R&B) | Song.link

JOHNNYSWIM - Moonlight (Folk Pop) | Song.link

Jonatha Brooke - Imposter EP (Singer/Songwriter) | Song.link

Jung Seung Hwan - Dear My Universe (K-Pop) | Song.link

Kelsey Lu - Blood (Art Pop) | Song.link

Kinbrae - Landforms (Ambient, Progressive Electronic) | Song.link

Lizzo - Cuz I Love You (Pop Rap, Contemporary R&B) | Song.link

Loyle Carner - Not Waving, But Drowning (UK Hip Hop, Jazz Rap) | Song.link

Maren Celest - I Saw The Sun (Lofi Indie) | Official site

Mark Peters - New Routes Out Of Innerland (Progressive Electronic) | Song.link

Menoh Beats - MENOH! (Instrumental Hip Hop) | Song.link - Soundcloud

Mitch Woods - A Tip Of The Hat To Fats (Blues) | Song.link

NCT 127 - Awaken (K-Pop, Dance-Pop) | Song.link

The O’Jays - The Last Word (Pop Soul) | Song.link

Pamplemousse - High Strung (Garage Rock) | Song.link

Peggy Gou - Moment EP (Nu-Disco) | Song.link

Pi'erre Bourne - The Life of Pi'erre 4 (Trap Rap, Cloud Rap) | Song.link

Pivot Gang - You Can't Sit With Us (Trap Rap, Pop Rap) | Song.link

Pressa - Prestige (Trap Rap) | Song.link

Raffi - Motivational Songs (Children’s Music) | Song.link

Russ Tolman - Goodbye El Dorado (Roots Rock) | Song.link

Sabbath Assembly - A Letter Of Red (Psychedelic Rock, Hard Rock) | Official site - Bandcamp

Sad Planets (Patrick Carney and John Petkovic) - Akron, Ohio (Alt Rock) | Song.link

Sarah Mary Chadwick - The Queen Who Stole The Sky (Art Pop) | Song.link

Seaway - Fresh Produce (Pop Punk) | Song.link

Shotgun Sawyer - Bury The Hatchet (Blues) | Song.link

Shy Glizzy - COVERED N’ BLOOD (Trap Rap) | Song.link

Smokepurpp - Lost Planet (Trap Rap) | Song.link

Starbomb - The Tryforce (Comedy Rap, Nerdcore) | Song.link

Stealing Sheep - Big Wows (Psychedelic Pop) | Song.link

Super Junior-D&E - Danger (K-Pop) | Song.link

The Tallest Man on Earth - I Love You. It's a Fever Dream (Singer/Songwriter, Contemporary Folk) | Song.link

Tech N9ne - N9NA (Hardcore Hip Hop) | Song.link

TR/ST - The Destroyer - 1 (Synthpop) | Song.link

Tripsitter - The Other Side Of Sadness (Soft Rock) | Song.link

The Vamps - Missing You EP (Electropop) | Song.link

Various Artists - MOOMINVALLEY (Official Soundtrack) - (TV Soundtrack) | Song.link

Wand - Laughing Matter (Psychedelic Rock) | Song.link

Wargirl - Wargirl (Indie Pop) | Song.link

Your Heart Breaks - Drone Butch Blues (Indie Pop) | Song.link

Notes from cfabbro:
I will check again tomorrow and update below links as required.

Flaural - Postponement | no song.link yet, bandcamp linked
Izzy Bizu - Glita EP | not released yet? no song.link yet, official site linked
Maren Celest - I Saw The Sun | book+album art project? no song.link, official site linked
Menoh Beats - MENOH! | not released yet? song.link is single, soundcloud is single, no official site?
Sabbath Assembly - A Letter Of Red | not released yet? no song.link yet, official site and bandcamp linked

Covering for Whom as she's busy today.

What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.

If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're talking about and link to its pages on Anilist, MAL or any other database you use!

Inspired by @Whom's music and anime threads

What have you been playing to this week? You don't need to be playing the latest games, nor do you have to write gigantic essays. This is just a space to talk games!

Feel free to give recommendations, thoughts, opinions. Chat about playstyles and habits! Reminisce about games and mechanics long gone, or coming back!

What are you reading currently? Fiction or non-fiction, any genre, any language! Tell us what you're reading, and talk a bit about it.

Past weeks: Week #1 · Week #2 · Week #3 · Week #4 · Week #5 · Week #6 · Week #7 · Week #8 · Week #9 · Week #10 · Week #11 · Week #12 · Week #13 · Week #14 · Week #15 · Week #16

Here's a list of a lot of things that came out in this past week, including many which are set to release on Friday. Of course, there's no way to be completely comprehensive with this and I avoided including things where information was too lacking, so feel free to mention anything that isn't on here that you think is worth mentioning. Beyond that, if you have any thoughts of any of these albums, it would be great to hear them :)

(oh and don't bully me for the genre tags, a lot of these things have very limited resources available and I couldn't individually listen to everything and determine what fits best, so I'm pulling from third parties and an artist's past work a lot of the time)

Thanks for the help this week, @Cleb!

88GLAM - 88GLAM2.5 (Trap Rap)

Aaron Lewis - State I’m In (Contemporary Country)

ALL TVVINS - Just To Exist (Alternative Dance, Indie Rock)

All Your Sisters - Trust Ruins (Industrial Rock, Post-Punk)

Anderson .Paak - Ventura (Neo-Soul, Contemporary R&B)

Andy Black - The Ghost of Ohio (Pop Rock)

Astrid - Fall, Stand, Dance (Indie Pop, Pop Rock)

Band of Skulls - Love Is All You Love (Garage Rock Revival, Alternative Rock)

Bars Of Gold - Shelters (New Wave, Indie Rock, Post-Hardcore)

Beat Music - Beat Music! Beat Music! Beat Music! (Jazz-Rock, Electronic)

Bibio - Ribbons (Folktronica, Hypnagogic Pop)

Big Business - The Beast You Are (Hard Rock, Heavy Metal)

Big Search - Slow Fascination (Indie Pop)

Black Flower - Future Flora (Afro-Jazz, Jazz-Funk)

Broken Social Scene - Let's Try the After - Vol. 2 (Indie Pop, Indie Rock)

Bruce Hornsby - Absolute Zero (Art Pop, Singer/Songwriter)

BTS - Map of the Soul: Persona (K-Pop)

The Budos Band - V (Jazz-Funk, Heavy Psych, Afrobeat)

Caskey - Black Sheep 4 (Trap Rap)

The Chemical Brothers - No Geography (Big Beat, Acid House)

The Cradle - The Glare of Success (Indie Folk)

Cris Jacobs - Color Where You Are (Singer/Songwriter, Acoustic Blues)

Damien Jurado - In the Shape of a Storm (Indie Folk, Singer/Songwriter)

Eli "Paperboy" Reed - 99 Cent Dreams (Soul, Rhythm & Blues)

Emily Reo - Only You Can See It (Indie Pop)

Emma Bunton - My Happy Place (Pop Soul)

Eric Reed - Everybody Gets The Blues (Jazz)

Fontaines D.C. - Dogrel (Post Punk Revival)

Glen Hansard - The Wild Willing (Singer/Songwriter, Electronic)

Gone Cosmic - Sideways In Time (Psychedelic Rock)

​iann dior - nothings ever good enough (Emo Rap)

Intellexual (Nico Segal & Nate Fox of The Social Experiment) - Intellexual (Indie Pop)

Inter Arma - Sulphur English (Post Metal)

Jesse Rutherford - GARAGEB& (Alternative R&B, Electropop)

Jess Ribeiro - Love Hate (Singer/Songwriter)

John Paul White - The Hurting Kind (Singer/Songwriter, Folk Rock)

Junodream - Terrible Things That Could Happen EP (Indie Rock)

Khalid - Free Spirit (Contemporary R&B, Neo-Soul)

KSI & Randolph - New Age (UK Hip Hop)

The Leisure Society - Arrivals & Departures (Chamber pop, Indie pop)

Lloyd - Black Haze (Pop Rock)

Lowly - Hifalutin (Indie Pop)

LSD - Labrinth, Sia & Diplo Present… LSD (Psychedelic Pop, Electronic)

Marshmello & SOB X RBE - Roll the Dice - EP (Pop Rap)

Melby - VCR (Psychedelic Pop, Indie Pop)

Melissa Etheridge - The Medicine Show (Pop Rock, Singer/Songwriter)

M Huncho - Utopia (Trap Rap)

MISSIO - The Darker the Weather // The Better the Man (Electropop)

MONKEY3 - Sphere (Stoner Rock, Space Rock)

Mystery Skulls - Back to Life (Electropop)

Native Harrow - Happier Now (Indie Folk, Folk Pop)

Norah Jones - Begin Again (Jazz Pop)

NUMENOREAN - Adore (Atmospheric black metal)

Odonis Odonis - Reaction EP (Electro-Industrial, Industrial Rock)

Pixel Grip - Heavy Handed (Synthpop)

Reese McHenry - No Dados (Garage Rock)

RiFF RAFF - PiNK PYTHōN (Trap Rap)

Rory Fresco - True Story (Pop Rap)

Sara Evans - The Barker Family Band (Country Pop)

Sebastián Yatra - FANTASÍA (Reggaeton)

Shovels & Rope - By Blood (Alt. Country)

Sophie Auster - Next Time (Singer/Songwriter)

Tellavision - Add Land (Electronic, Pop)

Theories - Vessel (Grindcore)

Thomas Henley - Epoque EP (Electronic)

Through The Noise - Dualism (Nu Metal, Post Hardcore)

Tom Speight - Collide (Singer Songwriter)

Walking On Cars - Colours (Pop Rock)

Yours Truly - Afterglow EP (Progressive Pop)

Zvi - Deer Pink (Drone Metal, Experimental Rock)

What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.

If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're talking about and link to its pages on Anilist, MAL, or any other database you use!

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

Here's a list of a lot of things that came out in this past week, including many which are set to release on Friday. Of course, there's no way to be completely comprehensive with this and I avoided including things where information was too lacking, so feel free to mention anything that isn't on here that you think is worth mentioning. Beyond that, if you have any thoughts of any of these albums, it would be great to hear them :)

(oh and don't bully me for the genre tags, a lot of these things have very limited resources available and I couldn't individually listen to everything and determine what fits best, so I'm pulling from third parties and an artist's past work a lot of the time)

&More - Ethel Bobcat (Hip Hop)

Ady Suleiman - Thoughts & Moments Vol. 1 Mixtape (Neo Soul)

Ages and Ages - Me You They We (Indie Pop, Indie Folk)

Alma - Have You Seen Her? (Dance-Pop, Electropop)

BAND-MAID - BAND-MAIKO (Hard Rock)

Big Eyes - Streets Of The Lost (Power Pop, Garage Rock)

BLACKPINK - Kill This Love (K-Pop)

Bogdan Raczynski - Rave 'Till You Cry (Drum and Bass, IDM)

Brass Box - The Cathedral (Shoegaze)

Brooks & Dunn - Reboot (Country)

Bryce Dessner (of The National) - El Chan (Modern Classical)

bülow - Crystalline (Electropop, Alternative R&B)

Callum Easter - Here or Nowhere (Alternative R&B, Indie Pop)

Cassia - Replica (Indie Pop)

CHEN (EXO) - April, and a flower (K Pop)

Cherry Pickles - Cherry Pickles Will Harden Your Nipples (Pop Punk, Surf Rock)

Christian Löffler - Graal (Ambient, Techno)

Circa Waves - What's It Like Over There? (Indie Rock)

Cities of Mars - The Horologist (Post-Metal, Doom Metal)

COCAINE PISS - Passionate and Tragic (Crust Punk, Noise)

Conjurer - Sigils (Doom Metal, Stoner Metal)

Crown of Autumn - Byzantine Horizons (Black Metal, Doom Metal)

Datura4 - Blessed is the Boogie (Blues Rock, Hard Rock)

DJ DB405 - Trillden United (Christian Hip Hop, Trap)

Don Felder - American Rock 'N' Roll (AOR)

The Drums - Brutalism (Indie Pop, Synthpop)

Eluveitie - Ategnatos (Celtic Metal, Melodic Death Metal)

Evan Greer - She/Her/They/Them (Folk Punk, Riot Grrrl)

Flying Fish Cove - At Moonset (Indie Rock)

Foie Gras - Holy Hell (Drone)

Girli - Odd One Out (Electropop, Dance-Punk)

Good Morning - The Option (Indie Pop)

GRiZ - Ride Waves (Glitch Hop, EDM)

Gurr - She Says EP (Jangle Pop, Indie Rock)

Hannah Grace - The Bed You Made EP (Singer-Songwriter)

Idlewild - Interview Muisc (Indie Rock, Alternative Rock)

I Know Leopard - Love Is A Landmine (Indie Pop, Dream Pop)

The Infamous Stringdusters — Rise Sun (Bluegrass)

IZ*ONE - HEART*IZ (K Pop)

Jackie Venson - JOY (Contemporary R&B, Indie Pop, Neo-Soul)

Jai Wolf - The Cure to Loneliness (Synthpop, Synthwave)

Jasmine Thompson - Colour EP (Teen Pop)

JAWS - The Ceiling (Indie Pop)

Jelly Boy - Everybody is a Universe (Indie Rock)

Jimbo Mathus - Incinerator (Country, Americana)

John Vanderslice - The Cedars (Electronic, Indie Pop, Indie Rock)

Jonathan Larson - The Jonathan Larson Project (Film Score, Show Tunes)

Kendrick Scott Oracle — A Wall Becomes A Bridge (Jazz)

Khalid - Free Spirit (Alternative R&B)

Kiefer — Bridges (Electronic, Jazz)

Kings Kaleidoscope - Zeal (Indie Rock)

Lady Lamb - Even in the Tremor (Singer/Songwriter, Indie Rock)

Larry “Ratso” Sloman — Stubborn Heart (Indie Folk)

Lee Fields & The Expressions - It Rains Love (Soul)

Lena - Only Love, L (Pop)

Lissie - When I'm Alone: The Piano Retrospective (Pop Country)

Luke Sital-Singh - A Golden State (Singer/Songwriter)

Mana — Seven Steps Behind (Electronic)

MARINA - LOVE (Electropop, Dance-Pop)

Matt Maeson - Bank On The Funeral (Singer/Songwriter)

Matt Simons - After The LandsIide (Pop)

Mike Mains & The Branches — When We Were In Love (Indie Rock)

Molly Tuttle — When You’re Ready (Progressive Bluegrass)

Night School — Disappear Here (Indie Pop, Dream Pop)

Partner — Saturday The 14th EP (Power Pop)

Periphery - Periphery IV: HAIL STAN (Progressive Metal)

The Prescriptions — Hollywood Gold (Alternative Country, Folk Rock)

Priests — The Seduction Of Kansas (Post-Punk, Noise Rock)

PUP - Morbid Stuff (Pop Punk, Power Pop)

Ramriddlz - RamReaper (Alternative R&B)

Reba McEntire — Stronger Than The Truth (Contemporary Country)

Rescue Rangers — Divisive (Stoner Rock)

Rod Melancon — Pinkville (Country, Blues)

Rose Elinor Dougall — A New Illusion (Indie Pop, Dream Pop)

Rozi Plain — What A Boost (Indie Folk)

Sara Bareilles - Amidst the Chaos (Singer/Songwriter, Pop)

Savoir Adore — Full Bloom (Indie Pop)

Sego - Sego Sucks (Indie Pop)

Shana Cleveland — Night Of The Worm Moon (Folk)

Sharkmuffin — Gamma Gardening EP (Garage Punk, Riot Grrrl)

Social Club Misfits - MOOD. (Christian Hip Hop)

Spoony Bard — Old Friends (Hip-Hop, Electronic, Jazz)

Tayla Parx — We Need To Talk (Contemporary R&B)

Ten Tonnes - Ten Tonnes (Singer/Songwriter)

Tory Lanez - International Fargo (Pop Rap)

Tyler Ramsey — For The Morning (Contemporary Folk)

Uncle Meg — Butterfly EP (Emo Rap)

Weyes Blood - Titanic Rising (Art Pop, Baroque Pop)

Yarrow - A Mild Circus EP (Post-Punk)

Yung Garzi - Nothing To Something (Pop Rap)

Yung Van - Blackwater (Emo Rap)

Zaytoven - Make America Trap Again (Trap)

What are you reading currently? Fiction or non-fiction, any genre, any language! Tell us what you're reading, and talk a bit about it.

Past weeks: Week #1 · Week #2 · Week #3 · Week #4 · Week #5 · Week #6 · Week #7 · Week #8 · Week #9 · Week #10 · Week #11 · Week #12 · Week #13 · Week #14 · Week #15

What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.

If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're talking about and link to its pages on Anilist, MAL, or any other database you use!

Inspired by @Whom's music and anime threads

What have you been playing to this week? You don't need to be playing the latest games, nor do you have to write gigantic essays. This is just a space to talk games!

Feel free to give recommendations, thoughts, opinions. Chat about playstyles and habits! Reminisce about games and mechanics long gone, or coming back!

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

Preface

Conceptual models in programming are essential for being able to reason about problems. We see this through code all the time, with implementation details hidden away behind abstractions like functions and objects so that we can ignore the cumbersome details and focus only on the details that matter. Without these abstractions and conceptual models, we might find ourselves overwhelmed by the size and complexity of the problem we’re facing. Of these conceptual models, one of the most easily neglected is that of data and object structure.

Data Types Galore

Possibly one of the most overwhelming aspects of conceptualizing data and object structure is the sheer breadth of data types available. Depending on the programming language you’re working with, you may find that you have more than several dozens of object classes already defined as part of the language’s core; primitives like booleans, ints, unsigned ints, floats, doubles, longs, strings, chars, and possibly others; arrays that can contain any of the objects or primitives, and even other arrays; and several other data structures like queues, vectors, and mixed-type collections, among others.

With so many types of data, it’s incredibly easy to lose track in a sea of type declarations and find yourself confused and unsure of where to go.

Tree’s Company

Let’s start by trying to make these data types a little less overwhelming. Rather than thinking strictly of types, let’s classify them. We can group all data types into one of three basic classifications:

1. Objects, which contain key/value pairs. For example, an object property that stores a string.
2. Arrays, which contain some arbitrary number of values.
3. Primitives, which contain nothing. They’re simply a “flat” data value.

We can also make a couple of additional notes. First, arrays and objects are very similar; both contain references to internal data, but the way that data is referenced differs. In particular, objects have named keys while arrays have numeric, zero-indexed keys. In a sense, arrays are a special case of objects where the keys are more strictly typed. From this, we can condense the classifications of objects and arrays into the more general “container” classification.

With that in mind, we now have the following classifications:

1. Containers.
2. Primitives.

We can now generally state that containers may contain other containers and primitives, and primitives may not contain anything. In other words, all data structures are a composition of containers and/or primitives, where containers may accept containers and/or primitives and primitives may not accept anything. More experienced programmers should notice something very familiar about this description--we’re basically describing a tree structure! Primitive types and empty containers act as the leaves in a tree, whereas objects and arrays act as the nodes.

Trees Help You Breathe

Okay, great. So what’s the big deal, anyway? We’ve now traded a bunch of concrete data types that we can actually think about and abstracted them away into this nebulous mess of containers and primitives. What do we get out of this?

A common mistake many programmers make is planning their data types out from the very beginning. Rather than planning out an abstraction for their data and object architecture, it’s easy to immediately find yourself focusing too much on the concrete implementation details.

Imagine, for example, modeling a user account for an online payment system. A common feature to include is the ability to store payment information for auto-pay, and payment methods typically take the form of some combination of credit/debit cards and bank accounts. If we focus on implementation details from the beginning, then we may find ourselves with something like this in a first iteration:

UserAccount: {
    username: String,
    password: String,
    payment_methods: PaymentMethod[]
}

PaymentMethod: {
    account_name: String,
    account_type: Enum,
    account_holder: String,
    number: String,
    routing_number: String?,
    cvv: String?,
    expiration_date: DateString?
}

We then find ourselves realizing that PaymentMethod is an unnecessary mess of optional values and needing to refactor it. Odds are we would break it off immediately into separate account types and make a note that they both implement some interface. We may also find that, as a result, remodeling the PaymentMethod could result in the need to remodel the UserAccount. For more deeply nested data structures, a single change deeper within the structure could result in those changes cascading all the way to the top-level object. If we have multiple objects, then these changes could propagate to them as well. And what if we decide a type needs to be changed, like deciding that our expiration date needs to be some sort of date object? Or what if we decide that we want to modify our property names? We’re then stuck having to update these definitions as we go along. What if we decide that we don't want an interface for different payment method types after all and instead want separate collections for each type? Then including the interface consideration will have proven to be a waste of time. The end result is that before we’ve even touched a single line of code, we’ve already found ourselves stuck with a bunch of technical debt, and we’re only in our initial planning stages!

To alleviate these kinds of problems, it’s far better to just ignore the implementation details. By doing so, we may find ourselves with something like this:

UserAccount: {
    Username,
    Password,
    PaymentMethods
}

PaymentMethods: // TODO: Decide on this container’s structure.

CardAccount: {
    AccountName,
    CardHolder,
    CardNumber,
    CVV,
    ExpirationDate,
    CardType
}

BankAccount: {
    AccountName,
    AccountNumber,
    RoutingNumber,
    AccountType
}

A few important notes about what we’ve just done here:

1. We don’t specify any concrete data types.
2. All fields within our models have the capacity to be either containers or primitives.
3. We’re able to defer a model’s structural definition without affecting the pace of our planning.
4. Any changes to a particular field type will automatically propagate in our structural definitions, making it trivial to create a definition like ExpirationDate: String and later change it to ExpirationDate: DateObject.
5. The amount of information we need to think about is reduced down to the very bare minimum.
6. By deferring the definition of the PaymentMethods structure, we find ourselves more inclined to focus on the more concrete payment method definitions from the very beginning, rather than trying to force them to be compatible through an interface.
7. We focused only on data representation, ensuring that representation and implementation are both separate and can be handled differently if needed.

SOLIDifying Our Conceptual Model

In object-oriented programming (OOP), there’s a generally recommended set of principles to follow, represented by the acronym “SOLID”:

• Single responsibility.
• Open/closed.
• Liskov substitution.
• Interface segregation.
• Dependency inversion.

These “SOLID” principles were defined to help resolve common, recurring design problems and anti-patterns in OOP.

Of particular note for us is the last one, the “dependency inversion” principle. The idea behind this principle is that implementation details should depend on abstractions, not the other way around. Our new conceptual model obeys the dependency inversion principle by prioritizing a focus on abstractions while leaving implementation details to the future class definitions that are based on our abstractions. By doing so, we limit the elements involved in our planning and problem-solving stages to only what is necessary.

Final Thoughts

The consequences of such a conceptual model extend well beyond simply planning out data and object structures. For example, if implemented as an actual programming or language construct, you could make the parsing of your data fairly simple. By implementing an object parser that performs reflection on some passed object, you can extract all of the publicly accessible object properties of the target object and the data contained therein. Thus, if your language doesn’t have a built-in JSON encoding function and no library yet exists, you could recursively traverse your data structure to generate the appropriate JSON with very little effort.

Many of the most fundamental programming concepts, like data structures ultimately being nothing more than trees at their most abstract representation, are things we tend to take for granted and think very little about. By making ourselves conscious of these fundamental concepts, however, we can more effectively take advantage of them.

Additionally, successful programmers typically solve a programming problem before they’ve ever written a single line of code. Whether or not they’re conscious of it, the tools they use to solve these problems effectively consist largely of the myriad conceptual models they’ve collected and developed over time, and the experience they’ve accumulated to determine which conceptual models need to be utilized to solve a particular problem.

Even when you have a solid grasp of your programming fundamentals, you should always revisit them every now and then. Sometimes there are details that you may have missed or just couldn’t fully appreciate when you learned about them. This is something that I’m continually reminded of as I continue on in my own career growth, and I hope that I can continue passing these lessons on to others.

As always, I'm absolutely open to feedback and questions!

Here's a list of a lot of things that came out in this past week, including many which are set to release on Friday. Of course, there's no way to be completely comprehensive with this and I avoided including things where information was too lacking, so feel free to mention anything that isn't on here that you think is worth mentioning. Beyond that, if you have any thoughts of any of these albums, it would be great to hear them :)

(oh and don't bully me for the genre tags, a lot of these things have very limited resources available and I couldn't individually listen to everything and determine what fits best, so I'm pulling from third parties and an artist's past work a lot of the time)

03 Greedo & Mustard - Still Summer in the Projects (West Coast Hip Hop, Trap Rap)

1TEAM - HELLO! (K Pop)

A Brilliant Lie - Threads: Weaver (Alternative Rock, Pop Punk)

American Pleasure Club - Fucking Bliss (Post-Industrial, Ambient Pop, Drone)

Ben Platt - Sing To Me Instead (Pop)

Betty Carter- The Music Never Stops (Vocal Jazz)

Billie Eilish - When We Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? (Alternative R&B, Electropop)

Borleone - Hard to Kill (Trap Rap)

Brutus - Nest (Post-Hardcore, Alternative Rock)

C Duncan - Health (Indie Pop, Indie Rock)

Carcer City - Silent War (Metalcore)

Chris Cohen - Chris Cohen (Singer-Songwriter, Indie Pop)

Clint Alphin - Straight to Marrow (Singer-Songwriter, Bluegrass)

Coughy - Ocean Hug (Indie Pop)

DJ Muggs & Mach-Hommy - Tuez-Les Tous (East Coast Hip Hop)

Devin Townsend - Empath (Progressive Metal, Avant-Garde Metal)

Facs - Lifelike (Post-Punk Revival)

Fennesz - Agora (Ambient, Electroacoustic)

Fredo Bang - Big Ape (Trap)

Garcia Peoples - Natural Facts (Psychedelic Rock, Roots Rock)

George Strait - Honky Tonk Time Machine (Country)

I Prevail - TRAUMA (Metal Core)

ILL BILL - Cannibal Hulk (East Coast Hip Hop, Hardcore Hip Hop)

Ian Simmonds - All That's Left (Downtempo, Jazz)

JBJ95 - Awake (K Pop)

Jake Miller - Based on a True Story. EP (Pop)

Jake Owen - Greetings from...Jake (Bro Country)

Jamie Lawson - The Years In Between (Singer Songwriter)

Jo Schornikow - Secret Weapon (Ambient Pop, Indie Pop)

K Á R Y Y N - The Quanta Series (Art Pop, Glitch Pop)

L.A. Guns - The Devil You Know (Hard Rock, Glam Metal)

LION BABE - Cosmic Wind (Contemporary R&B)

La Bouquet - Sad People Dancing (Contemporary R&B)

Laura Stevenson - The Big Freeze (Indie Folk, Folk Rock)

Lil Debbie - Bay Chronicles (Trap Rap)

Logic - Supermarket (Soundtrack) (Indie Pop, Pop Rap)

M. Lockwood - Communion In The Ashes (Alt-Country, Indie Folk, Power Pop)

MaHaWaM - Is an Island (Hip Hop, House, Indie Pop)

Magic Circle - Departed Souls (Traditional Doom Metal, Heavy Psych)

Marvin Gaye - You’re the Man (Soul)

Matthew Herbert Big Band - The State Between Us (Big Band, Electronic)

Mdou Moctar - Ilana: The Creator (Tishoumaren)

Mechanical God Creation - The New Chapter (Death Metal)

Mekons - Deserted (Art Punk)

Melii - phAses (Pop)

Monsta X - Shout Out (K Pop)

Moodie Black - MB I I I. V MICHOA (Industrial Hip Hop)

Moon Tooth - Crux (Progressive Metal)

Musket Hawk - Upside of Sick (Grindcore, Doom Metal)

NEIKED - Best Of Hard Drive (Dance Pop)

Nightmarathons - Missing Parts (Pop Punk)

O.A.R. - The Mighty (Pop Rock)

OWEL - Paris (Emo, Indie Rock)

Ohtis - Curve of Earth (Indie Folk)

Okey Dokey - Tell All Your Friend (Indie Pop)

Oshiego - The Book of Wonders (Death Metal, Thrash Metal, Grindcore)

PENTAGON (Korea) - Genie:us (K Pop)

Park Ji Hoon - O'CLOCK (K Pop)

pH-1 - HALO (K Pop)

Pink Sweat$ - Volume 2 EP (Singer Songwriter)

Quelle Chris - Guns (Abstract Hip Hop)

Randy Randall - Sound Field Volume One (Ambient, Drone)

Reaches - Wherever The Internet Goes, Sorrow Follows (Dance Pop, House)

Saweetie - ICY EP (Trap Rap)

Section H8 - Phase One (Hardcore Punk, Heavy Metal)

Show Me The Body - Dog Whistle (Hardcore Punk)

Simple Creatures - Strange Love (Pop Rock, Electropop)

Small Feet - With Psychic Powers (Indie Pop, Indie Folk)

Son Volt - Union (Americana, Alt-Country)

Soulja Boy Tell 'Em - Tell Ya (Pop Rap)

Stella Parton - Survivor (Country)

Steve Earle & The Dukes - GUY (Americana, Country Rock)

Stray Kids - Clé 1: MIROH (K Pop)

Suzi Quatro - No Control (Hard Rock)

TAEYEON - Four Seasons (K Pop)

Tay Iwar - GEMINI (Singer Songwriter)

The Bobbleheads - Myths and Fables (Pop Rock, Indie Rock)

The Maine - You Are OK (Pop Rock, Alternative Rock)

The Strumbellas - Rattlesnake (Indie Rock, Folk Rock)

The Underground Youth - Lust & Fear (Psychedelic Rock, Gothic Rock)

The XCERTS - Wildheart Dreaming EP (Power Pop )

Tom Williams - What Did You Want To Be? (Indie Rock)

Triumvir Foul - Urine of Abomination (Death Metal)

Unkle - The Road: Part II (Art Pop, Trip Hop)

White Denim - Side Effects (Indie Rock, Psychedelic Rock)

Whitechapel - The Valley (Deathcore, Groove Metal)

Wincent Weiss - Irgendwie anders (Pop)

Yelawolf - Trunk Muzik III (Southern Hip Hop)

Yngwie Malmsteen - Blue Lightning (Neoclassical Metal)

woods + segal (Billy Woods & Kenny Segal)- Hiding Places (East Coast Hip Hop)

What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.

If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're talking about and link to its pages on Anilist, MAL, or any other database you use!

What are you reading currently? Fiction or non-fiction, any genre, any language! Tell us what you're reading, and talk a bit about it.

Past weeks: Week #1 · Week #2 · Week #3 · Week #4 · Week #5 · Week #6 · Week #7 · Week #8 · Week #9 · Week #10 · Week #11 · Week #12 · Week #13 · Week #14

Here's a list of a lot of things that came out in this past week, including many which are set to release on Friday. Of course, there's no way to be completely comprehensive with this and I avoided including things where information was too lacking, so feel free to mention anything that isn't on here that you think is worth mentioning. Beyond that, if you have any thoughts of any of these albums, it would be great to hear them :)

(oh and don't bully me for the genre tags, a lot of these things have very limited resources available and I couldn't individually listen to everything and determine what fits best, so I'm pulling from third parties and an artist's past work a lot of the time)

American Football - American Football (Midwest Emo)

Andrew Bird - My Finest Work Yet (Chamber Pop, Singer/Songwriter)

Anteros - When We Land (Indie Pop)

Aoratos - Gods Without Name (Black Metal)

Apparat - LP5 (Techno)

Aubrey Logan - Where The Sunshine Is Expensive (Vocal Jazz)

Avey Tare - Cows on Hourglass Pond (Neo-Psychedelia, Psychedelic Folk)

Bad Suns - Mystic Truth (Alternative Rock, Indie Pop)

Ballout - T.I. (Drill)

Battle Beast - No More Hollywood Endings (Heavy Metal, Power Metal)

Bill MacKay - Fountain Fire (Folk Rock)

Blue Angels - Sue EP (Ambient Folk)

Bonnie Tyler - Between The Earth And The Stars (Pop Rock)

Brian Carpenter’s Beat Circus - These Wicked Things (Avant Prog, Dark Cabaret)

Brim Liski - Duels (Shoegaze, Electronica)

Cellar Darling - The Spell (Folk Metal)

Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah - Ancestral Recall (Jazz Fusion)

Crows - Silver Tongues (Post Punk)

Dean Lewis - A Place We Knew (Singer-Songwriter, Pop)

Delta Heavy - Only in Dreams (Drumstep)

Dominanz - Let The Death Enter (Death Metal)

Donna Grantis (of 3rdEyeGirl) - Diamonds & Dynamite (Hard Rock)

Dos Monos - Dos City (Experimental Hip Hop)

Emily Wells - This World Is Too ____ For You (Chamber Pop)

Everglow - Arrival of Everglow (K-Pop, Dance-Pop)

Ex Hex - It's Real (Power Pop, Alternative Rock)

Extortionist - Sever the Cord (Deathcore)

Famous Dex - Wave Creator (Trap Rap, Pop Rap)

Flora Cash - Press (Indie Folk)

Flume - Hi This Is Flume (Wonky)

Fred Everything - Long Way Home (Deep House)

From Sorrow to Serenity - Reclaim (Deathcore, Groove Metal, Metalcore)

Heize - She's Fine (K-Pop, Contemporary R&B)

Ian Daniel Kehoe - Secret Republic (Pop)

Ibibio Sound Machine - Doko Mien (Afro-Funk)

Jayda G - Significant Changes (Deep House)

Jenny Lewis - On the Line (Pop Rock, Indie Pop)

Jeon Se Woon - Plus Minus Zero (K-Pop)

Johnny Booth - Firsthand Accounts (Metalcore)

Kevin Garrett - Hoax (Singer-Songwriter)

La Casa Azul - La Gran Esfera (Bubblegum, Indie Pop)

La Dispute - Panorama (Emo)

Lafawndah - Ancestor Boy (Alternative R&B, Art Pop)

Lambchop - This (is what I wanted to tell you) (Sophisti-Pop, Art Pop)

Leiva - Nuclear (Pop)

Lil Xan - Heartbreak Soldiers pt. 2 (Trap Rap, Emo Rap)

Lil Yee - Live 4 It, Die 4 It EP (West Coast Hip Hop)

Lucy Rose - No Words Left (Singer/Songwriter, Contemporary Folk)

Luther Dickinson And Sisters Of The Strawberry Moon - Solstice (Southern Rock, Blues)

Mary Lattimore And Mac McCaughan (of Superchunk) - New Rain Duets (Electroacoustic)

Matt Anderson - Halfway Home By Morning (Blues)

Maverick Sabre - When I Wake Up (Neo-Soul)

Mayfield - Careless Love (Post-Hardcore)

Meridian - Margin of Error (Heavy Metal)

Momoland - Show Me (K-Pop, Dance-Pop)

NAV - Bad Habits (Alternative R&B, Trap Rap, Pop Rap)

Niggght - Violent Delicacy EP (Doom Metal, Blues)

Nilüfer Yanya - Miss Universe (Indie Pop, Indie Rock)

No Win - Downey (Indie Rock, Power Pop)

Obsidian Sea - Strangers (Progressive Rock)

Orville Peck - Pony (Singer/Songwriter, Alt-Country)

Parting Gift - Ensom (Alternative Rock)

PnB Rock - TrapStar Turnt PopStar (Trap Rap)

Problem Daughter - Grow Up Trash (Pop Punk)

Queen Key - Eat My Pussy Again (Trap Rap)

RPWL - Tales From Outer Space (Progressive Rock)

Rachael Sage - PseudoMyopia (Singer Songwriter)

Red Sun Rising - Peel EP (Post Grunge)

Rich the Kid - The World Is Yours 2 (Trap Rap, Southern Hip Hop)

Ritual Howls - Rendered Armor (Gothic Country, Gothic Rock, Post-Punk)

Robin Trower - Coming Closer To Day (Blues Rock)

Ruth B - Maybe I'll Find You Again (Singer/Songwriter)

Sermon - Birth of the Marvellous (Alternative Metal, Progressive Rock)

Shawn James - The Dark & The Light (Contemporary Rock)

Shlohmo - The End (Electronic)

Sleep In. - The Stars On Your Ceiling (Emo)

Sleeper - The Modern Age (Britpop)

Slow Caves - Falling (Indie Rock)

Spiral Stairs (Pavement’s Scott Kannberg) - We Wanna Be Hyp-No-Tized (Alternative Rock)

Stillhound - Stillhound (House, Indie Rock)

Strand of Oaks - Eraserland (Indie Folk, Indie Rock)

Suzi Wu - Error 404 EP (Indie Pop)

Taali - I Am Here (Art Pop)

Tamaryn - Dreaming The Dark (Synth Pop, Dream Pop)

Terry Allen And The Panhandle Mystery Band - Pedal Steal + Four Corners (Singer Songwriter)

The Flaying - Angry, Undead (Death Metal)

These New Puritans - Inside The Rose (Art Pop, Darkwave)

They Hate Change - Clearwater EP (Experimental Hip Hop)

Trevor Daniel - Restless (Pop Rap, Emo Rap)

Truth Corroded - Bloodlands (Thrash Metal, Death Metal)

Tyson Meade - Robbing The Nuclear Family (Indie Rock)

VAV - Thrilla Killa (K-Pop, Dance-Pop, Electropop)

Vendredi sur mer - Premiers émois (Electropop, French Pop)

Wallows - Nothing Happens (Indie Rock, Indie Pop)

We Show Up On Radar - Zanzibar Whip Coral (Indie Pop)

Wild Belle - Everybody One of a Kind (Pop Reggae, Indie Pop)

Yawners - Just Calm Down (Indie Rock)

Yerin Baek - Our Love Is Great (K-Pop)

What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.

If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're talking about and link to its pages on Anilist, MAL, or any other database you use!

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.

If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're talking about and link to its pages on Anilist, MAL, or any other database you use!

it's been a month since the last thread, so i think it's time for a new one of these. here you can share some of the projects that you're working on (of any kind, be they digital, physical, or whatever) that wouldn't really work as its own post.

What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.

If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're talking about and link to its pages on Anilist, MAL, or any other database you use!

What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.

If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're talking about and link to its pages on Anilist, MAL, or any other database you use!

Hey everyone, thanks to you who posted in the original Workshop Wednesday; I think it went really well! Here we are for week 2 (sorry it took me til noon, I was busy this morning!)

Some questions:

• do we need a new topic every week? Or will one be enough?
• any other comments/suggestions?

Please begin your comment with [META] to discuss these. Otherwise, I'll copy and paste the guidelines from last week.

What's a workshop?

Basically, a workshop is when you have a bunch of people with poems or stories they've written, and everyone gets together, reads everyone's work, and comments on it, sharing what they got out of it and what the author could do to improve the work for publication. I used to do a lot of them in college, and I've missed the dynamic since graduating. I thought others might also be interested, so here goes nothing.

How this'll work (for now, anyway)

Each week, I'll post a "Workshop Wednesday" post. If you have a poem or (short) story you'd like workshopped, post that as a top comment. Then, read others' top comments and reply with what works/doesn't work/questions you have/ideas you have for the piece that could make it better. If you post some writing, try to comment on at least two other people's pieces as well -- we're here to help each other improve.

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

So I was talking to @cadadr in this thread about starting a workshop on Tildes, and since today makes for an alliterative title, I thought I'd start one now.

What's a workshop?

Basically, a workshop is when you have a bunch of people with poems or stories they've written, and everyone gets together, reads everyone's work, and comments on it, sharing what they got out of it and what the author could do to improve the work for publication. I used to do a lot of them in college, and I've missed the dynamic since graduating. I thought others might also be interested, so here goes nothing.

How this'll work (for now, anyway)

Each week, I'll post a "Workshop Wednesday" post. If you have a poem or (short) story you'd like workshopped, post that as a top comment. Then, read others' top comments and reply with what works/doesn't work/questions you have/ideas you have for the piece that could make it better. If you post some writing, try to comment on at least two other people's pieces as well -- we're here to help each other improve.

Going forward

Since this is the first one, obviously we can change the format or do something else. Please start meta-discussions with the word [META] so that we know it's not a poem you're trying to workshop!

I'm excited. Let's do this!

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

What are you reading currently? Fiction or non-fiction, any genre, any language! Tell us what you're reading, and talk a bit about it.

Notes: I could not start the thread yesterday on Friday like I used to, I'm sorry for the delay.

Past weeks: Week #1 · Week #2 · Week #3 · Week #4 · Week #5 · Week #6 · Week #7 · Week #8 · Week #9 · Week #10 · Week #11 · Week #12 · Week #13

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

Preface

Recently I briefly touched on the subject of cyclomatic complexity. This is an important concept for any programmer to understand and think about as they write their code. In order to provide a more solid understanding of the subject, however, I feel that I need to address the topic more thoroughly with a more practical example.

What is cyclomatic complexity?

The concept of "cyclomatic complexity" is simple: the more conditional branching and looping in your code, the more complex--and therefore the more difficult to maintain--that code is. We can visualize this complexity by drawing a diagram that illustrates the flow of logic in our program. For example, let's take the following toy example of a user login attempt:

<?php

$login_data = getLoginCredentialsFromInput();

$login_succeeded = false;
$error = '';
if(usernameExists($login_data['username'])) {
    $user = getUser($login_data['username']);
    
    if(!isDeleted($user)) {
        if(!isBanned($user)) {
            if(!loginRateLimitReached($user)) {
                if(passwordMatches($user, $login_data['password'])) {
                    loginUser($user);
                    $login_succeeded = true;
                } else {
                    $error = getBadPasswordError();
                    logBadLoginAttempt();
                }
            } else {
                $error = getLoginRateLimitError($user);
            }
        } else {
            $error = getUserBannedError($user);
        }
    } else {
        $error = getUserDeletedError($user);
    }
} else {
    $error = getBadUsernameError($login_data['username']);
}

if($login_succeeded) {
    sendSuccessResponse();
} else {
    sendErrorResponse($error);
}

?>

A diagram for this logic might look something like this:

+-----------------+
|                 |
|  Program Start  |
|                 |
+--------+--------+
         |
         |
         v
+--------+--------+    +-----------------+
|                 |    |                 |
|    Username     +--->+    Set Error    +--+
|    Exists?      | No |                 |  |
|                 |    +-----------------+  |
+--------+--------+                         |
         |                                  |
     Yes |                                  |
         v                                  |
+--------+--------+    +-----------------+  |
|                 |    |                 |  |
|  User Deleted?  +--->+    Set Error    +->+
|                 | Yes|                 |  |
+--------+--------+    +-----------------+  |
         |                                  |
      No |                                  |
         v                                  |
+--------+--------+    +-----------------+  |
|                 |    |                 |  |
|  User Banned?   +--->+    Set Error    +->+
|                 | Yes|                 |  |
+--------+--------+    +-----------------+  |
         |                                  |
      No |                                  |
         v                                  |
+--------+--------+    +-----------------+  |
|                 |    |                 |  |
|   Login Rate    +--->+    Set Error    +->+
| Limit Reached?  | Yes|                 |  |
|                 |    +-----------------+  |
+--------+--------+                         |
         |                                  |
      No |                                  |
         v                                  |
+--------+--------+    +-----------------+  |
|                 |    |                 |  |
|Password Matches?+--->+    Set Error    +->+
|                 | No |                 |  |
+--------+--------+    +-----------------+  |
         |                                  |
     Yes |                                  |
         v                                  |
+--------+--------+    +----------+         |
|                 |    |          |         |
|   Login User    +--->+ Converge +<--------+
|                 |    |          |
+-----------------+    +---+------+
                           |
                           |
         +-----------------+
         |
         v
+--------+--------+
|                 |
|   Succeeded?    +-------------+
|                 | No          |
+--------+--------+             |
         |                      |
     Yes |                      |
         v                      v
+--------+--------+    +--------+--------+
|                 |    |                 |
|  Send Success   |    |   Send Error    |
|    Message      |    |    Message      |
|                 |    |                 |
+-----------------+    +-----------------+

It's important to note that between nodes in this directed graph, you can find certain enclosed regions being formed. Specifically, each conditional branch that converges back into the main line of execution generates an additional region. The number of these distinct enclosed regions is directly proportional to the level of cyclomatic complexity of the system--that is, more regions means more complicated code.

Clocking out early.

There's an important piece of information I noted when describing the above example:

. . . each conditional branch that converges back into the main line of execution generates an additional region.

The above example is made complex largely due to an attempt to create a single exit point at the end of the program logic, causing these conditional branches to converge and thus generate the additional enclosed regions within our diagram.

But what if we stopped trying to converge back into the main line of execution? What if, instead, we decided to interrupt the program execution as soon as we encountered an error? Our code might look something like this:

<?php

$login_data = getLoginCredentialsFromInput();

if(!usernameExists($login_data['username'])) {
    sendErrorResponse(getBadUsernameError($login_data['username']));
    return;
}

$user = getUser($login_data['username']);
if(isDeleted($user)) {
    sendErrorResponse(getUserDeletedError($user));
    return;
}

if(isBanned($user)) {
    sendErrorResponse(getUserBannedError($user));
    return;
}

if(loginRateLimitReached($user)) {
    logBadLoginAttempt($user);
    sendErrorResponse(getLoginRateLimitError($user));
    return;
}

if(!passwordMatches($user, $login_data['password'])) {
    logBadLoginAttempt($user);
    sendErrorResponse(getBadPasswordError());
    return;
}

loginUser($user);
sendSuccessResponse();

?>

Before we've even constructed a diagram for this logic, we can already see just how much simpler this logic is. We don't need to traverse a tree of if statements to determine which error message has priority to be sent out, we don't need to attempt to follow indentation levels, and our behavior on success is right at the very end and at the lowest level of indentation, where it's easily and obviously located at a glance.

Now, however, let's verify this reduction in complexity by examining the associated diagram:

+-----------------+
|                 |
|  Program Start  |
|                 |
+--------+--------+
         |
         |
         v
+--------+--------+    +-----------------+
|                 |    |                 |
|    Username     +--->+   Send Error    |
|    Exists?      | No |    Message      |
|                 |    |                 |
+--------+--------+    +-----------------+
         |
     Yes |
         v
+--------+--------+    +-----------------+
|                 |    |                 |
|  User Deleted?  +--->+   Send Error    |
|                 | Yes|    Message      |
+--------+--------+    |                 |
         |             +-----------------+
      No |
         v
+--------+--------+    +-----------------+
|                 |    |                 |
|  User Banned?   +--->+   Send Error    |
|                 | Yes|    Message      |
+--------+--------+    |                 |
         |             +-----------------+
      No |
         v
+--------+--------+    +-----------------+
|                 |    |                 |
|   Login Rate    +--->+   Send Error    |
| Limit Reached?  | Yes|    Message      |
|                 |    |                 |
+--------+--------+    +-----------------+
         |
      No |
         v
+--------+--------+    +-----------------+
|                 |    |                 |
|Password Matches?+--->+   Send Error    |
|                 | No |    Message      |
+--------+--------+    |                 |
         |             +-----------------+
     Yes |
         v
+--------+--------+
|                 |
|   Login User    |
|                 |
+--------+--------+
         |
         |
         v
+--------+--------+
|                 |
|  Send Success   |
|    Message      |
|                 |
+-----------------+

Something should immediately stand out here: there are no enclosed regions in this diagram! Furthermore, even our new diagram is much simpler to follow than the old one was.

Reality is rarely simple.

The above is a really forgiving example. It has no loops, and loops are going to create enclosed regions that can't be broken apart so easily; it has no conditional branches that are so tightly coupled with the main path of execution that they can't be broken up; and the scope of functionality and side effects are minimal. Sometimes you can't break those regions up. So what do we do when we inevitably encounter these cases?

High cyclomatic complexity in your program as a whole is inevitable for sufficiently large projects, especially in a production environment, and your efforts to reduce it can only go so far. In fact, I don't recommend trying to remove all or even most instances of cyclomatic complexity at all--instead, you should just be keeping the concept in mind to determine whether or not a function, method, class, module, or other component of your system is accumulating technical debt and therefore in need of refactoring.

At this point, astute readers might ask, "How does refactoring help if the cyclomatic complexity doesn't actually go away?", and this is a valid concern. The answer to that is simple, however: we're hiding complexity behind abstractions.

To test this, let's forget about cyclomatic complexity for a moment and instead focus on simplifying the refactored version of our toy example using abstraction:

<?php

function handleLoginAttempt($login_data) {
    if(!usernameExists($login_data['username'])) {
        sendErrorResponse(getBadUsernameError($login_data['username']));
        return;
    }

    $user = getUser($login_data['username']);
    if(isDeleted($user)) {
        sendErrorResponse(getUserDeletedError($user));
        return;
    }

    if(isBanned($user)) {
        sendErrorResponse(getUserBannedError($user));
        return;
    }

    if(loginRateLimitReached($user)) {
        logBadLoginAttempt($user);
        sendErrorResponse(getLoginRateLimitError($user));
        return;
    }

    if(!passwordMatches($user, $login_data['password'])) {
        logBadLoginAttempt($user);
        sendErrorResponse(getBadPasswordError());
        return;
    }

    loginUser($user);
    sendSuccessResponse();
}

$login_data = getLoginCredentialsFromInput();

handleLoginAttempt($login_data);

?>

The code above is functionally identical to our refactored example from earlier, but has an additional abstraction via a function. Now we can diagram this higher-level abstraction as follows:

+-----------------+
|                 |
|  Program Start  |
|                 |
+--------+--------+
         |
         |
         v
+--------+--------+
|                 |
|  Attempt Login  |
|                 |
+-----------------+

This is, of course, a pretty extreme example, but this is how we handle thinking about complex program logic. We abstract it down to the barest basics so that we can visualize, in its simplest form, what the program is supposed to do. We don't actually care about the implementation unless we're digging into that specific part of the system, because otherwise we would be so bogged down by the details that we wouldn't be able to reason about what our program is supposed to do.

Likewise, we can use these abstractions to hide away the cyclomatic complexity underlying different components of our software. This keeps everything clean and clutter-free in our head. And the more we do to keep our smaller components simple and easy to think about, the easier the larger components are to deal with, no matter how much cyclomatic complexity all of those components share as a collective.

Final Thoughts

Cyclomatic complexity isn't a bad thing to have in your code. The concept itself is only intended to be used as one of many tools to assess when your code is accumulating too much technical debt. It's a warning sign that you may need to change something, nothing more. But it's an incredibly useful tool to have available to you and you should get comfortable using it.

As a general rule of thumb, you can usually just take a glance at your code and assess whether or not there's too much cyclomatic complexity in a component by looking for either of the following:

• Too many loops and/or conditional statements nested within each other, i.e. you have a lot of indentation.
• Many loops in the same function/method.

It's not a perfect rule of thumb, but it's useful for at least 90% of your development needs, and there will inevitably be cases where you will prefer to accept some greater cyclomatic complexity because there is some benefit that makes it a better trade-off. Making that judgment is up to you as a developer.

As always, I'm more than willing to listen to feedback and answer any questions!

Releases of the week 23/02/2019 - 01/03/2019

Featured Release

Solange - When I Get Home (Neo-Soul, Alternative R&B)

Solange has unveiled her new album, When I Get Home. Spanning 19 tracks, it marks Solange’s fourth album to date and serves as the follow-up to her 2016 opus, A Seat at the Table.
When I Get Home was written, performed, and executive produced by Solange herself, but she was hardly in the studio. Among the album’s many contributors were Earl Sweatshirt, Panda Bear, Tyler the Creator, Blood Orange’s Dev Hynes, Sampha, Pharrell Williams, Gucci Mane, Playboi Carti, Raphael Saadiq, Metro Boomin, The-Dream, Cassie, Abra, and The Internet’s Steve Lacy.
“Y’all! I’m filled w so much joy right now!!! Wow! I can’t thank y’all enough for this moment and for all the feelings i feel in my body!” Solange wrote in a tweet. “I’m bringing home w me everywhere I go yalll and I ain’t running from shit no more. Your love lifts me up so high. Thank you!”

Source: Consequence of Sound

Listen to single

Stream

Other Notable Relases

Pond - Tasmania (Neo-Psychedelia, Psychedelic Pop)

Listen to single
Stream

2 Chainz - Rap or Go to the League (Trap Rap, Southern Hip Hop)

Listen to single
Stream

Sun Kil Moon - I Also Want To Die In New Orleans (Contemporary Folk, Spoken Word)

Listen to single
Stream

T-Pain - 1UP (Alternative R&B, Trap Rap)

Listen to single
Stream

Feel free to discuss or feature any and all other releases in the comments below

Discussion Points

Have you listened to any of these releases?
What are your thoughts?
What are you looking forward to listen to?
What have you enjoyed from these artists in the past?

// All feedback on this format welcome.

this seems like a good time to bring back this question and maybe make it more consistent and recurring since there's just been an influx of new people. i last asked this about three months ago and i'm sure there are both new people to answer this question and new ideas that people who already answered or would answer have come up with since.

for my part, i did this post just now as a short little thing. on the larger scale, i've been intending to get back into editing my personal worldbuilding wiki because there's a bunch of shit i want to do with that, but college isn't exactly leaving a lot of time for it and every time i try to start on stuff gets tedious so i've been holding off on it for a little bit. i've also been chipping away at the fun that will be one of several religious books, but i don't really know how i want to structure it yet so the verses pictured and others are liable to get shuffled around at this point.

What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.

If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're talking about and link to its pages on Anilist, MAL, or any other database you use!

What are you reading currently? Fiction or non-fiction, any genre, any language! Tell us what you're reading, and talk a bit about it.

Notes: I could not start the thread yesterday on Friday like I used to, I'm sorry for the delay.

Past weeks: Week #1 · Week #2 · Week #3 · Week #4 · Week #5 · Week #6 · Week #7 · Week #8 · Week #9 · Week #10 · Week #11 · Week #12