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7 votes
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Google’s new ‘time crystals’ could be a breakthrough for long-awaited quantum computers
12 votes -
Has UML died without anyone noticing?
9 votes -
What programming/technical projects have you been working on?
This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's...
This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?
5 votes -
Fortnightly Programming Q&A Thread
General Programming Q&A thread! Ask any questions about programming, answer the questions of other users, or post suggestions for future threads. Don't forget to format your code using the triple...
General Programming Q&A thread! Ask any questions about programming, answer the questions of other users, or post suggestions for future threads.
Don't forget to format your code using the triple backticks or tildes:
Here is my schema: ```sql CREATE TABLE article_to_warehouse ( article_id INTEGER , warehouse_id INTEGER ) ; ``` How do I add a `UNIQUE` constraint?
6 votes -
Cloudflare's inaccessible browser contradicts the company's mission
11 votes -
Tomorrow's wireless world will be fatter, faster, and creepier
7 votes -
Linux Privilege Escalation - Three Easy Ways to Get a Root Shell
9 votes -
FSF-funded call for white papers on philosophical and legal questions around Copilot
7 votes -
Fortnightly Programming Q&A Thread
General Programming Q&A thread! Ask any questions about programming, answer the questions of other users, or post suggestions for future threads. Don't forget to format your code using the triple...
General Programming Q&A thread! Ask any questions about programming, answer the questions of other users, or post suggestions for future threads.
Don't forget to format your code using the triple backticks or tildes:
Here is my schema: ```sql CREATE TABLE article_to_warehouse ( article_id INTEGER , warehouse_id INTEGER ) ; ``` How do I add a `UNIQUE` constraint?
9 votes -
From stolen laptop to inside the company network
12 votes -
Lessons learned from 15 years of SumatraPDF, an open source Windows app
20 votes -
How would you write a GUI? Seeking opinions, recommendations, and what to avoid.
Hi all. I am asking this open-ended question (bottom of this post) because I am considering making contributions to an open-source project that would directly benefit me and other users. Some...
Hi all. I am asking this open-ended question (bottom of this post) because I am considering making contributions to an open-source project that would directly benefit me and other users.
Some background:
I have worked with an engineering simulation software called Ansys MAPDL basically everyday for the last 4 years, in both an academic and a professional capacity. It's not necessarily relevant whether you are familiar to that program to participate in this discussion. The relevant thing is that the GUI for MAPDL is written in Tcl/Tk and I don’t imagine it is going to be modernized (because of more modern, but distinctly different, replacements). This is a screenshot of the GUI for reference.
Why do people put up with such an old interface?
The power of the program is not its GUI, but the scripting language that can be run to setup and solve simulations. The program name is really the scripting language name, Ansys Parametric Design Language (APDL). It's somewhat like Matlab. The program also offers an enormous amount of control when compared to the more modern GUI that's been released, since the modern GUI holds a totally different philosophy.
The older GUI is really helpful in certain circumstances because it will spit out a file containing commands that were used in the session. This is a great demonstration of how to run a command or use a setting/config command, but a lot of newer features are buried in the documentation and aren't available in the older GUI.
My coding experience
I know the MAPDL language very intimately, but my experience beyond it is limited to some Perl scripting, and a bit of Python exposure.
Motivation
Open-Source Ansys API
Recently, Ansys started supporting an open-source Python project called PyAnsys. MAPDL is otherwise fully closed source, and this is really the only public-facing API. PyAnsys has basically converted a lot of MAPDL script commands to a pythonic format, hence Python can now be used to interact with MAPDL. This is great for several reasons, but is limited regarding interactivity. Interacting with MAPDL via Python is basically happening in a fancy console via Jupyter notebook or IDE like Spyder. Certain commands will bring up Python-based graphics displays of solid models and results plots, but there isn't a dedicated GUI open all the time.
The Question(s)
My question is whether it is feasible to write a frontend GUI to a bunch of python commands. If you were going to do it, how would you do it? What might you write it with? Would you even do it? Is this a stupid endeavor?
7 votes -
What programming/technical projects have you been working on?
This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's...
This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?
4 votes -
What programming/technical projects have you been working on?
This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's...
This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?
9 votes -
Recommend me a small SBC!
So I'm looking to do an improved version of this project from a couple of years ago that rebuilt the dreamcast VMU into an emulator system that could even interface with a modified dreamcast...
So I'm looking to do an improved version of this project from a couple of years ago that rebuilt the dreamcast VMU into an emulator system that could even interface with a modified dreamcast controller using the original connector. That project was really neat, but it used a raspberry pi zero, which is frankly anemic for running any emulators past the SNES, and I'd like to find one that's powerful enough to emulate the dreamcast itself, but small enough to fit inside a VMU. To that end, my requirements are:
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Must be of a similar size to the pi zero. Smaller would be better, but it absolutely cannot be more than 40x65mm.
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Must have a processor at least as powerful as a cortex A53, preferably something more powerful like the A72.
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Must have a release of armbian (or similar) with drivers for full video acceleration.
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Must be able to drive a display over SPI.
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Must be available. The NanoPi NEO Core 2 is pretty close to what I need, if maybe a bit underpowered, but it seems to be discontinued and I can't find it anywhere but aliexpress at double the list price.
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Composite video out would be nice.
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Analog audio out would be nice.
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Availability without soldered headers and large ports would be nice, like the pi zero or nanopi neo.
9 votes -
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Purism (a creator of FOSS friendly hardware such as laptops and a smartphone) is seeking investment from individuals
11 votes -
Looking for programming blogs similar in nature to Prog21
8 votes -
Primality test using regex
9 votes -
Remote code execution vulnerability in the cdnjs Javascript CDN run by Cloudflare, which could have enabled tampering with over 10% of all websites
18 votes -
Hashing Phone Numbers For 2-Factor Authentication
7 votes -
What programming/technical projects have you been working on?
This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's...
This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?
5 votes -
What programming/technical projects have you been working on?
This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's...
This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?
9 votes -
TigerBeetle - a million financial transactions per second in Zig [group talk]
4 votes -
Kaspersky Password Manager had multiple problems in its password-generator, resulting in its passwords being predictable and easily brute-forced
21 votes -
Fortnightly Programming Q&A Thread
General Programming Q&A thread! Ask any questions about programming, answer the questions of other users, or post suggestions for future threads. Don't forget to format your code using the triple...
General Programming Q&A thread! Ask any questions about programming, answer the questions of other users, or post suggestions for future threads.
Don't forget to format your code using the triple backticks or tildes:
Here is my schema: ```sql CREATE TABLE article_to_warehouse ( article_id INTEGER , warehouse_id INTEGER ) ; ``` How do I add a `UNIQUE` constraint?
5 votes -
KeenWrite 2.2.0: Curl straight quotes upon export
4 votes -
Using John the Ripper To Crack Password Hashes
3 votes -
What programming/technical projects have you been working on?
This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's...
This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?
10 votes -
The Internet Is Rotting - The glue that holds humanity’s knowledge together is coming undone
9 votes -
GitHub Copilot - Your AI pair programmer
20 votes -
Leveling up networking for a multi-game future
5 votes -
Oildrop - A self-auditable userscript manager
13 votes -
Whatever happened with UMN vs. Linux Kernel Maintainers?
Even tech news moves a bit too fast for me to keep up. Did UMN ever get unbanned? I saw a half-hearted apology and then finally this [1], but never heard any update. Most recent article I've seen...
Even tech news moves a bit too fast for me to keep up. Did UMN ever get unbanned? I saw a half-hearted apology and then finally this [1], but never heard any update. Most recent article I've seen is this ZDNet article [2] from a couple of weeks ago discussing a related issue, but still mentions that UMN is still banned.
Anyone following this?
[2] https://www.zdnet.com/article/hard-work-and-poor-pay-stresses-out-open-source-maintainers/
4 votes -
Chinese Academy of Sciences releases "Xiangshan", a high performance open source RISC-V processor that runs Linux
7 votes -
Fortnightly Programming Q&A Thread
General Programming Q&A thread! Ask any questions about programming, answer the questions of other users, or post suggestions for future threads. Don't forget to format your code using the triple...
General Programming Q&A thread! Ask any questions about programming, answer the questions of other users, or post suggestions for future threads.
Don't forget to format your code using the triple backticks or tildes:
Here is my schema: ```sql CREATE TABLE article_to_warehouse ( article_id INTEGER , warehouse_id INTEGER ) ; ``` How do I add a `UNIQUE` constraint?
7 votes -
Fun and dystopia with AI-based Python code generation using GPT-J-6B
7 votes -
What programming/technical projects have you been working on?
This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's...
This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?
12 votes -
Herding in an Artificial Life Evolution Ecosystem Simulation | Boids Algorithm Implementation
3 votes -
What programming/technical projects have you been working on?
This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's...
This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?
13 votes -
An exploration of the types of subclassing and when inheritance is a good choice compared to composition, through the lens of Python
4 votes -
Your CPU may have slowed down on Wednesday
10 votes -
Libera Chat vs. Freenode: Who won?
Let me start by saying this is a space I am not at all familiar with. I didn't grow up with IRC, my first text editor was Sublime (I'm not from the "EMACS vs. VIM" generation,) so I feel kinda...
Let me start by saying this is a space I am not at all familiar with. I didn't grow up with IRC, my first text editor was Sublime (I'm not from the "EMACS vs. VIM" generation,) so I feel kinda outta touch with what all is going on.
Is there a winner? I feel invested in this topic after seeing a whole slew of posts, blogs, and medium articles posted all over Reddit and HN breaking down how these folks have personally been impacted over the past month or so. It seems to have died down which leaves me with the question of what the outcome was. An even 50/50 split? Libera destroying Freenode? Or Freenode able to hold onto users by successfully preventing efforts to organize a transition?
Without being in the Freenode community, I don't have a feeling for whether Freenode is dead, Libera Chat is "winning" and I don't think there's a good way to get metrics either.
Anyone in this world who can help the uneducated out on the outcome of all of this?
15 votes -
NLnet Foundation open call for funding (NLnet funds open source projects)
6 votes -
Simplifying Grammar Checks for Manuals
2 votes -
What programming/technical projects have you been working on?
This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's...
This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?
11 votes -
Announcing MonoGameJam3
5 votes -
Continuing My Education with a CS Degree in Canada [A Help Thread]
My Goal I am applying to Canadian universities for fall admission as a CS major. This will be my second degree, and one of the requirements of getting admitted for a second degree is to show that...
My Goal
I am applying to Canadian universities for fall admission as a CS major. This will be my second degree, and one of the requirements of getting admitted for a second degree is to show that you have a significant interest in the subject. My plan is to get online certificates to show that I am actually dedicated to learning CS and getting a job in the field. I am actually dedicated, I just need a way to show it on paper. I have some experience with software development (only the basics), but there aren't any records of it since it was just informal study.
My Problem
I can't decide which certificates I should pursue. I am torn between EdX and Udemy. I would Tilderinos' help in choosing between the two. I would also appreciate any general advice you may have.
Here are the courses I plan to take on EdX (prices in USD):
UBC's MicroMasters Program in
Software Development - $832Harvard CS50's Web Programming with Python and JavaScript - $199
IBM's Professional Certificate in
Cloud Application Development Foundations - $169Here are the courses I plan to take on Udemy:
The Ultimate 2021 Fullstack Web Development Bootcamp - $15
The Complete 2021 Web Development Bootcamp - $15
The Ultimate MySQL Bootcamp: Go from SQL Beginner to Expert - $30
Angular - The Complete Guide (2021 Edition) - $15
Comparisons
To reiterate, I have two goals going into this. One is to actually learn web development, since I would like to become a fullstack developer (but my options are semi-open). The other is to prove to the Canadian universities that I am dedicated to learning and to give myself an edge over applicants.
If I go with EdX, then I have to pay a much steeper price for the certificates. These courses also take a long time to get through and the projects don't seem as relevant to real word applications. But I will also be learning from established institutions like Harvard and UBC. EdX certificates also come with the distinct advantage that a human is checking the problem sets you submit. This will show the Canadian universities that I have actually spent the time and effort to go through the courses and pass them.
If I go with Udemy, I will get through the courses in less time and their projects seem more related to real world projects. If I go through the courses faster, I will also have more time to start on some personal projects, and I can show my dedication to learning through those projects. Personal projects and also volunteer work will also help establish a resumé for future work. The courses on Udemy are a lot cheaper too. But they don't have the same level of verification or prestige that EdX does.
So in summary, EdX has prestige and quality courses, but a steep prices and a huge time commitment. Udemy is cheaper and gives me more opportunities to do personal projects and volunteer work, but it's certificates aren't fully trustworthy from the Canadian universities' perspective.
Final Words
What do you think? Which path should I take?
For those of you wondering, why I am going to university instead of a bootcamp, it's because I plan to immigrate to Canada and becoming a student seems the straightest way of getting PR. I need to leave my third world country as soon as I can, for mental health and economic reasons. I have been mostly unemployed ever since the pandemic started so I can't get work in Canada (or the U.S.) on my first degree (a management degree). I already tried that route. I can't find proper work here either.
Also, I am sorry if I posted in the wrong group, or if I shouldn't have posted it anywhere at all. I desperately need advice on what to do and I don't have a trustworthy network here that can help me through this. I'm sorry and thank you for your help.
8 votes -
GNOME - Community Power Part 1: Misconceptions
4 votes -
write freely (a federated blogging platform ) releases version 0.13.0
9 votes