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    1. 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
    2. What useful tasks are possible with an LLM with only 3B parameters?

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

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

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

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

      10 votes
    3. Looking to Llama. Help?

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

      Hi folks

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

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

      Where do I even start?

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

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

      Thank you in advance.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

      Explanation:

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

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

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

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

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

      6 votes
    7. 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
    8. Learning new programming languages with limited time: Rust, golang, or otherwise?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

      12 votes
    12. GUI dev using Godot

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

      17 votes
    16. Using work OSX machine while travelling

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

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

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

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

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

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

      20 votes
    18. Are any of you AI gurus?

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

      As per subject really.

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

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

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

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

      Soooo much to think about. Project plan coming up.

      21 votes
    19. Syncthing on a VPS questions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

      Hello Tildes,

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

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

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

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

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

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

      Thank you, and have a good day!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

      15 votes
    29. Node's "Single Threaded, Event Driven" programming model seems highly deceptive and farcical

      The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced of it. The biggest selling point of Node folks has been the "single threaded, event driven" model, right? Unlike JavaScript, other languages work...

      The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced of it.

      The biggest selling point of Node folks has been the "single threaded, event driven" model, right? Unlike JavaScript, other languages work on a "blocking" basis i.e. you run a statement or command and the program "waits" until the I/O is complete. For example, you issue open('xyz.txt', 'rb').read() in python and the program waits or blocks until the underlying driver is able to read that whole text file (which could take arguably long time if said file is too large in size).

      But with the Nodejs equivalent, you just issue the statement and then pass the "event handler" so that your program is never in the "waiting state". The whole premise of Node/JS event-callback is that "you don't call us, we will call you".

      This is all nice in theory but if this were indeed true then Nodejs scripts should be blazing fast compared to Python and even Java considering that most programs we write are I/O heavy and 99% of time, they're just waiting for an input from a File/URI/User? If this event callback model indeed worked as effectively as claimed, Node would have been the numero one and only language being used today?

      I think I'm starting to understand why that isn't the case. This whole "single threaded, event driven" thing is just a farce. You can also replicate the same thing that Node.js is doing in your Java or Python too by applying multi-threading (i.e. one thread just "waits" for the I/O in the background while the other keeps doing its job). All you've done here is just handed or delegated that complexity of multi-threading to Node.js?

      Realistically, it's impossible to wait or block an I/O request while at the same time also letting the other part of the code engage in other tasks, that's the very definition of multi-threading. Doing "async" is impossible without multiple threads in that sense. Node must have a thread pool of sorts where one of them is engaged in the wait/block while another is running your JS code further. When the wait is over, the control is then passed to the "event handler" function it was bound to in that other thread.

      What Node is selling as "single threaded" applies to application or business logic we are writing, node itself can't be single threaded. I feel it's better to just implement multi-threading in your own code (as needed) instead of using something convoluted and confusing like Node.js. What say you?

      8 votes
    30. 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
    31. Just got a Microsoft Surface Pro 9, need help

      It's been years since I've had to use a an actual computer for anything serious and I want to regain my literacy with them. The height of my computer usage was the Windows XP/Vista era. I got it...

      It's been years since I've had to use a an actual computer for anything serious and I want to regain my literacy with them. The height of my computer usage was the Windows XP/Vista era. I got it because I wanted to throw myself into a couple of different programming/coding courses.
      I chose the Surface Pro because of the detachable keyboard/stylus setup and the fact that I don't have a good way to set up a desktop computer. Also I've always fantasized about being able to do work in a coffee shop or in a comfy chair by a lake lol.
      Can anyone share some tips/tricks that might be useful to me? Anything from hotkeys, task management related things, or just general quality of life things I should know about would be super helpful. I'm so used to smartphones being able to do everything and feel like I'm a little in over my head here. Thanks in advance.

      12 votes
    32. Is there a programming language that brings you joy?

      Just for a moment, forget all of the technical pros and cons, the static typing, just-in-time compilation, operator overloading, object orientation to the max... Is there a programming language...

      Just for a moment, forget all of the technical pros and cons, the static typing, just-in-time compilation, operator overloading, object orientation to the max...

      Is there a programming language that you've just found to be... fun?

      Is there one that you'd pick above all else for personal or company projects, if you had your druthers, because you would simply be so excited to use it?

      And then, is there something missing in that "fun" language that's preventing it from actually becoming a reality (i.e. small community, lack of libraries, maintenance ended in the 80s, etc.)?

      50 votes
    33. Does Linux From Scratch actually teach you anything?

      Two hours ago I randomly thought "hey, why not do LFS?", so I opened my laptop and started following the book. I've heard a lot of people say that LFS is great for learning how a Linux system...

      Two hours ago I randomly thought "hey, why not do LFS?", so I opened my laptop and started following the book. I've heard a lot of people say that LFS is great for learning how a Linux system works. However, so far it's just been a guide on how to compile different software and what autoconfig flags to use. I thought that maybe further chapters will have more information on how things work, but it seems like they all just contain a one-line description of a program and compilation instructions.

      If anyone here has done LFS, did you actually learn anything from it? Is it worth spending more time on?

      19 votes
    34. I want to learn Android (with Kotlin) ... should I focus on Jetpack or the old XML style?

      I am an experienced programmer (mostly M$ stack -- C#, etc). I started learning mobile Android development a few months ago, learning both Kotlin and the larger Android development environment at...

      I am an experienced programmer (mostly M$ stack -- C#, etc).

      I started learning mobile Android development a few months ago, learning both Kotlin and the larger Android development environment at the same time. I got bogged down in tutorials and guides, because half of them teach Jetpack Compose methodology and half teach XML layout ... and, often enough, don't bother to mention which method they're using.

      Which should I learn first? I am initially interested in learning Android dev for my own hobby/fun/side projects, but I would--ultimately--like to be able to put "Android developer" on my resume.

      Jetpack definitely looks better, more modern, more OO, and I expect it will eventually become the new standard ... but that could still be many years down the road. Also, while it might be "better"--especially for larger projects--it also smells more complicated.

      So, ultimately, I guess I should learn both if I actually intend to become an Android dev ... but I should definitely get comfortable with one, first ... so, which one?

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

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

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

      11 votes
    36. Have you tried Fossil scm, an alternative to git?

      Have any of you tried out fossil as an alternative to git? I have been using it for about a week, and I think I am in love. I have used git for years, since having some sort of source control is...

      Have any of you tried out fossil as an alternative to git? I have been using it for about a week, and I think I am in love. I have used git for years, since having some sort of source control is absolutely essential in programming. But I never liked git or felt comfortable using it. Within a week of messing with fossil, I feel like I understand it and can use it without a guide or external tools. It also has an issue tracker, forums, and a wiki built in.

      Fossil Versus Git

      I recommend reading all of that, especially section 2.5. Their description of cathedral style development lines up much more closely to everything I have worked on than git's bazaar style. Another thing I love is the ability to have the same repo open in multiple different folders at the same time. Basically everything about fossil lines up much more closely with what I think a source control program should be, at least for my use.

      24 votes
    37. File structure difference between NAS and cloud storage

      I have a NAS with a ton of photos and documents that have remained untouched for around 6 years. I uploaded all that stuff to OneDrive. Tidied it up and kept using OneDrive mostly. But I also sent...

      I have a NAS with a ton of photos and documents that have remained untouched for around 6 years. I uploaded all that stuff to OneDrive. Tidied it up and kept using OneDrive mostly. But I also sent stuff to the NAS. They have diverged.

      I'm thinking about ways of restructuring/sorting my NAS to match my OneDrive so that I can then sync the two. I thought about making a python script that would just match on file names and move them to the correct location.

      Figured before I did I'd ask if anyone else had any other suggestions

      12 votes
    38. 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
    39. What programming/technical projects have you been working on?

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

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

      16 votes
    40. Is it possible (or normal) to release a Desktop GUI app using PIP/PyPI instead of regular tools like PyInstaller?

      Folks, Firstly, thank you for guiding me with remarkable insights to my queries about Desktop GUI development using PySide in my earlier post. After much thinking, pondering and meditation, I've...

      Folks,

      Firstly, thank you for guiding me with remarkable insights to my queries about Desktop GUI development using PySide in my earlier post.

      After much thinking, pondering and meditation, I've made up my mind with using PySide2 for this side project.

      Since my app is cross-platform and geared towards power users (who must be having python installed in all likelihood), I want to know if it's feasible to release it through PyPI (PIP) instead of bundling a setup or MSI? Or is this going to be a bit odd?

      Are there any such apps already that do this?

      10 votes
    41. PySide vs .NET WinForms for a Desktop GUI App in 2023?

      Hello Folks, For an upcoming side project - a Desktop GUI app, open source, Apache 2.0 licensed, I'm slightly confused regarding what technology to use. Skills wise, C#/WinForms should be my...

      Hello Folks,

      For an upcoming side project - a Desktop GUI app, open source, Apache 2.0 licensed, I'm slightly confused regarding what technology to use.

      Skills wise, C#/WinForms should be my natural choice as that was the primary technology I had worked on before losing employment at my former company few years back and getting into freelancing. But post my freelance experience, I taught myself things like open source and Python as it came with the territory, and now PySide2 is also a running candidate in this race.

      The goal here is to be as much ubiquitous as possible - that my app should be easy to just "download, extract and run" by as many people as possible. A couple decades ago, a .NET GUI library targeting Microsoft Windows platform would have been the clear choice here as most people used Windows OS and targeting that platform meant being ubiquitous.

      But over the last few years, I've observed that Windows OS has been continuously losing its market share to Linux Distros and Mac OSX, mostly due to some incorrect decisions and strategic blunders by the former than some ground breaking or revolutionary innovation on part of the latter. This means .NET or WinForms is no longer the ideal choice today if you want to be cross-platform and ubiquitous.

      This lead my research to some other toolkits like the Java Swing library, for example. It's old but classic, not a bad choice at all in this case, platform independence is Java's biggest selling point. However, the app I'm making is non-trivial and slightly performance intensive, and Swing GUIs are known to be sluggish on PCs unless you ensure a good supply of RAM by tweaking the JVM settings. I'm also not very experienced in Java to be able to handle those situations in case they arise.

      I also considered Lazarus IDE/Object Pascal, it is also not a bad choice. It is open source, used as the primary course language across many Universities in Europe and most importantly, still maintained and developed. But guess I will have to teach myself a whole new paradigm along with a programming language in case I go this route.

      Finally, Python is something I've almost settled on for this project. It's a language that I'm very fond of and it has helped me survive through the tough times in the freelance market. It also has a vibrant ecosystem and rich repository of user contributed packages at PyPI.

      Now, I've worked on the default Tkinter library in past but somehow felt that it's quite limited in terms of making the GUI more flexible and "tweakable", especially a non-trivial one having several container widgets, syntax editors, menus and drop-downs, trees and list views, etc. PySide2 is, from what I understand, a better choice in this regard as it is comprehensive and based on the time-tested Qt interface. It is not only very easy to code and maintain but also very easy to port across various platforms.

      What do you think? In which direction should I go here?

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

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

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

      16 votes
    43. Windows 10 Admin account loses all functionality?

      I recently started having an issue on my windows machine with folder permissions. The start menu folder suddenly became inaccessible to any program that tried to create a shortcut there. I worked...

      I recently started having an issue on my windows machine with folder permissions. The start menu folder suddenly became inaccessible to any program that tried to create a shortcut there. I worked around it by just taking ownership.

      Now I'm facing a much worse problem where many operations that require admin elevation suddenly doesn't work even after a UAC prompt. This has really become a problem now that I want to install wsl on this machine. Running wsl --install just returns the wsl usage info and wsl --update throws a UAC prompt, but fails saying "The requested operation requires elevation" even while logged into the built in Administrator windows account.

      Normal programs can still use admin elevation (mostly), but everything that windows prompts for behaves as if I'm a regular user despite still giving and accepting a UAC prompt. The Microsoft Store has also seemingly lost the ability to update or repair itself also so that's probably related.

      I've tried all the usual stuff with /DISM, /sfc, every Microsoft troubleshooter. They found no issues. Creating a new admin account lets me create the account but then it inherits the same issues. I can't even gain admin elevation in safe mode. I'm really at a loss. I don't want to have to do a system refresh because it takes so much time to get set back up, but at this point I don't know what else to do.

      Has anyone else ever encountered an issue like this? I've tried searching for this and just end up on a bunch of identical 'help' pages telling me to right click -> run as admin or the generic Microsoft employee pointing me to reinstall again.

      Windows version 10.0.19045 Build 19045 in case that matters

      Edit: I never did find a solid reason why this was happening. It wasn't my university Maya account. While reinstalling windows on a freshly formatted drive I kept getting errors that eventually led me to discoving my ram was going bad. Got it replaced and installed windows just fine. I have to assume the problem started because of memory errors. Thanks for the suggestions everyone.

      10 votes
    44. UK based network consultancy required. Anyone?

      Hi folks Keeping in with the theme of people of Tildes are generally really good people (hopefully), I may have a gig early next year that I want a quote on for a network redesign. It's not...

      Hi folks

      Keeping in with the theme of people of Tildes are generally really good people (hopefully), I may have a gig early next year that I want a quote on for a network redesign. It's not massive at 3 sites of roughly 100 people per site, 2 sites are dark fibred together, a couple of IPSec routes between UK and USA. It's mostly building out IP subnets, correct router and firewall configs, vLANing up the sites correctly.

      If anyone is interested or knows anyone, please reach out to me on this thread for a bit more info, we can take it from there.

      Else, I'm going to reach out to some UK based tech companies for the work. You may ask "Why not do this yourself?" That would require planning and testing which I don't have enough time for; I'd rather a Pro designed, and implemented.

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

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

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

      13 votes
    46. PowersHell and graph - setting SharePoint folder permissions help

      Hello folks Recently we've been playing with Powershell and having to move on to graph to do all the fancy things we want to achieve. MS forced this when they suddenly decided the MSOnline module...

      Hello folks

      Recently we've been playing with Powershell and having to move on to graph to do all the fancy things we want to achieve. MS forced this when they suddenly decided the MSOnline module was retired and things stopped working.

      We've built a great New Team with SharePoint and including folders script. One of the things we used to do with the PNP module is set folder permission on two of the folders in a new team, making them only accessible to Owners. How the devil does one achieve this with Graph?

      Any pointers would be grand.

      8 votes
    47. Suggestions to spend my educational budget on

      The end of the year is approaching fast and I still have some educational budget to spend. Therefore I would love to hear your suggestions for educational resources to spend some money on. I'm...

      The end of the year is approaching fast and I still have some educational budget to spend. Therefore I would love to hear your suggestions for educational resources to spend some money on.

      I'm open for all suggestions, but I would love to dive more into low level programming. I spend most of my work time as a backend dev. And it is nice for a change to something else than REST-endpoints.
      At the beginning of the year, I bought the amazing Crafting Interpreters by Robert Nystrom and I'm enjoying tremendously.

      So any recommendations going into the same direction or similar deep dives into topics like OS-dev, Game dev/graphics (tiny renderer comes to my mind) or writing emulators would be appreciated.

      To get the discussion started, my top recommendation for his year would be Crafting Interpreters by Robert Nystrom.
      If you are interested in the inner workings of interpreter and compilers and want a nice "program-along" book get it. I would recommend the paper-version, it is a beautiful book.

      14 votes
    48. 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
    49. How would you structure an Open Collective with the objective of teaching programming to raise money for a cause?

      I am asking as I have just created one. I won't advertise it here, as it feels not in good faith and I don't think Tildes is the right audience (I imagine most of the techies here are probably...

      I am asking as I have just created one. I won't advertise it here, as it feels not in good faith and I don't think Tildes is the right audience (I imagine most of the techies here are probably fairly seasoned).

      I want to offer some kind of programming tuition to people at a good rate (read: affordable to those that might be on a low income but wish to learn). I am doing this to raise money for my local cardiology ward, who have just been told there isn't enough in the budget to cover their Christmas party this year. Morale is low there, and I'd like to help cover the deficit.

      How would you structure something like this?

      Initially, I have written that I have no set fee and am happy to offer services on case-by-case basis (words to that effect). But in a discussion with a friend, they suggested I should do something like:

      • Small donation (£1 - £25): Access to a chatroom (Discord?) where someone can ask questions, and I'll strive to answer and help them as fast as possible)
      • Medium donation (£25 - £50): I will arrange a group session where I cover some basic programming concepts and host a Q&A at the end to help bridge any gaps in understanding.
      • Large donation (£50+): I will arrange a one-to-one session (via call, video or instant messaging) where I will help go more in-depth on a topic or help debug a specific problem.

      If anyone has any experience with this type of thing, I'd appreciate any advice. I have only been a professional software developer for three years, so I am reasonably experienced, but not exactly an industry veteran. I want to set realistic expectations for this service.

      I'm happy to share a link to the open collective via private message if anyone wants to have a look over it and offer any advice.

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

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

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

      13 votes