chapill

I notice you didn't warn the anti rights person who did start the flamewar, because that person refuses to acknowledge similarities between the two situations.

I notice you have a tendency to attack me because you clearly disagree with my opinions.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16578470

I'm obviously not welcome here. I'll go. You won't need to worry about any more wrongthink from me. Enjoy enforcing your opinions on everyone. Your board, your rules.

One example, scrolling table with fixed table head. Why is that not something I can specify declaratively? Why is that next to impossible, even with the aid of JavaScript.

Where are tabs? Where are image carousels? Why is it that styling forms elements is still essentially impossible? Where are <select> elements with icons? Where are calendar date pickers that allow me to select multiple dates and ranges?

Why was three columns with header and footer declared the "Holy Grail" of CSS for a decade? And does anyone remember building rounded corners with <b> tags?

Basic basic basic structures that literally every developer is asked to build don't exist. Every developer everywhere has wasted ridiculous amounts of time making something barely functional which should have been stupidly simple.

What currently sets programmers apart is the lack of liability. Programmers write their own get out of jail free cards. We call them EULAs.

If a doctor screws up and leaves a clamp inside you after surgery, he is sued. If a programmer screws up and leaves a debugging backdoor in a shipped product, nothing.

>Can you think of a consistent, concrete set of ethics that would draw unanimous support among programmers?

I think if programmers can't come to a consensus on that answer, then legislators will do it for them.

If you look around, we're actually witnessing this happening right now. Populist anger has erupted after Equifax, Cambridge Analytica, and Uber. NYT opinion pieces call for changes in liability law around programming.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/11/opinion/equifax-accountab...

And it's not just talk. Changes have already started. Section 230 was recently modified to make small changes in liability of web hosts. In response, Craigslist went full nuclear option in protest and dropped their Personals section. Almost nobody noticed, which means in the next round, law makers will be much more bold in applying more liability to the businesses of programmers.

Google's "Do no evil" was the closest thing I think we've witnessed to a Hippocratic oath for programmers. That's long gone now. Now it's all jerk tech, exploit your users for content and then demonetize them with no recourse or redress.

I don't think the west can get any wilder, so the pendulum is going to go against us from here on out. Programmers should be getting ahead of this, but like all dumb humans, we will sit stupidly. We will only react to immediately obvious consequences instead of preparing for the storm on the horizon.

There's a famous quote for this:

It should be noted that no ethically-trained software engineer would ever consent to write a DestroyBaghdad procedure. Basic professional ethics would instead require him to write a DestroyCity procedure, to which Baghdad could be given as a parameter.

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nathaniel_Borenstein

Of which I believe the meaning is yes, it's evil. It's handing a toddler a loaded gun sort of evil. If you DestroyBaghdad, you've limited the harm your program can do to what is specifically required by the situation. DestroyCity is easily misused in the wrong hands and should be carefully considered by ethical programmers.

Doctors solve this by disallowing unethical members of their profession to legally practice. Programmers should consider becoming an ethical profession, because depending on others in the field to do the right thing and police themselves hasn't been working out.

We started at submission about Google employees waving around a paper tiger petition, we proceeded to top ranked reminder to everyone of DARPA and how military funding is the One True Way, then on to crypto export controls, rolling onward into a gun control debate, conflating semi-automatic weapons with rocket launchers, and finally into yes, the meaning behind "fire in a crowded theater."

The comment section on HN is now second only to the comments from Yahoo news stories. Keep up the great work everyone.

RISC-V is already faster. It just needs better fabs.

>I really find it difficult to figure out why things fail even though I have almost 20 years of experience

>In Gradle, this is immediately understandable to everybody

You pulled an easy example to defend Gradle for the exact problem you just complained about.

>You may not want or like to learn another tool and that's fine.

It's not about like or want, it's about having the wisdom to recognize a poor solution before investing time in adopting it. OP fell for the hype. Maven works fine for me, thanks.

https://mobile.twitter.com/BrittanyVenti/status/981372650575...

Aaand, she's banned.

https://www.freedomsafespace.com/m/videos/view/YouTube-Shoot...

She seems really upset.

http://www.nasimesabz.com/

>Maven...you have to write your own plugin. Not nice.

>If I wanted to change one thing in Gradle it would be for the Gradle project to focus on debugging

You've just explained why I have no interest in Gradle. You're writing one off, undocumented, anonymous plugins, in a weird domain specific language, with debugging tools that aren't very good.

Worse, when the Gradle guru decides to leave the company for greener pastures, everyone else is left with a mess trying to figure out WTH that person was doing in all the build files.

https://cellularprivacy.github.io/Android-IMSI-Catcher-Detec...

Do the Feds have bounties for catching illegal stingrays?

Freedom's last holdout now are Coreboot ARM machines like the latest ARM Chromebooks.

>derailing the discussion by not reading is perfectly okay

Is according to guidelines, not me. My fault that wasn't clearer.

>Please don't insinuate that someone hasn't read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that."

It's annoying that pointing that out to the didn't reader is against the rules, but derailing the discussion by not reading is perfectly okay.

But what do I know? Am shadowbanned most of the time.

It also assumes the situation won't be recursive. Lighten sentences for men.. then suddenly women get even lighter sentences. Repeat until there is no sentence at all?

The article basically boils down to, "It's not fair to men. We should Do Something![TM]" It does not strike me as a well thought out appeal to the reader.

[1]If you disagree with the notion that courts favor women, and you flag me instead of the article, you're doing it wrong. I'm pointing out flaws in submission's logic, not arguing whether or not it is correct.

http://thehill.com/policy/technology/359499-franken-condemns...

“No one company should have the power to pick and choose which content reaches consumers and which doesn’t,” said Franken. “And Facebook, Google and Amazon, like ISPs, should be neutral in their treatment of the flow of lawful information and commerce on their platform.”

And then one week later, his political career was suddenly over. Politicians got the message loud and clear; Don't F* with Facebook.

I assume the baby didn't survive the process since there's no mention of that.

And if you think you are safe because you don't have an account, I have bad news for you.

"the Uber car was driving at 38 mph in a 35 mph zone"

End of story. Uber is at fault.

http://exfiltrated.com/research-Instagram-RCE.php

Suddenly he's so concerned about transparency he's leaving over it? This report seems very fishy. All the sources are "according to current and former employees." Not one person willing to go on record?