Doc Avid Mornington

Not actually a doctor.

  • 0 Posts
  • 245 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 5th, 2023

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  • If your SQL model has nulls, and you don’t have some clear way to conserve them throughout the data chain, including to the json schema in your API contract, you have a bug. That way to preserve them doesn’t have to be keeping nulls distinct from missing values in the json schema, but it’s certainly the most straightforward way.

    The world has more than three languages, and the way Java and Python do things is not universally correct. I’m not up to date on either of them, but I’m also guessing that they both have multiple libraries for (de) serialization and for API contract validation, so I am not really convinced your claims are universal even within those languages.

    I am not the other person you were talking to, I’ve only made one comment on this, so not really “hellbent”, friend.

    Yes, I am pretty sure I read the comments, although you’re making me wonder if I’m missing one. What specific comment, what “case specified above” are you referring to? As far as I can see, you are the one trying to say that if a distinction between null and a non-existent attribute is not specified, it should universally be assumed to be meaningless and fine to drop null values. I don’t see any context that changes that. If you can point it out, specifically, I’ll be glad to reassess.




  • At the (SQL) database level, if you are using null in any sane way, it means “this value exists but is unknown”. Conflating that with “this value does not exist” is very dangerous. JavaScript, the closest thing there is to a reference implementation for json serialization, drops attributes set to undefined, but preserves null. You seem to be insisting that null only means “explicit omission”, but that isn’t the case. Null means a variety of subtly different things in different contexts. It’s perfectly fine to explicitly define null and missing as equivalent in any given protocol, but assuming it is not.





  • What? Your colleague sounds like they may be struggling with some serious cognitive issues, they may want to see a doctor about that. As for me, I’ve been living with my brain my entire life, and have kept several different sleep schedules in that time, for one reason or another, including rigid adherence to a schedule you would certainly approve of, and at no time has the basic fact that my brain works better later in the day ever changed. Some people never learn that their own circumstances and experience are not universal. Maybe try not to be one of those people.



  • It’s better to have useful comments. Long odds are that somebody who writes comments like this absolutely isn’t writing useful comments as well - in fact, I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen it happen. Comments like this increase cognitive overhead when reading code. Sure, I’d be happy to accept ten BS useless comments in exchange for also getting one good one, but that’s not the tradeoff in reality - it’s always six hundred garbage lines of comment in exchange for nothing at all. This kind of commenting usually isn’t the dev’s fault, though - somebody has told a junior dev that they need to comment thoroughly, without any real guidelines, and they’re just trying not to get fired or whatever.



  • Pretty sure they meant to not have review. Dropping peer review in favor of pair programming is a trendy idea these days. Heh, you might call it “pairs over peers”. I don’t agree with it, though. Pair programming is great, but two people, heads together, can easily get on a wavelength and miss the same things. It’s always valuable to have people who have never seen the new changes take a look. Also, peer review helps keep the whole team up to date on their knowledge of the code base, a seriously underrated benefit. But I will concede that trading peer review for pair programming is less wrong than giving up version control. Still wrong, but a lot less wrong.




  • The UCC I went to every Sunday of my childhood (Dad was the minister, so kinda had to go) would have a loaf of really good fresh bread. Some was cut up in cubes, to take neatly, or you could pull a hunk off the loaf if you liked. One side of the drinks tray had grape juice, the other had wine, again, your choice, although obviously when I was young, I didn’t reach for the wine in front of my mom. Little tiny snack was the best part of church.



  • So, do you not think the principle of ensuring a justice doesn’t have to worry about their next gig is valuable, or do you think youthfulness is just more important?

    I think the court should be expanded, quite a lot. There is nothing magical or constitutional about the number nine. Congress could easily expand it to twenty, or fifty, or more while limiting justices by terms or age would require a constitutional amendment. Nothing says every justice has to sit on every case. A larger court would be significantly less prone to extremes, reducing the importance of individual nominations.




  • Democrats have pretty much been the same since Clinton, not really drifting right. Yes, Democratic centrism enables Republican extremism, but the neoliberal agenda of Democrats, regarding domestic economics and foreign affairs, has stayed pretty constant, while they have actually improved on social issues. Clinton or Obama would not have handled Israel’s recent actions differently, they might even have done worse. On domestic issues, Biden is probably the most progressive president since LBJ. Now, granted, that’s really a condemnation of American politics since then, more than it is praise of Biden - but still, we are finally moving in the right direction again, at least, and it’s important to acknowledge that, if we want it to continue.