Mastodon Feed
Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your weary 'net denizen"):
kathimmel@mstdn.social ("kat donegan 🇵🇸✊") wrote:
on this international workers' day, please remember those whose labour goes largely unacknowledged, unappreciated & unpaid. here's to the carers & the cleaners & everyone else without whom the world would pretty much grind to a halt.
#iwd #internationalWorkersDay #huitHeures #1erMai #work #labour #art #illustration
Mastodon FeedBoosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your weary 'net denizen"):
arclight@oldbytes.space wrote:
@cstanhope Put everything in version control.
Unless you have a detailed understanding of what the code was originally intended to do and how it was to be used, you are in no position to judge the code as bad. It is merely inconvenient.
Popular refactoring strategies may not work especially for procedural or scientific code. "Best practice" that can't be applied in your specific case isn't best practice.
Many of the "bad" design decisions are likely because the code's requirements were never updated and the code was designed and built around long-gone limitations - in hardware, tooling, operating system, state of the art, local state of knowledge.
Document and archive the build process, especially compiler flags. Recovering those from a lost build environment is painful.
Focus on integral tests against whatever production, demo, or test cases exist.
Unit tests are a developer convenience; what you need for recovery and refactoring are acceptance tests.
Refactor for clarity not performance - if you don't have a performance problem, don't bother. If you haven't profiled the code, you don't know where bottlenecks are and you're just guessing and wasting effort.
Static analysis, linting, and code reformatters are your friends. Automatic API documentation tools are your friends but the bigger win is understanding the interface of each routine and the mutability of arguments and imports.
Use your platform or language's native packaging tools. Ship a standard installer not a box of loose parts. Define versioned releases and ship packages; users are often not developers so expecting them to understand git is not acceptable. A `curl | sudo` build/install process displays a critical lack of skill, care, awareness, and competence. Use of conda and containers (for non-server applications) are a red flag that an application has unmanageably complex dependencies and setup and usually indicates lazy design and poor understanding of the code and the deployment process.With integral acceptance tests, a repeatable automated build process, and goid version control, initial gross refactoring may now be possible. Avoid large-scale code churn but understand it might be necessary very occasionally - this is why linting and automatic formatting should be done prior to every commit along with testing.
Focus code evolutions; make one very specific modification at a time. Use work planning tools (kanban board, issue tracker, etc.) to strictly define and document change scope, purpose, and acceptance criteria. Importantly, document what's explicitly _not_ in scope. Write these work plans yourself - do not allow users or managers to plan your work. Resist scope creep; better to revert a half-completed targeted revision and rescope and replan the evolution than to uncontrollably widen scope into a change too large and difficult to test or review.
This is a long tedious thankless process and often needs to be treated as a labor of love.
If you have the time, practice code recovery on real applications. Practice and experience make refactoring and recovery easier and safer.
A huge goal of this work is to understand the code at a deep level amd be able to communicate and document that understanding. AI tools cheat you out of that understanding and experience and launder out the subtle cues and evidence of the code's design and intent. If anything they will make the code worse.
Code recovery and revitalization is tedious and painstaking but can be intensely rewarding especially for the depth of knowledge and skill you build and the redundant greenfield development you avoid. Sometimes a rewrite is necessary, often it's simply not worth it because it will cost more and be less dependable than the legacy code.
Mastodon Feedadele@social.pollux.casa ("Adële 🐁!") wrote:
Mastodon FeedBoosted by aredridel@kolektiva.social ("Mx. Aria Stewart"):
annika@xoxo.zone ("Annika Backstrom") wrote:
8 hours for sleep
8 hours for work
2 hours for getting the kids to school
2 hours for commuting
1 hour for cleaning the house
3 hours for what one will
Mastodon FeedBoosted by aredridel@kolektiva.social ("Mx. Aria Stewart"):
TheWarOnCars ("The War on Cars") wrote:
Happy Bike Month to all who observe.
Mastodon Feedfromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻 ✍️ 🥐 🇵🇷") wrote:
I bought an iPhone 18 Pro Max coming from a 14 Pro, and damn, the upgrade is felt, but the thing that sticks out the most are the speakers. When did Apple make the external speakers this good?
I can listen to podcasts in the shower now. Though I probably shouldn't want to do that.
Mastodon FeedBoosted by soatok@furry.engineer ("Soatok Dreamseeker"):
climagic ("Command Line Magic") wrote:
Copy Fail is a very serious root escalation vuln released on Wednesday that requires your attention. More details and the fix at https://copy.fail/ and be sure to reboot after you've patched.
Mastodon FeedBoosted by dysfun@treehouse.systems ("gaytabase"):
GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social ("Kevin Beaumont") wrote:
If you live in the England and rent it's worth reading up about the Renters' Rights Act.
It's a really good piece of legislation from UK gov, which means - amongst many other things - you can't legally be turfed out after a year, you have a right to a pet, Section 21 no fault evictions aren't lawful etc etc.
It's in law from today and is enforced too.
Mastodon Feeddb@social.lol ("David Bushell 🪿") wrote:
reading: NHS Goes To War Against Open Source
https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/05/nhs-goes-to-war-against-open-source/
Sigh.
Mastodon Feedchipotle@mstdn.social ("Watts Martin") wrote:
Yesterday was one of those days that simultaneously felt incredibly exhausting and like I did nothing.
Mastodon FeedBoosted by kornel ("Kornel"):
Natanox@chaos.social ("Natanox 🇺🇦🇵🇸") wrote:
Why didn't I hear about this until now? :bernd:
I'm not crazy enough to install local #AI tools outside of a VM, but I don't blame anyone for trying them out either.
#Anthropic is just another untrustworthy US company though.Given the stark difference between the websites of US garbage and European #MistralAI I'm curious if mistral-cli does something this bad (aside from slopping around)… 🧐
---
Anthropic secretly installs spyware when you install Claude Desktop
https://www.thatprivacyguy.com/blog/anthropic-spyware/
Mastodon FeedBoosted by kornel ("Kornel"):
Edent ("Terence Eden") wrote:
🆕 blog! “NHS Goes To War Against Open Source”
The NHS is preparing to close nearly all of its Open Source repositories.
Throughout my time working for the UK Government - in GDS, NHSX, i.AI, and others - I championed Open Source. I spoke to dozens of departments about it, wrote guidance still in use today, and briefed Ministers on why it was so…
👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/05/nhs-goes-to-war-against-open-source/
⸻
#government #nhs #OpenSource #politics
Mastodon FeedBoosted by dysfun@treehouse.systems ("gaytabase"):
Nickiquote@mstdn.social wrote:
Remember that “supreme” means “covered in a cream sauce”.
A Supreme Court is a court, any court, which is covered in a cream sauce. The Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces? Dripping in delicious sauce, perhaps with some morel mushrooms and pancetta.
Mastodon FeedBoosted by pzmyers@freethought.online ("pzmyers 🕷"):
jack@xeno.glyphpress.com ("Jack Graham") wrote:
It's #Walpurgisnacht, beware!
On this night, Kash Patel's eyes leave his head. They merge with RFK Jr's voice, Hegseth's booze breath, Drumpf's micropeen, and Erika Kirk's pleather jeggings to form a single horrid creature that prowls this haunted night, drunkenly exposing itself to teenage girls and making unfounded claims about vaccines.
Mastodon Feedpzmyers@freethought.online ("pzmyers 🕷") wrote:
Every time I yearn for a car microscope, I hesitate at the thought of the horrific eye injuries that afflict my fellow yussies.
Mastodon Feedpzmyers@freethought.online ("pzmyers 🕷") wrote:
The #1 term creationists don't understand but that they invoke all the time is "information."
Mastodon FeedChrisWere@toot.wales ("Chris Were ⁂🐧🌱☕") wrote:
New Freebooters #PeerTube video. Where we mostly take a look at Drew ridiculous movie takes:
Mastodon FeedBoosted by ChrisWere@toot.wales ("Chris Were ⁂🐧🌱☕"):
chris@video.thepolarbear.co.uk ("Chris Were but on PeerTube") wrote:
Drew's terrible movie takes - Freebooters live and the stream that never started
Mastodon Feedbaldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason") wrote:
Ellen did a great version of this a few years ago
Mastodon Feedbaldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason") wrote:
Here Halldór Laxnes sings his poem to the tune he originally intended. He's... not a great singer, but he delivers it with feeling.
Mastodon Feedbaldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason") wrote:
It's become a tradition for me every year to post a link on the first of May to the performance of Halldór Laxnes's socialist anthem Maístjarnan at the centennial of the Icelandic Confederation of Labour. It captures the solidarity and hope that his poem conveyed.
> En í kvöld lýkur vetri
> sérhvers vinnandi manns,
> og á morgun skín maísól> Tonight every worker's winter will end and tomorrow the sun of May will shine.
Mastodon Feeddysfun@treehouse.systems ("gaytabase") wrote:
i have a feeling i won't like the answer to this, but what do people like for autoscaling in a non-cloud-specific manner?
Mastodon Feedbaldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason") wrote:
Moody picture of a blackbird with its beak full of worms. #bird #birds #iceland
Mastodon FeedBoosted by baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason"):
uglyreykjavik.bsky.social@bsky.brid.gy ("Ugly Reykjavik") wrote:
It was pretty cold that day, so I took these in a hurry.#Iceland #photography #streetphotography #nature #landscape #naturephotography #landscapephotography #abandoned #decay #snow #trees
Mastodon FeedBoosted by baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason"):
uglyreykjavik.bsky.social@bsky.brid.gy ("Ugly Reykjavik") wrote:
Sometimes I come across abandoned summer cabins completely by chance. #Iceland #photography #streetphotography #nature #landscape #naturephotography #landscapephotography #abandoned #decay #snow #trees
Mastodon FeedBoosted by baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason"):
uglyreykjavik.bsky.social@bsky.brid.gy ("Ugly Reykjavik") wrote:
A very colourful cement plant.#Iceland #Akranes #photography #streetphotography #abandoned #decay #blue #green
Mastodon Feedbaldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason") wrote:
Mastodon Feeddysfun@treehouse.systems ("gaytabase") wrote:
90% of working developers I know personally now use LLMs
i'm sorry, get better friends.
Mastodon Feeddysfun@treehouse.systems ("gaytabase") wrote:
I believe the top performers are overwhelmingly using LLMs
ah, i see you're still measuring performance by lines of code. we knew that was bad literally decades ago.
Mastodon FeedChrisWere@toot.wales ("Chris Were ⁂🐧🌱☕") wrote:
Me and Drew are playing Divinity on #Owncast