maegul

maegul OP Mod , 2 hours ago

For me, the biggest things to take away from these chapters were:

• Enums and pattern matching
• Borrow checker concerns emerging from these new data structures
• Derivable traits

---

Enums and pattern matching for the win

• That the pattern matching facility is powerful, and that enums can have associated data, structured independently for each variant ... really provides a (relatively straight forward and versatile "happy path" in rust IMO.
  • I tried to hack together a file differ in rust a couple of months ago (see my post on my solution here, mostly in the comments) and found myself just leaning into enums + pattern matching and rather enjoying the process.
• So much so that major (and celebrated?) features of the language such as Option and Result types are really just applications of enums (along with rust's good type system)

The example in the book of the IP Address enum type is quite a nice demonstration I think:

enum IpAddr {
    V4(u8, u8, u8, u8),
    V6(String),
}

let home = IpAddr::V4(127, 0, 0, 1);
let loopback = IpAddr::V6(String::from("::1"));

We're still learning "The Borrow Checker"

• Ownership and borrowing concerns are still alive here in their application to structs and enums and what best practices arise out of it all.

Match statements

• In match statements, the concerns are relatively straight forward (I think). Match arms take ownership of the variables they "use/touch" (I'm still unclear on the details there!) ...
• so if you want a variable to live beyond the match statement, match on a reference.

EG:

let opt: Option<String> = Some(String::from("Hello world"));

match &opt {
    Some(s) => println!("Some: {}", s),
    None => println!("None!")
};

println!("{:?}", opt);

• There's a slightly tricky thing that happens implicitly here:
  • Though the match is on &opt, the s in the pattern Some(s) is also a reference because rust implicitly "pushes down" the reference from the outer enum to the inner field or associated data.
  • Seems tricky, but also ergonomically sensible.

Borrowing self in methods

Probably the trickiest and most relevant part of the two chapters

• the self in methods, like any other variable, can be one of three types in terms of ownership:
  • Owned by the method, like a plain variable
  • A reference (&self)
  • A mutable reference (&mut self)

struct Rectangle {
    width: u32,
    height: u32,
}

impl Rectangle {
    fn area(&self) -> u32 {
        self.width * self.height
    }

    fn set_width(&mut self, width: u32) {
        self.width = width;
    }

    fn max(self, other: Rectangle) -> Rectangle {
        Rectangle { 
            width: self.width.max(other.width),
            height: self.height.max(other.height),
        }
    }
}

• What's tricky about this is that a method's signature for self has consequences that both reach back to the initial type of the root object (ie, is it mutable or not) and forward to what can be done with the root type afterward.

  • EG, a method that takes &mut self can't be used on a variable that isn't initially mutable.
  • EG, a method that takes ownership of self effectively kills the root object, making it unusable after the method is called!!

• I'm sure there are a bunch of patterns that emerge out of this (anyone with some wisdom here?) ...

• But the simple answer seems to borrow self, and if necessary, mutably borrow.

• Taking ownership of self is an interesting way to enforce a certain kind of usage and behaviour though.

• As the object dies, the natural return of an owning method would be a new object, probably of the same type.

• Which leads into a sort of functional "pipe-line" or "method chaining" style of usage, not unlike the "Faux-O" idea in Cory Bernhardt's talk Boundaries. It's likely not the most performant, but arguably has some desirable qualities.

Derivable Traits

• We haven't gotten to traits yet, but they come up here.
• Turns out rust has kinda has a system of inheritance for structs where a trait can be easily implemented for a struct "automagically": #[derive(Debug)]

EG:

#[derive(Debug)]
struct Rectangle {
    width: u32,
    height: u32,
}

• This particular trait, Debug, allows for the printing of a struct's full makeup with println!.

• All of the "Derivable" traits (from the std lib) are listed in Appendix C of The Book

• There aren't that many, but they're useful:

  • Copy and Clone enable a struct to be copied without having to worry about ownership (though you have to be careful about the types of the fields, as its their copy methods that are ultimately relied on)
  • Four traits that implement methods for comparison and equality operators
  • Hash for hashing an object
  • Default for defining default values

• Of course, when we cover traits we'll learn how to implement them ourselves for our custom types, but these seem to be fundamental features of the language, and easy enough to use right away.

maegul OP Mod , 2 minutes ago

Also, on the topic of "having references as fields in structs" ... see this conversation we had here about that.

That conversation started from a post on the users . rust-lang forum, where the ultimate pithy and harsh conclusion about doing this was:

You’re not allowed to use references in structs until you think Rust is easy. They’re the evil-hardmode of Rust that will ruin your day.

😉

Use Box or Arc to store things in structs “by reference”. Temporary borrows don’t do what you think they do.

maegul , 17 hours ago

Yea, academics need to just shut the publication system down. The more they keep pandering to it the more they look like fools.

maegul , 1 hour ago

Yep. But that is all a part of the problem. If academics can't organise themselves enough to have some influence over something which is basically owned and run them already (they write the papers and then review the papers and then are the ones reading and citing the papers and caring the most about the quality and popularity of the papers) ... then they can't be trusted to ensure the quality of their practice and institutions going forward, especially under the ever increasing encroachment of capitalistic forces.

Modern day academics are damn well lucky that they inherited a system and culture that developed some old aristocratic ideals into a set of conventions and practices!

maegul , 1 hour ago

I'm sympathetic, but to a limit.

There are a lot of academics out there with a good amount of clout and who are relatively safe. I don't think I've heard of anything remotely worthy on these topics from any researcher with clout, publicly at least. Even privately (I used to be in academia), my feeling was most don't even know how to think and talk about it, in large part because I don't think they do think and talk about it all.

And that's because most academics are frankly shit at thinking and engaging on collective and systematic issues. Many just do not want to, and instead want to embrace the whole "I live and work in an ideal white tower disconnected from society because what I do is bigger than society". Many get their dopamine kicks from the publication system and don't think about how that's not a good thing. Seriously, they don't deserve as much sympathy as you might think ... academia can be a surprisingly childish place. That the publication system came to be at all is proof of that frankly, where they were all duped by someone feeding them ego-dopamine hits. It's honestly kinda sad.

maegul , 1 hour ago

The problems are wider than that. Besides, relying "individuals just doing the right thing and going a little further to do so" is, IMO, a trap. Fix the system instead. The little thing everyone can do is think about the system and realise it needs fixing.

maegul Mod , 1 day ago

pay attention, there’s a screen that pops up, there’s a date and a year. That’s the only chance you have. If you miss that screen in the beginning, you miss what year it is

Almost feels like the writer's realising in real time that it was a mistake to not be more clear about this.

Which I say as someone totally ready for a film that is a shameless "cover" or "redux" of alien/aliens without caring too much about how much it makes sense or moves the franchise "forward".

Doesn't mean that we don't want some clarity around what the film is actually trying to do, especially in the era of reboots and pre-/sequels.

maegul Mod , 17 hours ago

Wait, what do you like about alien then? This feels like quite the internal struggle.

maegul , 1 day ago (edited 1 day ago)

Like all the other replies ...

• On one hand ... fuck you, you awful person, why would you put me through that
• On the other hand ... you are a treasure and a master craftsperson and ought to be celebrated for the mirror you hold up to society

... sometimes ... fucking "modern hustle" youtube ... just come on!

EDIT: just to be clear, this was wonderful and thank you, I’m being mostly facetious here.

maegul , 1 day ago (edited 1 day ago)

Abso-fucking-lutely!!

It's another example of how modern tech is has forgotten how to be "humane" (Look up Bret Victor and his philosophies on tech if you're keen on deep diving on this more) ... that is, actually good for humans and not merely the best way to make profit. And so the promise of tech to help and solve problems, given how many resources are being poured into it, is often looking like a failure.

maegul , 1 day ago

Yep. I’ve reached the point of wanting all information on the internet in Wikipedia format.

maegul , 2 days ago

The introduction of a plugin system seems interesting here, though it's still alpha and basically looking for feedback from would-be plugin developers

AFAICT, there's no established way for a plugin to surface affect the UI, which would be a somewhat unwieldy problem anyway due to the apps and frontends ecosystem. Probably the best path for any plugin that provides a UI would be to have a system for aggregating links to plugin UIs.

With something like that in place, plugins and other services that just use the DB/API, could really go a long way to filling these holes, if they haven't already.

So it seems that the work needed here is perhaps "distribution" work ... where there's a more "plug and play" Lemmy distribution with plugins etc bundled?

maegul , 2 days ago

but we’re at a critical point right now. It’s no longer software that is just fun side projects and building stuff that looks cool, it has some real issues now that it has a real userbase. I’m definitely one to say “But it’s FOSS, and other people can pick up and submit a PR” - but it also says something when the head devs just completely ignore a massively huge issue with it.

This is a general issue I think, not just for lemmy but the whole fediverse (whatever one's opinions might be on particular priorities).

It's all non-profit and being run and built at a much smaller scale than many users would appreciate (I think). Sure there are plenty of people here, but not that many. Combined with no obvious revenue streams, such as ads or subscription fees, there really is only so much that can be done. Some time last year even the Mastodon team (by far the most successful fediverse platform) admitted that they didn't have the capacity to work on new things for a while ... they were just busy keeping things running. And they are (apparently) notorious at being slow to ship new features. Meanwhile platforms like firefish just straight up died last year.

So yea, it might be a critical point, for sure. But putting more on the core dev teams may not be the answer for the simple reason that it's just not viable in the long run.

If we enjoy the bigger community focus and open and non-profit organisations that makeup the fediverse, the "answer" at this critical point might be to find a way to give back somehow ... to organise, build communities, run fund-raising campaigns, think of ideas for more sustainable funding, find devs who can help etc etc. It's perhaps onerous and annoying, even to read perhaps ... but this is likely the tradeoff we have to make for a place like this.

maegul , 1 day ago

Should there be something like a lemmy admin's community for talking about the ins and outs of running a lemmy instance? Something like that over time can be some sort of band-aid for missing documentation (it's searchable etc).

I'm aware that there's the matrix room and a lemmy support community ... but maybe just opening things up to any chat about hosting lemmy in one place could actually help (in part because you can easily search specifically within one community).

maegul , 1 day ago

I hear you for sure on this.

I personally appreciate the push the core devs make for a "less demanding" relationship between users and open source devs. I think they have a point and it's good for long term sustainability and I'll probably find myself defending it.

But I like you're framing, and in retrospect it seems (as is usually the case) that some people organising was what was missing just to get everyone helping each out as much and efficiently as possible. While any member of the community can (and should) do that, at some point it makes sense for the core devs to take on a task like that, I agree.

maegul , 1 day ago

Absolutely!

The bit I'm conceptually stuck on (not know much at all about how a good plugin architecture would work) is how a plugin can surface or affect the UI, especially in an ecosystem with multiple UIs/Apps/Frontends, and, a federated ecosystem at that.

Given the apps, I figure it's not possible without a convention of plugins providing APIs which apps can then implement against when available, which adds a good amount of complexity but should be viable for popular/useful plugins. Though, tangentially, this does affirm for me that the whole native mobile app expectation is a bit of a trap for a social system like the fedi (as webUIs are naturally more universal and maleable).

So, for immediate results, I can see only two options:

1. a plugin operates on the backend directly manipulating or creating content not unlike a bot
2. a plugin provides its own webUI which is made available through a simple and dedicated location in the UI

Is there something I'm missing about how a plugin system could work?

maegul , 1 day ago

Youre right about lemmy-ui, unfortunately it doesnt have enough contributors. I dont know why that is, you’d think a project written in a popular language like Typescript would easily find contributors.

Random thoughts:

• Is it obvious enough that one can contribute to the UI separately from the backend and that it's a Typescript SPA style UI?
  • If not, maybe a bit of a "dev recruitment campaign" could help ... let people people know and what sorts of issues could really do with new contributors lending a hand? Maybe even a bit of a "Inferno isn't that different from all of the other SPA frameworks/libraries spiel?"
• Is the use of Inferno as oppose to one of the big 3 React/Vue/Svelte a repellent? (perhaps a downside to the "diversity" of frontend frameworks?)
• Are would-be UI contributors more inclined to make their own front-end or app than contribute to the default webUI?

---

More generally:

• Would a server side rendered webUI be welcome?
  • Then the contributions would mainly be on templates and their "simpler" logic, which might be more attractive or easier to get started on?
  • Plus, it might be more efficient? The current UI feels to me like it would suit server side rendering well.
  • Is this where the new leptos UI is heading ... more server side rendering (I don't know much about leptos)
• Do you have a sense of usage numbers for the different apps and frontends? Obviously you only run lemmy.ml, but do you have a sense of how much the front-end gets hit versus the API directly?
  • I ask, because If the default WebUI is really the main interface, then it makes sense to try to organise some more contributors (It's certainly my main, nearly exclusive interface, as much as I've like some of the alt front ends or apps)

maegul , 2 days ago

The internet cannot fit so much awesomeness ... JFC that was awesome!

maegul , 3 days ago

It's interesting to see these kinds of ideas. Can't help but feel it's reactionary and superficially "anti-government" without looking at other deeper issues.

What is "law" without judicial enforcement? If you don't have constitutional law, then a big pile of power balancing is thrown out, so you have to make sure you want that. That the Court is by far the least democratic institution is pretty obvious (but to be fair, in a two-party system, I'm not sure how much "democracy" there really is to start off with). But it's also the least worrisome if you care about individual's rights/freedoms, which is part of the reason why it's special status makes sense: it relies entirely on cooperation from everyone else.

So, why abolish its power to enforce the constitution? Because it's unreliably politicised? Then I think that might be the underlying issue.

maegul , 2 days ago

It’s the least worrisome because it can be abolished (selectively)

I'd say it's because they don't command the police or military and are completely subject, without input, to the democratic levers of government including, not least, amending the constitution itself.

They sit completely under the constitution, and it itself is a democratic entity. If the amendment process doesn't feel democratic enough, well then we get the elephant in the room about how much democracy do you want and whether that's maybe your main problem.

If cooperation is not at least partially optional, then it’s not the weakest branch

What other branch is partially optional?

In the case of a court, they're role is passive. They only act when prompted by a party who brings a case. Legislators and the Executive do what they want when they want. So surely they're by the most optional. Honestly have no idea what you're trying to say here ... the point of governmental power and law is arguably not to be optional.

maegul , 2 days ago

The only Constitutional restriction on them is impeachment and removal,

... and constitutional amendment ... a democratic process

But if your not willing to consider that an executive might at some time be right in saying “no”, then they are effectively all powerful.
That’s the “optional” part.

Then would the country have any option to being subject to the Executive's power to override the court? You sidestepped my most important question ... what kind of governmental power is ever "optional"? And I suspect that's because you haven't thought through what happens when you override one branch's power with another's.

Moreover, in highlighting how easy it is to ignore the court, you're strangely acknowledging my "least worrisome" point but then folding that into an argument that they should therefore be ignored by the executive ... because "they can" or "they might be right". Which only highlights the danger of this line of thought ... if one reads between the lines, it'd be fair to conclude that you favour the more powerful parts of government flexing their muscles. The danger being that there's no outline here of what happens next and whether there are then more or fewer "options" for the country. If the executive can just say "nah" ... what law is there? What constrains the government from its natural vice of abusing power, compared to a court that can only say somethings are not permitted?

Otherwise, if a politicised court is a concern (which I generally agree with and probably like you feel should be taken more seriously to the point that formally I actually endorse your arguments, just not substantively) ... I think there are various other things that can be done without throwing the baby out with the bath water. Unfortunately, I'd fear that the politicisation of the court, to the point that controlling it's makeup seems like half of the point in a presidential election, and the constitution (or its "hot topics") has gone too far for any side to be willing to "let go of the rope".

maegul Mod , 3 days ago

For a continued focus on film, the projector is a pretty iconic representation of the cinema and movies ... so perhaps an alternative image of a projector?

As a start, a quick search dug up these two creative commons pics of projectors: first and second. As easily identifiable thumb nails or icons, I can see images like those working quite well.

maegul Mod , 3 days ago

For a banner, maybe a bunch of Lemmings in a theater watching a movie? I might be able to create it.

I love the idea of including lemmings in banner images! I did the same with the "learning rust and lemmy" community: https://lemmy.ml/c/learningrustandlemmy (using AI obviously, chat-GPT 4 IIRC).

maegul Mod , 1 day ago

So far, I'm really liking the new icon ... in the UI (I use the default webUI), it looks good and is clearly identifiable for sure! Nice work!

maegul , 2 days ago

A few months ago, the "Nazi" presence on substack and substack's insistence on not moderating them (like at all it seemed) broke as a story, during which Casey Newton (and by extension his "platformer" blog) got engaged with substack about the issue and, after being disappointed with substack's responses and policies, famously left for Ghost (see their post on the move here.

Pretty sure that boosted its profile and prompted talks of federating, which they were initially hesitant to do ... but here we are now.

maegul , 4 days ago

Interesting! Any insights or comments on what's increased the resources of lemmy over the recent updates?

maegul , 4 days ago

I think there's a pretty fair argument that more common and easier languages and tech stacks are preferable platforms for smaller more personal instances ... just the comfort of being able to modify and debug is probably worth whatever other tradeoffs may be encountered. Python, naturally, is basically a prime candidate. So yea, PieFed seems very cool, especially for personal servers and they've got a good performance profile.

maegul , 4 days ago

Yea I did a quick search through the GitHub issues, and it seems like there are some growing pains with updates they're making to the way things work and the load it puts onto the database. Sad to hear for smaller instances as my impression was that lemmy had pretty good performance for smaller instances. Architecturally, it makes sense that there are different tradeoffs for bigger and smaller instances. It'd be good to see things mature to the point that you can tune things for your instance size. In the end though, picking the appropriate platform but with the assurance that migration can occur when you need to change platform may be a good way to go.

maegul , 3 days ago

But I get the database thing. Its spiking every couple minutes and a lot every hour. It’s not a big deal if you have 2 threads at least but I can see how it doesnt work for everyone in every scenario.

Yea database management seems to where the growing pains are right now (with the core devs welcoming help from anyone with DB/PostreSQL expertise) ... and indeed it seems to be a perennial issue across the fediverse platforms.

If I may ask (sorry, probably annoying) ... what sort of resources would you recommend for a small personal lemmy instance? (let's say 1-5 users, ~200 community subs and a few local communities?)

maegul , 3 days ago

Cheers! 2 threads and 2gb RAM I’d what I would have hoped for anyway. Thanks!

maegul , 3 days ago

Ha, yea! If you know rust, then you don’t need to reach for Python (right?!). Plus the main motivation was to contribute to lemmy itself while also learning rust. That another platform is good for personal instances doesn’t change that, though piefed does seem cool and I can see myself wanting to get involved with it at some point.

maegul OP Mod , 4 days ago

My feeling was that you need to pay a minimum amount of attention to get a feel for the film, probably more than most films. But that's pretty easy to recognise early on and the film kinda weans you into realising this.

But beyond that minimum amount, it's up to you how much attention you want to pay, where you can opt more for the vibe of the interconnected stories, or try to be super detailed. Unfortunately, I think there's a genuinely toxic reaction from some viewers that hates a film that demands some amount of "work" from the viewer, as though the film has done something wrong. Which is toxic for a few reasons, but one sad one I think is that it destroys the idea of watching a film more than once in order to understand it better and just going along for the ride the first time.

maegul OP Mod , 4 days ago

Thanks for the rec!

maegul OP Mod , 4 days ago

I think you are giving yourself too much credit.

Honestly not sure what you mean by that ... what credit am I giving myself?

Cloud Atlas tries to be intricate but the story is just not good. “We are being reincarnated” isn’t an original idea.

Well, I think that depends on what you want. I for one was very happy to watch an attempt at putting reincarnation to film. The core idea of reincarnation doesn't need to be original, and I don't think the film itself has any sense of that, in the same way that LotR (books or films) doesn't try to claim that geography and history are its own original "ideas".

As for whether the story is "good" ... well, the core of the story is kindness, self-discovery and finding a way to live with or "fight" the evils of the world, along with some meditation on "what is the significance of one's life". Like I said, I'm not keen on describing this as either "good" or "bad", but I'm certainly happy to watch it and I'm sure plenty of other people are too.

Otherwise, comparing LotR to Cloud Atlas seems strange to me. The former is essentially lore based while Cloud Atlas is intended to be self contained. There are things in the LotR book/movie that just do not make as much sense without then reading the Silmarillion and/or the appendices, and all of the internet dissemination of this lore for those who haven't read more deeply is quite extensive ... it's basically top-tier fantasy world building gone mainstream ... having details discoverable beyond the film, and which have been "discovered" by many, including it seems yourself, is by design, before the films.

But you don't have to watch Cloud Atlas more than once, it works just fine on a single viewing IMO, and is clearly not intended to be a world-building exercise, in large part IMO because it is very much about our world, here and now.

But if you don't like it or find it tedious ... that's all good, I get it. I just think there's something misplaced in trying to approach a critique from a relatively objective standpoint of "done well" or not. It's a film that's very much about a vibe or feeling IMO (which Ebert was always pretty good at picking up on I think, thus my link to his review), and either you're receptive to that vibe or you're not.

Subjective art ... is good ... wonderful ... vital even.

And that's part of what I appreciated about the film, it seemed from the outset to have a relatively personal essence that you either connected with or didn't ... which is what my comparison to some of the modern stuff, especially TV, that I've consumed lately. There's nothing quite like a "personal" work.

maegul OP Mod , 4 days ago

No worries!

maegul OP Mod , 4 days ago

Excellent points!!

I hadn't actually framed it as art being the connection across time ... but it's definitely there! Though I think it's more than heart but sort of "soulful or heartful work" ... thinking of Somni's sermon here ... which is really just a broader category that includes art IMO.

And yea, with the editing, I agree. Nolan's films are often put up there as editing show cases (The Prestige especially IMO) and I was surprised to get a Nolan vibe from Cloud Atlas's approach to editing and to have never heard of it in that regard!

maegul OP Mod , 3 days ago

lol ... I can see that!

I'm personally not too keen on the book because I'm not sure I need that story in literary form. The core idea seemed more natural in a cinematic/visual form.

maegul OP Mod , 3 days ago

Interesting! Hope it goes well ... TBF though the book-to-film path is always at least a little cursed.

Rather curious to hear your thoughts if you do watch it!

maegul OP Mod , 3 days ago

Haven’t seen the trailer, but I think I can imagine this.

maegul OP Mod , 3 days ago

I don’t know the film. Do you recommend it?

maegul OP Mod , 3 days ago

I really liked it especially after starting it without knowing anything about it.

Basically how I went into it, it being over 10 years since it came out. Going into films this way is a fantastic thing IMO and more people should really seek out that type of experience. Expectations and spoilers from trailers work to get buts in seats but not enhance the cinematic experience at all.

The cinematography is amazing too.

Yep! It looked fantasic!

maegul OP Mod , 3 days ago

people either seem to love or hate it.

This should be normalised more IMO. Even sought after. Usually it's a sign that there's something special in it if you're one of the people that are going to like it ... and that should be treasured.

I said it in another reply ... subjective art is awesome!

---

Curious how you feel about The Fountain ... as that was the most similar film I could think of.

maegul OP Mod , 3 days ago

And it's poor performance and reception was probably the end of their film careers too.

Jupiter Ascending was such a weird problem ... like I feel like there's a good film in there but it was cursed in some "last attempt to stay in hollywood" urge or something.

maegul OP Mod , 3 days ago

Yea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fountain

Speaking of which, I'm just cooking up an idea of running a sort of watch club here, where something like this could be an ideal candidate, at least for a sort of "out there, somewhat experimental sci-fi cinema watch club".

Do you have any thoughts on whether that'd be something you or others would be interested in?

maegul Mod , 4 days ago

How much of this is an enshitificatin dynamic?

My impression is that cinemas used to be everywhere, like corner sandwich shops almost, and have been killed off by mega corp monopolies.

Like the film industry itself, it could just be the sort of thing best done without trying to make a significant profit, but instead happy to break even.

maegul Mod , 3 days ago

Nice work. Chs 5 and 6 are lighter weight after ch 4, as they're more basic language features stuff, so it makes sense you made quicker progress than you thought.