> In fact, it will add more constraints to your design, because now you have different consumers and potentially writers all competing for the same resource with potentially different access patterns. Plus the maintenance overhead that migrations of such shared tables come with. And eventually you might have data in this table that are only needed for some of the services, so you now need to implement views and access controls at the DB level.
PostgreSQL, to name one example, can handle every one of these challenges.
It's not that it is not possible, but whether it's a good idea.
The usual problem is that some team exposes one of their internal tables and they don't have control over what type of queries are run against it that could impact their service when the access patterns differ. Or when the external team is asking for extra fields that do not make sense for the owning team's model. Or adding some externally sourced information. Or the team moving from PostgreSQL to S3 or DynamoDB. And this is not an exhaustive list. An API layer is more flexible and can remain stable over a longer time than exposing internal implementation depending on a particular technology implemented in a particular way at the time they agreed on sharing.
This is, of course, not a concern inside the same team or very closely working teams. They can handle the necessary coordination. So, there are always exceptions and simple use cases where DB access works just fine. Especially, if you don't already have an API, which could be a bigger investment to set up for something simple if it's not even known yet the idea will work etc.
> But so what? Docker is an integral part of the workflow for tons of developers. We use it to be able to run different versions of MySQL, Redis, and ElasticSearch for different applications on the same machine at the same time. You can't really do that without Docker.
Nix + Process Compose[0] make a great combo, and runs completely native.
For me the appeal of protobuf is the wire-format forward-backward compatibility.
It's hard enough to not break logical compatibility, so I appreciate not having to think too hard about wire compat. You can of course solve the same thing with JSON, but, well, YOU have to solve it.
(Also worth noting, there are a lot of things I don't like about the grpc ecosystem so I don't actually use it that much. But this is one of the pieces I really like a lot).
Arguably JSON doesn't have this problem at all since it encodes the field names too. The only thing it doesn't handle is field renames, but I mean, come on, you know you can't rename a field in public API anyways :)
Many JSON parsers allow to store extra fields in a separate dictionary/map, and certainly the format allows for it too, so I'm not sure what makes you say that statically typed languages are at a disadvantage here
> You can of course solve the same thing with JSON, but, well, YOU have to solve it.
There is not a single well established convention across all languages/impls. The default behavior in many languages if a field is missing is to either panic, or replace it with a null pointer (which will just panic later, most likely).
> There's a tool I could have used to fix it, but it's accompanied by a message saying that if you use it without permission you'll be fired.
Sometimes I name certain APIs/function names/whatever with a "do_not_use_or_you_will_be_fired" suffix. Generally for hacks I don't want people to copy-pasta. I can't actually fire anyone, but it gets peoples attention (especially more junior folks).
shutdowns can be done in software like 'sudo systemctl halt', so it doesn't need a line straight to the motherboard. That's the desired path because it lets running applications gracefully close and finish writing to disk.
I was there, and unlike many of the other commenters, I feel like it was just ok. Imagine maker faire but there happens to be a stage next door with YouTubers.
The panels I did see, the moderator (William Osman) didn't do a very good job moving through questions, so very few people got to actually ask anything.
I also felt very strange that the only place I saw kids was lining up to ask YouTubers questions during the panels. I couldn't help but think about how many kids want to be YouTubers when they grow up - it seems like YouTuber idolism was the main event and not any of the awesome booths by non-famous people.
> The panels I did see, the moderator (William Osman) didn't do a very good job moving through questions, so very few people got to actually ask anything.
William Osman’s style is the anti Mark Rober: His channel is about winging it with projects that halfway work if they’re lucky, while being kind of awkward and mocking everyone and himself. Moderating the panel and getting questions answered probably wasn’t their goal. The goal was to be kind of entertaining in the style that their viewers are familiar with.
Would be frustrating for someone to go into one of those panels expecting a traditional efficiently moderated panel.
> I also felt very strange that the only place I saw kids was lining up to ask YouTubers questions during the panels. I couldn't help but think about how many kids want to be YouTubers when they grow up - it seems like YouTuber idolism was the main event and not any of the awesome booths by non-famous people.
Open Sauce was supposed to be inspired by two other conferences: Maker Faire and Vidcon. Vidcon was primarily a YouTube and later TikTok conference. Open Sauce is basically VidCon’s successor in California with some maker booths added in and an emphasis on maker channels. It’s still heavily a YouTube conference though and the primary focus is YouTuber audiences, which is where they do much of their marketing.
Meeting your favorite YouTubers is one of the main selling points of the conference. I wouldn’t read too much into the fact that you saw kids excited about their favorite YouTubers at a conference literally pitched on YouTube as a way for them to meet their favorite YouTubers.
> Moderating the panel and getting questions answered probably wasn’t their goal.
> Meeting your favorite YouTubers is one of the main selling points of the conference.
These statements seem at odds with each other. If meeting your favorite YouTubers is the main selling point, then IMO they did a pretty bad job with the fan service.
Let me put it this way: They put on a show that matches their style on YouTube and podcasts.
The few fans who get to ask questions aren’t the ones being served. They’re entertaining the mass of people who came to see more of the same content on their YouTube channels, which is disordered chaos where they joke with each other, make fun of things, and joke around.
It’s a continuation of their style everywhere else, and it’s what many of their fans came to see.
If you were expecting a traditional panel style where each question-asker got to be the focus and drive the show for a minute, that’s not their style.
I’m not saying it’s good or bad, it’s just different from what you might expect from a more formal conference.
Like I said, I’m saying it’s good or bad or right or wrong.
I do think you’re not the target audience, though. A lot of my maker friends also skip Open Sauce because it’s more about the YouTube personalities than about science and makers
I think they're missing out; groups like FOSSF brought a whole quasi-working garage chip fab (they're working on an 8086 working chip, slowly but surely), the creator of ADSBee was there, Meshtastic had a great booth and folks talking about wireless routing and antenna design, etc; it's like a science fair for adults, though there's a bit of the weird Vidcon vibes. You can ignore that part completely, and have a great weekend.
There's also a whole robotics, rocket building, and gaming area, and booths ranged from artsy to extremely technical (CuriousMarc was live debugging some old HP oscilloscopes, nearby some Apollo hardware sitting out on a table).
I love the concept of expecting Big Willy to be an effective panel moderator. At times the guy can barely moderate his own mind (which is why I adore him).
This wasn't billed as a career fair. Why are so many comments criticizing as if it were?
And on the subject of careers. What's inherently negative about kids wanting to be a YouTuber? For every kid chasing fame, there is probably an equal who just wants to share their passion with an audience.
> I love the concept of expecting Big Willy to be an effective panel moderator. At times the guy can barely moderate his own mind (which is why I adore him).
This encapsulates the disconnect with Open Sauce: It’s pitched as a big Maker Fair crossed with VidCon, but in practice a lot of it revolves around William Osman and his entertainment style.
If someone who adores William Osman and his content went to a panel like this they’d be entertained.
If someone who went there expecting to hear from the makers and have questions answered, they’d be frustrated by the way the moderator became the centerpiece and the questions felt like fodder for the moderator to riff on.
This is the disconnect that has turned off a lot of my maker friends from Open Sauce: It’s a fun idea, but the actual conference leans toward being a William Osman centered show with YouTuber friends doing guest appearances. That’s great for people who are into that and obviously a lot of people enjoy it, but the maker side of the conference feels like something of a sideshow at times
I disagree. As I see it, it's pitched as a William Osman-inspired event. I wouldn't expect it to be a well oiled machine. In fact I'd expect it to be exactly how you framed it in the last paragraph.
Personally, I can't help but feel like those wanting it to be something else are responsible for projecting those desires on to the event, and not the other way around.
> As I see it, it's pitched as a William Osman-inspired event. I wouldn't expect it to be a well oiled machine. In fact I'd expect it to be exactly how you framed it in the last paragraph.
This all makes sense for people who discovered it and hear about it through William Osman.
More broadly, it’s not marketed as a William Osman centered event. Spend some time on their website and there’s barely any mention of William Osman. Instead it’s about education, growing communities, and building careers: https://opensauce.com/about/
So for people in the in-group who rally around William Osman, the chaos all makes sense.
For people who stumbled upon the conference as a new maker fare with cool exhibits, it’s weird to show up and experience the vibe that orbits around William Osman and his friends.
Not suggesting it’s good or bad, but the disconnect is obvious throughout this thread. Even the Open Sauce website focuses on things like career building, but then people in this thread are being criticized for thinking the conference has anything to do with career building.
The about page you linked consists almost entirely of a single link to an article in Forbes titled "meet the youtube stars bringing their crazy creations to Open Sauce"
Respectfully, I fail to see how that gives folks anything but the expectation it's centered around YouTubers.
To be fair, I don’t think that was the original intent
But when the creator of a conference has such a large following and primarily promotes through their YouTube channel, a lot of attendees will come to expect that person to play a large role in their experience.
And one of those observations is that it was a very weird vibe to see dozens of 6 year olds line up excited to ask a question, and only 3 or 4 getting the opportunity.
Having a science/tech/maker YouTuber as a role model is arguably better than, say, a fashion model, an actor, a populist podcaster, or a footballer, no?
You have YouTubers versions of all these, plus more (YouTube body builder, YouTube gamer, etc). The difference is people want to be famous on YouTube, instead.
Most YouTubers that kids use as role models are simply questionable entertainers and pranksters, so I’d say on average, it is much worse than having a footballer as a role model…
I would say no. I don't think one can adopt this stance without thinking less of people who pursue those activities. And I'd rather show kids humility, as opposed to superiority.
I do find it tiring that tech oriented people still feel the need to denigrate people who are in the arts or athletes (tbh lumping them in with podcast grifters may be the greatest insult). Children can and should have a variety of role models.
Especially when we have seen over and over again that some youtubers (not pointing at any at this even specifically) have shown themselves to be of quite low character.
There are plenty of pro sports icons that have low character. Good character is not a qualification to put a ball through a goal, hole, hoop or elsewhere, in pro sports or on youtube.
I don't know any "tech oriented" people that put down anyone "in the arts", but most of them have no interest in sports. That doesn't mean they denigrate anyone in sports, but as for myself I do find humanity's fascination with putting balls into goals, holes, hoops and elsewhere a bit tiring, and I think it's a bit of a waste of humanity to put so much importance on putting balls into goals, holes, hoops or elsewhere, but we are all free to have our own opinions.
> I think it's a bit of a waste of humanity to put so much importance on putting balls into goals, holes, hoops or elsewhere
Sports can be seen as something of an improvement over more lethal forms of inter-group conflict.
Fortunately tech oriented folks have invented "e-sports", which are competitions based on pressing keys on a keyboard or buttons on a game controller, and possibly moving and clicking a mouse in order to affect pixels on a screen.
Games and game-like systems provide many benefits:
Simulations are particularly valuable because they allow you to test out strategies for risky activities (wars, investments or business ventures, gambling, etc.) without actual risk.
Twitch/reflex games like first-person shooters can improve eye-hand coordination. It's a fun recreational and social activity that can also help surgeons make fewer mistakes.
Narrative games are largely a modern form of storytelling, one of humanity's oldest and most important cultural practices.
Social games can build connection and teamwork; cozy games can facilitate relaxation; construction games can facilitate creative expression and spatial reasoning....
The reason people like games is because they are fun; but the reason games are fun is that they engage - and often challenge - the abilities that we use to interact with the real world.
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Because it means we no longer have a service based economy, but that we now live in a jester-based economy. Science isn't necessarily flashy and loud, it's a lot of hard, often thankless work. Long hours in a lab away from friends and family and even people.
We can't all be the center of attention. society has a lot of other roles that need to be filled, but if everyone only wants to be the star, a lot of roles just won't happen. This is why UBI won't work. We should absolutely help poor people survive and live dignified lives, but UBI is a cop-out.
>we no longer have a service based economy, but that we now live in a jester-based economy.
In which way jester-services is worse than any other types of services?
>Science isn't necessarily flashy and loud, it's a lot of hard, often thankless work.
And in most cases it is more useless than the work of jesters
>society has a lot of other roles that need to be filled, but if everyone only wants to be the star, a lot of roles just won't happen
We do not live under communism, so "everyone only wants to be the star" does not imply that society is obliged to fulfill this desires. The market will fill these roles even if everyone wants to be the star.
>The panels I did see, the moderator (William Osman) didn't do a very good job moving through questions, so very few people got to actually ask anything.
Panels are a pretty mixed bag at conferences in general. So many panelists are reiterating talking points, they're repetitious a lot of the time, they're too polite and in agreement, and audience questions are often in the vein of not so much a question but a comment. I have seen good panels but I often avoid them as a rule.
I've noticed this as well, past couple of years it has turned into more panel/ytuber focused, less about the actual projects showcased on the ground floor. Not to mention, it is pricing out many from attending.
I agree that it was a bit meh, maker faire with a small side of youtubers is an accurate description but overall I enjoyed it and there were definitely some cool booths. Saturday was also ridiculously busy making it hard to navigate and interact with folks, Sunday was much better in that regard.
I took my 7 and 6 year old and they loved it! We spent all our time looking at projects and booths. They have no interest in the talks.
With that said, there are not that many kids below highschool age that were in attendance. It is more geared to older kids/adults. But I do think there are lots of things to see there for kids. Probably the higher entrance fee reduces this a bit as well.
With that said, you want to pay close attention to your small children, as some of the exhibits are not super kid safe. But that is part of the fun!
There is a lot of variability in what you see as well. Some tables have incredible cutting edge projects, and other are exciting for a highschooler. Some are amazing highschool/middle school projects that the builders are really passionate about, but might not wow you technically.
Every year I find an amazing creator there, where I bring in their work to our house for the family to build/play with.
Last year we found https://www.trackstacker.net/ which has provided hours of fun over the last 12 months.
And this year we found https://professorboots.com 3d printed construction equipment.
Who's an economist? Parent comment is from hamandcheese, who seems to be a software developer https://hamon.cc/ and the article is by Jeff Geerling who is I guess most known for RPi hacks but has a devops background https://github.com/geerlingguy
There isn't a whole lot left in the US economy to aspire to. Do you think wanting to be a day trader is better? Should they try to get a professional engineering job and join the 50% of graduates who are unemployed a year after graduating?
> Should they try to get a professional engineering job and join the 50% of graduates who are unemployed a year after graduating?
The graduate unemployment rate is not that high. Did you perhaps see the viral Tweets TikToks or Reddit posts going around recently based on the article that got the decimal point wrong and overestimated it by an order of magnitude?
- flakes perform very poorly in large repos. This might be changing soon with lazy-trees, but I've been waiting for that for 2+ years.
- flake inputs are not fetched lazily.
- flakes are somewhat restrictive in that you can't override an input with an arbitrary value. This matters if you want to pass in, say, a specially configured nixpkgs object. In practice, for non trivial use cases, flakes fail to solve the problem they set out to solve. Most flakes expose lib functions for these advanced use cases but that's pretty much equivalent to what you get with non-flakes.
PostgreSQL, to name one example, can handle every one of these challenges.
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