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Or Mint? Works flawlessly for me when I need a Linux, which is not so often these days, but if I was still doing cross-platform software development it's what I'd use. Minimal fuss.

Mint is one of the greatest distributions to get started with for users coming from Windows. I've been using Fedora full-time for more than four years now, but before that I used Linux Mint for about a year. It's a great, seamless experience.

Only problem I believe is the lack of customization options in Cinnamon compared to KDE and even Gnome with extensions. I guess that makes the user miss out on some of the cool parts of owning your software. Also, being stuck in X11 will start to become a problem in the next few years: I'm waiting to see what they come up with on that front.


> So, what are the forces that have determined the current state of C++?

A subset of the language aimed at library writers. As a user of those libraries all these weirdo features are likely to be transparent.


TFA explains how std::move is tricky to use and this is not a feature reserved for library writers

Of course it is not reserved for library writers - nothing is. But it is not a feature that application writers should worry about overmuch.

std::move is definitely for there for optimizing application code and is often used there. another silly thing you often see is people allocating something with a big sizeof on the stack and then std::moving it to the heap, as if it saves the copying

> another silly thing you often see is people allocating something with a big sizeof on the stack and then std::moving it to the heap, as if it saves the copying

never seen this - an example?


Naming things is hard.

I'm convinced naming things is equivalent to choosing the right abstraction, and caching things is creating a correct "view" from given normalized data.

This made me think that, for a band known for its guitarists, what great vocalists the Dead had - Weir, Garcia, Lesh, Pigpen, particularly when doing harmonies.

Anyway, bye-bye Bob, thanks for all the music.


> strength training

why do you think you need to do that? most people don't.


Most people experience severe mobility problems in old age that would likely have been preventable by strength training.

you don't need to do anything. why try? sit at home and watch tv.

i can hike elevation all day which is great for backpacking, i look great with a shirt off, and i can stand up from the couch without using my hands.

yes, im taking it a bit far at this point, but really that just means eating the average american's protein intake and then a protein shake or two on top


That question is, honestly, kind of stupid. It is akin to asking why eat healthy or why go outside in the sun.

But hey, here we go.

1. Intense physical exercise is the only known way to increase IQ. (Admittedly pure strength training is not the best for this, HIIT workouts are better)

2. Muscle mass is a huge factor in the early death in seniors. Basically people who lack muscle mass are more likely to fall over and fracture something, at which point they are much more likely to die.

3. Lean muscle mass, up to a certain point (e.g. extreme body builders have worse mortality numbers), decreases mortality across the board.

4. I like living w/o pain, and you can choose to either have your joints take the load or your muscles take the load.

5. I enjoy being able to move my body and be active in the world.

6. I'm vain and I like to look good.

> most people don't.

Most people in America die of a heart attack. Most people in America are obese and have troubles moving around. Most people in America don't read books. Most people in America don't enjoy mathematics. Most people in America don't go to art museums.

People should have aspirations to do more than average.


At one point on an international project I had to fly a box of UK A4 to the USA in my luggage so the Americans could check their software could cope with the different size. It did, but lugging it around was a pain - paper is heavy!

I wish we could buy A4 paper in North America! I find it surprising it's not available even in specialty stores. The rest of the world uses it!

You may need to look for 8.27" x 11.69" - https://www.staples.com/hammermill-copy-plus-8-27-x-11-69-co...

Or you can buy a ream of legal-size and have a printshop slice it down (which is how I got ahold of B4 or B5 IIRC).


I don’t know what specialty stores you’re talking about but A4 is readily available at most stationary stores, or anything related to letter writing, pens, or paper. I got the A5 notebook I’m currently using at Barnes and Noble, they also have A4.

Heck, I’m pretty sure you could get a sheaf of it at any number of office supply stores right now if you wanted.


* stationery :-)

Unless you have mobile paper shops. Could be handy, but seems a bit niche.


Well I've never seen one move!

For printers?

I buy A4 notebooks all the time. I use fountain pens, so many of the notebooks and even loose paper with the proper sizing (coating, that is) usually come in EU sizes. Tomoe River... Clairfontaine... etc.


Kodak used to have an industrial printer partnership with Heidelberg. They would test their printers with pallet loads of A4. Most I've ever seen in the US.

Yo do know all the jokes about how the US would anything as a measuring system except the metric system? Same with paper.

I had the reverse, we had to get a ream of US Letter and corresponding envelopes sent over so we could ensure the layouts printed properly. Also some chequ… “checks” which were fascinating.

Couldn't they... just cut it according to A4 dimensions?

An interesting question, but I think it would be very hard to do it accurately. Also, some of the reports the needed to print during testing were looong.

> then burn it and all the source

Nah, don't do that. You will enjoy looking back at it in your old age. I wish I had all my old code now.


fare enough. So long as you don't inflict it on the world as something they might really use it is fine.

Speaking as someone that was a SO front-page contributor, and at one brief time the top of the pops on the C++ tag, I didn't think it was so bad. And you got a free t-shirt!

What you have to understand is the avalanche of low-quality questions that came in, pushed by "academics" who should have known better, telling students things like "just ask on SO - they will write it for you", which is bad on so many levels.

But when it got really bad was when the new owners, after Jeff & co sold out, took over. Woke nonsense sprouted everywhere, people with no technical knowledge did moderation. And, whoa, if you criticised this, you were banned. That's when I gave up.


How on earth did wokeness even come up there? You’d have zero notion of my political leanings if you only read the words I’d written there. How badly do you have to phrase a question or answer to have it downvoted for being not-woke? “So I’m trying to write a GET route in FastAPI, which has a great ass, by the way, amirite?, and I’m getting the error that…”

The complaint is about back-room drama rather than user-facing activity. https://meta.stackexchange.com/search?q=monica is a good starting point.

> How on earth did wokeness even come up there?

Wokeness is a control mechanism. If you tread one inch off the "correct" path (as any normal person is going to do occasionally), you will get stomped. For example:

[jane] Using "delete this" is perfectly safe in C++

[neil] Jane, not at all. For example .....

[moderator] neil, i think you are disrespecting jane - 6 hour ban.

And I am not joking about this. But it was only the company employee moderators that did this, and they did it excessively. They also got rid of the few mods who knew how to mod and wouldn't toe the line.


how exactly do you think C and C++ differ here?

> how exactly do you think C and C++ differ here?

`new` throws, `malloc` returns. That's a pretty big difference!

Idiomatic C++ code never puts a `try` around `new`, while idiomatic C code always checks the return from an allocation.


Well: https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/memory/new/nothrow.html

I thought you were talking about the use of malloc in both languages - you never mentioned new in your first post. and i think we have different views on what is "idiomatic" in the languages.


> I thought you were talking about the use of malloc in both languages - you never mentioned new in your first post. and i think we have different views on what is "idiomatic" in the languages.

That's fair, but malloc is certainly non-idiomatic, isn't it?


Department of War.

That is not the official name, and it is highly unlikely that it ever will be in the future.

It's worth pointing out the Department of Defense was named the Department of War for over 150 years, up until 1947.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Wa...


True, but it required congressional approval to change the name then, and it would now as well.

This congress is not likely to approve it. And the next congress, even less so.

That said, "ever" is probably too strong. There's a window wherein the chaos which is currently being actively created by the US will develop to an extent that compels the US (or is sold to US voters as a necessary step) to adopt a foreign policy where it would be the more appropriate title. And if the adults can't manage that with charismatic leadership in the next election cycle or two, we could be right back here again, with quasi-legitimate geopolitical justification for the sort of big-stick wagging we see today.

I honestly think this is the goal, and I'm not sure the American people are up to the challenge of preventing it.


In the UK, War Office --> Ministry of Defence, in the 60s I think.

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