Notices by Jean-Baptiste "JBQ" Quéru (jbqueru@fosstodon.org)

@cwebber Hey, you inspire me. I have a copy of the license in my distribution package, I'll make sure that it is included in the binaries themselves, with a command-line option to read it.

Now, should I push further? Should I include the source code in the binary? That'd be fun.

@skinnylatte I got to have it almost for myself, on a weekday when I made a point of being at the doors when they opened and of going straight to that exhibit. It's truly a marvel.

@mos_8502 @thomholwerda At Google, we had a rule of thumb: there are always 2 of everything: the one that's deprecated, and the one that's not ready yet.

@lfa C made so much sense to me when I learned it after years of programming almost exclusively in assembly.

@dalias @mossmann The passive voice strikes again.

"Legacy code" is often code that you want to replace because you don't understand it. The problem is, before you can replace it, you need to understand it, and, once you understand it, replacing it is rarely the cheapest option any more.

#SoftwareEngineering

@popey I recently decided not to buy a Pi500 since I already have a Pi5 with 8GB. Now, a 16GB Pi500 with an actual M.2 slot would make me change my mind for sure.

@dalias No security consulant will ever be able to charge as much for saying "your system is secure enough as it is" as for saying "your system needs a lot of security improvements." Especially since they'll be able to reject liability in case they make recommendations that end up not being implemented, no matter whether those are practical or cost-effective.

@eugenialoli @JRepin Looks like Eugenia got it working for me. The basic experience seems to be there, as well as some reasonable flexibility for syntax highlighting. I'm probably going to switch to it, since I tend to prefer Open Source tools.

I just gave ChatGPT another chance at helping me write some code. I pasted some uncommented chunk of assembly (not trick code), and asked it to comment that code.

The most it was able to guess "intelligently" is that the code had to do with graphics. Beyond that, though, it was quite useless. It tried to comment instructions one by one with their literal meaning, and even got that wrong. It also couldn't group sequences of instructions into logical groups.

(1/4)

It was specifically unable to understand how Z80 register pairs work, where some instructions operate on the entire 16-bit pair, and others on single 8-bit registers. From there, it didn't understand the pointer arithmetic and commented it all wrong.

I then asked it to guess which specific machine the code might be for, but, without understanding the pointer arithmetic, that's hard.

I tried to help it by giving it leading questions about verifiable facts (not about code).

(2/4)

It started wrong, mentioning that the ZX Spectrum is the only Z80-based machine that stores its framebuffer in main memory.

I then asked about the Amstrad CPC. It recognized that it also has the framebuffer in main mamory, but got the address and size wrong. From that point, it did mention that both Spectrum and CPC have its framebuffer in main main memory.

When I asked about MSX, though, it said that the framebuffer is also in main memory there, which is not accurate.

(3/4)

As it stands, for my use case, ChatGPT remains useless as a coding tool. It provides inaccurate high-level information, inaccurate technical data, and its understanding of code is too shallow to be useful, with critical mistakes that end up causing more harm than good.

I'd need to suffer from Gell-Mann Amnesia to trust anything from ChatGPT, given how wrong it is on topics where I do have expertise.

(4/4)

@selzero I remember my mom asking me why I care that other folks get access to health coverage and education. I explained that I don't want to store clerk to sneeze over the produce they are setting up in the supermarket, or that I want the people who'll take care of me when I'm old and sick to actually know what they're doing. She got it.

Over the last 3 1/2 years, wearing masks and being careful about where I go, I've only been sick once (I did get covid one of the few times when I wasn't careful).

I used to get sick several times a year. I've probably saved myself at least a dozen bad colds.

There's no way I want to go back to "before." Instead, I wonder how I was stupid enough not to wear a mask in all those situations where I was at risk of getting contaminated.