this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2025
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[–] Cruel@programming.dev 66 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I took great pains last week to convert a big python project to make it typed. (shoutout to MonkeyType)

It's so much nicer to develop now...

[–] jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 19 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Oh that's a neat library. Type annotations in python are really nice, and you don't have to add tooling like when you switch from JS to TS.

[–] Cruel@programming.dev 7 points 3 weeks ago

Yeah, I stopped developing in JS for good ~1.5 years ago. After using TS, it seems crazy to go back.

[–] kubica@fedia.io 64 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

Empty string used to be like my own version of null pointer.

[–] marcos@lemmy.world 47 points 3 weeks ago

Oh, you worked at Oracle by any chance?

[–] DScratch@sh.itjust.works 29 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Dark times…

Like -1 for an Int nil value.

[–] uranibaba@lemmy.world 8 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Which language can nil an int?

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 4 points 3 weeks ago

Just cast it. /s

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[–] baines@lemmy.cafe 10 points 3 weeks ago

easy there satan

[–] panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 45 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)
[–] joyjoy@lemmy.zip 32 points 3 weeks ago

Me: Puts a boolean into sqlite

Me: Asks for that boolean

SQLite: "Here's that int you asked for"

[–] asperan@programming.dev 20 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

It is also the bash approach, isn't it?!

[–] AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space 10 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Also, Tcl (a cute little scripting language from the 90s, best known for giving the world the Tk UI toolkit; it was somewhat Lispy, only under the hood, worked like sh, where everything was a string).

[–] brian@programming.dev 7 points 3 weeks ago

more directly, sqlite was originally for tcl which is why they share the semantics.

also I'd argue that sqlite is a bigger contribution than tk, but I suppose in a more roundabout way

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[–] saltesc@lemmy.world 6 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

God, I'm so over SQL.

It's great, but it is so old and shows it. Feels like 99% of my SQL queries are just cheese.

Works though, and quick.

[–] mesamunefire@piefed.social 21 points 3 weeks ago (10 children)

SQL is the only bedrock in my entire career. Its the one thing that has stayed relevant.

SQL is great but when you start having issues processing what is actually going on, its fine to pull out what you need and throw another language on top (python, C#, etc...etc...). Getting it to work slow is one step in making it fast again.

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[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 5 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

They finally added strict tables which avoids most (all?) of those shenanigans.

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[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 31 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

I am strongly strongly statically typed pilled and I will not apologize.

[–] expr@programming.dev 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

100%. Though I can't imagine the meme is actually saying that things being stringly typed is a good thing.

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[–] magic_lobster_party@fedia.io 29 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] InternetPerson@lemmings.world 7 points 3 weeks ago

We don't touch that unless we really know what we're doing.

[–] BenLeMan@lemmy.world 23 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

God, that reminds me of the debate on XML that I had with a developer about fifteen years ago.

Both our companies were working for a client who needed to publish product catalogues in several languages twice a year.

They had implemented a sort of Content Management System which they used with a plugin to feed data into Quark Xpress files as well as their website, IIRC. Cross-media publishing, essentially, and they had their own little set of format instructions to make words appear in bold, different colors, etc.

Since my company was tasked with translating the text into various languages, I suggested they come up with a way to store their data as XML. The standard tools in the translation industry can be easily customized to work with that, and XML would be a good way to future-proof their software. After a lot of delaying, grumbling, and ho-hum, they agreed to implement this plan.

Lo and behold, when the first meeting on the new XML format came around they showed it to me for the first time and... everything was in CDATA sections. Entire paragraphs of text with proprietary formatting instructions. 😐

When I tried to explain, very politely, and very patiently, that this was not going to work, the lead dev started insulting me. I swear to God, I've never been this close to punching someone in the face at a business meeting. 🤬

Thankfully, the client understood the issue and we eventually got an XML-based data exchange going. It is probably still in use today.

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[–] kiri@piefed.social 17 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] Jerkface@lemmy.world 12 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

... Little Endian or Big Endian?

[–] squaresinger@lemmy.world 6 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)
[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 5 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I made a joke about that lately after someone suggested YYYY-DD-MM.

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[–] apfelwoiSchoppen@lemmy.world 15 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

The NHL banned the use of 00 as a number in the 95-96 season because they claimed their databases couldn't handle it. They still are fools because this continues to be a banned number to this day.

[–] AmazingAwesomator@lemmy.world 6 points 3 weeks ago

(i am old) both my brother and i were number 00 in our younger hockey years. we were goalies, so we got first pick of numbers on all new teams we played on, heheheh.

[–] lime@feddit.nu 10 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

some of you have never programmed in tcl and it shows

[–] magic_lobster_party@fedia.io 19 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I opened a TCL script once. It’s use of uplevel scared me. I’ve never dared to return since.

For those who don’t know: uplevel is a command that goes up one level of the stack frame, and then executes code there. A function can therefore execute code in its callers stack frame.

[–] lime@feddit.nu 13 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

tcl is pretty fun actually, it's like bash on steroids.

for a preview of the insanity: anything surrounded by "" is a string, with the variable expansion you'd expect. anything surrounded by {} is also a string, but with no expansion. the equivalent in bash is the backtick string. but you don't need to know that to write tcl. if you approach {} as "code blocks" like in other languages, it just works. reason being that tcl evals everything, constantly, attaching little tags to strings that tells the language how things are used, like "this string is an integer" or "this string is code and here is the result from last time it ran". it's madness and, weirdly, robust as hell. Xilinx writes all their tooling in tcl. SQLite started life as a tcl module, and it's still the only api that is not provided by a plugin.

[–] frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I have. I quickly learned not to.

Tk is overlooked, though. It's not pretty, and its approach is archaic, but it's one of the few GUI toolkits that Just Works on every platform I tried it on with minimum fuss.

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[–] ICastFist@programming.dev 9 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Me, trying to learn flat assembler: "What is even an object?"

[–] expr@programming.dev 7 points 3 weeks ago

Me, as a professional Haskeller: "What is even an object?"

[–] kruhmaster@sh.itjust.works 9 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)
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[–] desmosthenes@lemmy.world 9 points 3 weeks ago

lol I think this when I see “any”

[–] KindaABigDyl@programming.dev 8 points 3 weeks ago

Just use enums

[–] trxxruraxvr@lemmy.world 8 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)
[–] Feyd@programming.dev 5 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)
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[–] baines@lemmy.cafe 7 points 3 weeks ago

where my Ada bros not committing war crimes at?

[–] fibojoly@sh.itjust.works 6 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Haha! Reminds me when I arrived in a team whose API accepted JSON and all the booleans were "True" or "False" (meaningful case, obv.) That was fun.

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[–] Lemminary@lemmy.world 6 points 3 weeks ago

[Laughs in computed TypeScript strings]

[–] kewjo@lemmy.world 5 points 3 weeks ago

at the end of the day everything's a []u8 if you want it to be

[–] svcg@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 3 weeks ago

This certainly Tcl'd my funny bone.

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