#code base

[trooper1023]

Tim Boudreau on FB:

About the whole DOGE-will-rewrite Social Security's COBOL code in some new language thing, since this is a subject I have a whole lot of expertise in, a few anecdotes and thoughts.

Some time in the early 2000s I was doing some work with the real-time Java team at Sun, and there was a huge defense contractor with a peculiar query: Could we document how much memory an instance of every object type in the JDK uses? And could we guarantee that that number would never change, and definitely never grow, in any future Java version?

I remember discussing this with a few colleagues in a pub after work, and talking it through, and we all arrived at the conclusion that the only appropriate answer to this question as "Hell no." and that it was actually kind of idiotic.

Say you've written the code, in Java 5 or whatever, that launches nuclear missiles. You've tested it thoroughly, it's been reviewed six ways to Sunday because you do that with code like this (or you really, really, really should). It launches missiles and it works.

A new version of Java comes out. Do you upgrade? No, of course you don't upgrade. It works. Upgrading buys you nothing but risk. Why on earth would you? Because you could blow up the world 10 milliseconds sooner after someone pushes the button?

It launches fucking missiles. Of COURSE you don't do that.

There is zero reason to ever do that, and to anyone managing such a project who's a grownup, that's obvious. You don't fuck with things that work just to be one of the cool kids. Especially not when the thing that works is life-or-death (well, in this case, just death).

Another case: In the mid 2000s I trained some developers at Boeing. They had all this Fortran materials analysis code from the 70s - really fussy stuff, so you could do calculations like, if you have a sheet of composite material that is 2mm of this grade of aluminum bonded to that variety of fiberglass with this type of resin, and you drill a 1/2" hole in it, what is the effect on the strength of that airplane wing part when this amount of torque is applied at this angle. Really fussy, hard-to-do but when-it's-right-it's-right-forever stuff.

They were taking a very sane, smart approach to it: Leave the Fortran code as-is - it works, don't fuck with it - just build a nice, friendly graphical UI in Java on top of it that *calls* the code as-is.

We are used to broken software. The public has been trained to expect low quality as a fact of life - and the industry is rife with "agile" methodologies *designed* to churn out crappy software, because crappy guarantees a permanent ongoing revenue stream. It's an article of faith that everything is buggy (and if it isn't, we've got a process or two to sell you that will make it that way).

It's ironic. Every other form of engineering involves moving parts and things that wear and decay and break. Software has no moving parts. Done well, it should need *vastly* less maintenance than your car or the bridges it drives on. Software can actually be *finished* - it is heresy to say it, but given a well-defined problem, it is possible to actually *solve* it and move on, and not need to babysit or revisit it. In fact, most of our modern technological world is possible because of such solved problems. But we're trained to ignore that.

Yeah, COBOL is really long-in-the-tooth, and few people on earth want to code in it. But they have a working system with decades invested in addressing bugs and corner-cases.

Rewriting stuff - especially things that are life-and-death - in a fit of pique, or because of an emotional reaction to the technology used, or because you want to use the toys all the cool kids use - is idiotic. It's immaturity on display to the world.

Doing it with AI that's going to read COBOL code and churn something out in another language - so now you have code no human has read, written and understands - is simply insane. And the best software translators plus AI out there, is going to get things wrong - grievously wrong. And the odds of anyone figuring out what or where before it leads to disaster are low, never mind tracing that back to the original code and figuring out what that was supposed to do.

They probably should find their way off COBOL simply because people who know it and want to endure using it are hard to find and expensive. But you do that gradually, walling off parts of the system that work already and calling them from your language-du-jour, not building any new parts of the system in COBOL, and when you do need to make a change in one of those walled off sections, you migrate just that part.

We're basically talking about something like replacing the engine of a plane while it's flying. Now, do you do that a part-at-a-time with the ability to put back any piece where the new version fails? Or does it sound like a fine idea to vaporize the existing engine and beam in an object which a next-word-prediction software *says* is a contraption that does all the things the old engine did, and hope you don't crash?

The people involved in this have ZERO technical judgement.

[fence-time]

[duckydrawsart]

More Holloweane, inspired by this piece 🎆

Killer Track is easily my favorite episode. It's such a fun concept, and very cinematic and bittersweet :')

[beautysnake]

MASSIVE MONSTER LET ME PET THE CAT PLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEAS

[everwalldigan]

Ok but Bruce’s “batglare” except it has specific stages that mean you’re in varying degrees of trouble. Allow me to elaborate:

Level 1: isn’t even really considered a glare in Bruce-speak, more of a suspicious squinting

Level 2: standard Disappointed Dad look, the most you’re gonna get is a reprimand

Level 3: resting Bitch face. Less of a glare and more of a sharp look that WILL follow you around and creep you out

Level 4: worried batglare, features aren’t as sharp as with the standard batglare. Usually smooths out when his kids/teammates stop being idiots and putting themselves in danger

Level 5: standard batglare, regular criminals are usually at the end of it, most of the kids have gotten pretty used to it

Level 6: You’ve Fucked Up. Expect a screaming match or a lecture of at least 30 minutes. Also you’re grounded

Level 7: full batglare on steroids, makes grown men piss their pants, usually reserved for the joker. Most of the kids have received it only once and that was MORE than enough for them to never want to receive it again

Level 8: Alfred.

[misspermitted]

Not to randomly talk about Apothecary Diaries, but almost every time Mao Mao talks about Jinshi she uses the most romantic and poetic terms possible but says them with the banal factuality of a nature documentary narrator, and it is absolutely sending me. Like:

Mao Mao, completely deadpan: He is such a heavenly beauty, people would start wars over him.

Mao Mao, legitimately concerned: I best not put makeup on him. If he were made any more beautiful it would topple nations

Mao Mao, watching girls fawn over Jinshi: This makes sense, he has such otherworldly beauty that he would be irresistible to any woman or man

Mao Mao, as if taking a scientific observation: Something must be amiss with Master Jinshi, usually he glitters like the sun

(I’m not overdramatising, these exact narrations happened)

[choccorin]

thinking about suguru having tattoos and him letting you turn him into your human coloring book. you'll color the dragon on his arm with the new makeup palette that he bought for you, coloring each scale skin with a different color, mostly pastels. you allow him to choose some colors, but get pouty when he chooses dark shades, making him chuckle and choosing another one. other than makeup, you also use markers—which he also bought for you— to define the lines and draw little doodles, like sparkles and hearts, or a pink bow to make the dragon look “coquette”. he doesn't like how the glitters get everywhere, even after wiping it off, and how hard it is to wash the markers off, but anything for his adorable sweetheart.

[mimzy6bunny]

Silly dogman comic

versão em português

[buttercupshands]

small purefount comic bc I really liked the idea of drawing them

(totally didn't fill this one with codes)

[shepscapades]

[dbhc flavored] Hermit a Day May: Day 14 — Doc!

Featuring both a current-day s10 doc and a verrry early s8 post-deviant doc! :]

[ciderjacks]

Falin Ophelia

[daikonchu]

innovation in dungeon 🍳

[usedtobecooler]

sexual content minors dni.

the thought of eddie munson just being so desperate and aching in the middle of the night that he sleepily, desperately ruts up against the curve of your ass, tip leaking steadily all over the silk of your sleep shorts.

it’s. a thing. always has been a thing. your shorts meant the green light for him to grind and slide up against you in a feverish heat, moonlight peaking through the gap in the curtains and casting the hasty motions in your shadows.

you’re barely awake, only just rousing enough to get with the program and wiggle up against him, make it known he’s okay to keep going even as you bury your face into the pillow sleepily. you roll your hips, marvelling in the way his length kicks up at the movement.

he’s plastered right up against you from chest to thighs, moaning high pitched and desperate into your ear, mouthing at your neck as he ruts a little quicker. until he slides against you differently, askew enough to have his entire shaft slipping between the apex of your thighs, nestled in the tight heat of your sweaty skin, the curve of his tip slipping over your clit through a thin layer of satin.

“please, please baby, lemme stay here. can i?” he begs, peppering kisses against your shoulder and you can’t help but nod when he slides between your thighs again and nudges that bundle once more.

it’s hot, sweaty, the steady stream of pre leaking from his flushed red tip more than enough to slick up the way as he thrusts inside your thighs. you moan, can’t help yourself as the prickle of heat and want shoots up your spine and buries deep. you never expected it to feel so good, to keep you stimulated as much as it did him.

“so fucking good, sweetheart. even your thighs fuck me up, so tight.” eddie’s so stuck to your back he’s practically moulding into you, the bite of his fingertips teetering on painful in the dip of your waist as he uses his grip for leverage to keep thrusting. his curls stuck to your sweaty skin, kisses turning to biting and sucking as he teeters close.

you can’t help the noises that fall from your own lips, needy and hungry for it. it feels good. so good. to feel how desperate he is to get off, listen to how pathetic he sounds being brought to the edge by nothing more than the squeeze of your thighs and the roll of your hips. he knew how to make your head big, so in love with you and turned on by your body that he’d fuck any part you were willing to offer up.

it’s all too much, even with your eyes shut. so when you open them and look down, watching the head of his cock sliding in and out of your thighs and covering you in creamy spatters, it’s too much. your body coils tight like a spring and you’re reaching your own peak before he reaches his, clamping your thighs even tighter with the sheer force of it.

“holy shit, did you—? oh god, fuck it’s so wet, ngh,” eddie thrusts behind you sporadically, sucking right on the tip of your shoulder as he cums in between your thighs, thick spurts soothing the slight sting of your skin, painting you in a gorgeous pearlescent mess.

[skneees]

*cracks him like a glowstick* fish glows

[tanadrin]

until i started rooting around in the world data with dfhack i didn't realize that dwarf fortress randomly generates dance forms for each civilization and they can spread via trade and contact. you cannot really engage with this system at all in fortress mode, and adventure mode is still in beta, so this is hilarious to me. it's like the procedurally generated musical instruments. the things that tarn adams chooses to simulate in excruciating detail are really random.

and yet each species still has only one language, the name generation system is patently ridiculous, and the topography is pure perlin noise. this is why dwarf fortress will always have a charm its imitators can never match. it's just completely idiosyncratic in terms of its concerns and aesthetic.

[spooksier]

leave it to reigen

☆ prints | patreon | comics ☆

had a category 5 printer problem last month which means im sending out two!! (2!) prints for my lovely patreon members this month <3 subscribe at any time this month to snag these two guys :-)