Yeah, those are mostly showing off. They’re not really what I’m getting at, either. I more want to challenge people to make useful things simply.

And yes, there are ways that JavaScript can be used to give users a faster and more streamlined experience. The web as it stands is so far past that justification. I swear there’s lots of “full stack” devs that haven’t a clue how to make a site without React.

I’d like full stack developers to try something. Next time you have an itch for a personal project, see if you can make it with no frontend JavaScript. Just some CSS and HTML forms. All templating handled on the backend. Just try it and see how far you get. Don’t worry if it looks like a GeoCities page.

Then try finding places where JavaScript would make it more responsive or better UX in some way. Does the back button still work? Is it actually faster? Does it provide any benefit at all?

Maybe it does, but just try.

AWS has a multitude of different offerings with confusing pricing structures. They have zero incentive to make them understandable.

That said, chances are your new company has people who understand this already and know how to manage it. Hopefully, they’ll put up some guardrails that prevent you and others from running up a big bill. I wouldn’t expect a junior programmer to know how to do this, but that’s ok as long as the company is managed right. Granted, that can be a big if sometimes.

unzip
strip
touch
finger
grep
mount
fsck
more
yes
fsck
fsck
fsck
umount
sleep

For raw computation, yes. Most programs aren’t raw computation. They run in and out of memory a lot, or are tapping their feet while waiting 2ms for the SSD to get back to them. When we do have raw computation, it tends to be passed off to a C library, anyway, or else something that runs on a GPU.

We’re not going to significantly reduce datacenter energy use just by rewriting everything in C.

That would be the natural assumption, but Sun didn’t do it. I think there is a logo for books, but not one by Sun/Oracle.

Branding fail so bad that everyone forgets that Java even has a mascot.

Always have to remind myself of this when managers ask me if something could be done. If it’s easy, I naturally get a little annoyed that they’re even asking. But knowing that is my job, not theirs, and it’s good that they ask. There’s lots of places where they assume and things go badly.

That house is in the “so bad, it’s good” category. Vibe coders can only aspire to such things.

Have you ever chained three Cisco 2600 routers together and then successfully ping’d clients on each end? Do you know what BGP is? OSPF? Do you know the difference between routing and routed protocols?

I know you don’t, because people who do don’t make the claims you’re making.

No they fucking don’t, that’s not what routers do. You don’t know what you’re talking about.

And don’t fucking tell me NAT is for security, either.

Skype won’t be supporting anything at all very soon.

What happened with Vonage is something that could happen with any kind of instant messaging, including things like Discord.

With everything directly addressable (not just static addresses, but directly addressable), an IM/VoIP service can simply connect to the recipient. No servers are necessary in between, only routers. That doesn’t work with NAT (CG or otherwise), so what you have to do is create a server that everyone connects into, and then that forwards messages to the endpoint. This is:

• More expensive to operate
• Less reliable
• Slower
• A point for NSA eavesdropping (which almost certainly happened)

This is largely invisible to end users until free services get enshittified or something goes wrong.

Yes, it’s only tangentially related to static addresses, but it’s all part of the package. This is not the Internet we should have had.

And at least in the US (in single family homes) its crazy unlikely that your router is behind any NAT

Your router has NAT. That’s the problem. CGNAT is another problem. My C&C: Generals issues did not have CGNAT.

. . . nobody at home actually runs VOIP . . .

Plenty of people used Skype and Vonage. Both were subverted because they have to assume NAT is there.

. . . quick game servers don’t need static . . .

But they do work better without NAT. That’s somewhat separate from static addresses.

My old roommate and I had tons of problems back in the day when we tried to host an Internet game of C&C: Generals behind the same NAT. I couldn’t connect to him. He couldn’t connect to me. We could connect to each other but nobody outside could. It’s a real problem that’s only been “solved” because a lot of games have moved to publisher-hosted servers. Which has its own issues with longevity.

You can get IPv6 addresses. What you can’t get, in many cases, is a static IPv6 prefix assignment.

CGNAT is not fine. Its problems are simply hidden from most people. ISPs have to have more equipment that’s less reliable, increases latency, and is potentially a bandwidth bottleneck.

The reason they have no use for a static address is because applications haven’t evolved to work that way. Roll back the clock 30 years, do IPv6 seriously so that everyone has static assignments by the time the Y2k problem has come and gone, and you have a very different Internet.

In fact, many applications, like VoIP and game hosting, have to go through all sorts of hoops to work around NAT.

No, I’m trying to get people to think. If I laid out my full opinions on this subject (compilers and interpreters aren’t that different anymore, even machine code often runs more like bytecode in many ways, “scripting” is a term that hides what’s actually going on, etc.), then people get into endless debates. My questions are designed to pick apart assumptions.

Admittedly, people didn’t appreciate when Socrates did this shit, either.

Hell, they’ll probably put that on a resume, and someone will hire them.

Scripting languages are often considered to be very high level and can commonly run without compilation. Making them great to automate tasks or create a simplified interaction/abstraction layer to a more complex program.

Then Python is not a scripting language.

Programming languages usually have much lower level access, and by extension they tend to be more complicated. In exchange for that, you get much more control.

Would you consider C to be more or less complicated than Perl?

Yeah, once you know all the details, the distinction disappears. The term doesn’t clarify understanding.

If I had to make a distinction, it’d be that scripting languages are meant to be a simple way to serve a specific niche. Things like SQL or Excel formulas. It doesn’t apply to Python.

What’s the difference between a scripting language and a programming language?