The original repo is about using a subset of a language to compare language implementations. I can see the point in that. But language benchmarks like this are incredibly useless and very easy to get wrong anyway. For example it you actually cared about performance for the bounce example you would never write it like this in C. Bouncing 100 balls in a loop 50 times with 4 ifs just tests the branch predictor. There is nothing to learn from this in practice.
Respectfully disagree. This is a compiler engineering tool backed by peer-reviewed research (DLS'16, 112+ citations) and used in 30+ academic publications across PLDI, OOPSLA, and ECOOP. It requires understanding controlled experimental methodology and compiler optimization theory to interpret correctly. Perhaps that context clarifies its purpose. The goal is to assess compiler effectiveness for a common set of core language abstractions (objects, closures, arrays), not to represent application-level performance or claim that production C code would be written this way. Your "branch predictor" criticism actually validates the benchmark's design: if different language implementations handle the same branching patterns with dramatically different performance, that reveals genuine differences in compiler designs.
> those who spend a lot of time in prison seem to come out worse and reoffend. How is that helpful?
You're implying that imprisonment makes people offend more - perhaps the simpler explanation is that most criminals will commit crimes when they get the chance, especially prolific criminals. Prison takes them off the streets and stops them victimising more people - this is helpful.
> it's about reducing the cost of launch missions to maximize profit and take out the primary source of income of competing players so they can have a monopoly of space.
Explorer in Windows 11 was overhauled, and its address bar behaviour is now absolute garbage. For example, type a directory path into it and press enter - takes 10 seconds to display the contents of the directory. Auto-complete on the address-bar as you type is unusable as it is so slow it's quicker just to type out the entire path manually.
Oh - and the popup UI for volume level and WiFi (and bluetooth etc) causes the system to freeze up sometimes, when you open it.
Logging in and the mouse freezes up for multiple seconds.
I'm sure these are not universal to all machines running Windows 11, but for me it's an all together shoddy user experience, and I'm sure there's a few other headaches that I forgot to mention.
Looks very cool, but absolutely laughable that they tried to sell an environmental angle. I don't say that because it's "actually the opposite" or anything like that - the impact either way will be fuck all.
In the grand scheme of textiles, which actually are a major source of environmental harm, it’s probably the choice of textile that would impact emissions the most. Cotton is one of the most water hungry crops we grow and resulted in the drying up of the Aral Sea; animal products have all the emissions associated with animal farming; and synthetics are generally petroleum based.
Hemp or linen probably. Cotton recycling is also better than new cotton. But for clothes the heavy emphasis is on "reduce" and "reuse" which is why fast fashion is so insidious.
One major problem that has arisen recently is that a lot of clothes now are cotton blends which cannot easily be recycled.
Not at all, this is exactly what the unions are saying. EA is firing US employees despite being profitable. When they need to rehire again they’ll do it in countries where the wages are lower.
There are a few employers who have effectively guaranteed revenue in perpetuity through what's known as "forever games".
EA's sports division prints money. Valve prints money. Call of Duty prints money. Valorant/League print money. Fortnite prints money. Roblox prints money. Their products have been around for 10-20+ years and will seemingly never die.
The other bit to notice about EA in particular is that its share price has been flat for the last 7 years, they've continuously failed to figure out how to change that, which is a problem. Selling and layoffs are a lever to get out of that hole, although it remains to be seen how great of a move it turns out to be.
Herb Sutter calls this kind of thing "spelling things generically" meaning that the same generic code will compile against different types.
In this case the same for loop code will compile against a type that may hold zero or one items and a type that may contain 0->n items. Maybe this pattern could be extended to shared_ptr for example.
Instead, arrive a bit early to the airport, and analogously, don't run visas down to the last hour based on the minutiae of Moroccan timezones etc.