HackerNews Summary (2023-05-02 12AM)

Source: Breaking down Krypton

Summary
“Krypton” is a generative art plot made using plain JavaScript and p5.js. Voronoi diagrams were used extensively, with tweaks to the algorithms to create, modify, and keep points from overlapping. Iterations were done with short feedback loops to adjust and polish.

Fact

🎨 Voronoi diagrams were used to partition a plane into polygons using neighboring points.

🧩 Custom-made tools were used to produce visually pleasing artwork.

🎨 Points were modified and displaced iteratively to create a visually appealing distribution for Voronoi diagrams.

🤔 Experimentation and tweaks to parameters were done to create visually appealing generative art.

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Source: Preface

Summary
The book emphasizes systematic program design that relies on planning and understanding at every stage. It argues that everyone can design programs systematically and experience creative design satisfaction. The preface explains how this book teaches systematic program design through the use of design recipes and iterative refinement.

Fact

💻 Programming has become a required skill in many professions.

📝 This book teaches systematic program design through design recipes and iterative refinement.

🎨 Good programming, like an oil painting, relies on systematic thought, planning, and understanding from the beginning, at every stage, and for every step.

👨🏽‍💻 Systematic program design emphasizes the rationale of the desired functionality.

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Source: Is Go an object-oriented programming language?

ained a somewhat ambiguous response, acknowledging that Go has some object-oriented features, but also pointing out that it differs from traditional OO languages in significant ways.Summary
Go is a multi-paradigm language that supports both procedural and object-oriented programming concepts, but does not have a type hierarchy or support classical OO syntax. The lack of object-oriented features makes “objects” in Go feel lightweight compared to C++ or Java.

Fact

🧬 Go has ancestry connections to languages such as C, Oberon-2, Alef, and Newsqueak, but does not derive from pure object-oriented languages like Simula or SmallTalk.

🤔 Go designers felt that classical OO inheritance was restrictive and did not provide much benefit for programming and extension, so Go does not support classical inheritance and polymorphism based on class and object implementation.

💻 Go’s methods are more general than in C++ or Java and can be defined for any sort of data, even built-in types such as plain “unboxed” integers. In Go, objects feel more lightweight than in other object-oriented programming languages.

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Source: Banana equivalent dose

Summary
Banana equivalent dose (BED) is an informal measurement of ionizing radiation exposure, which compares the dose of radioactivity one is exposed to by eating one average-sized banana. BED is not a formally adopted dose measurement, but it is useful for explaining radiation exposure to members of the public.

Fact

🍌 One BED is often correlated to 0.1 microsieverts (10 μrem) of radiation exposure.

🍌 The exposure from consuming a banana is approximately 1% of the average daily exposure to radiation, which is 100 BED.

🍌 The maximum permitted radiation leakage for a nuclear power plant is equivalent to 2,500 BED (250 μSv) per year, while a chest CT scan delivers 70,000 BED (7 mSv).

🍌 An acute lethal dose of radiation comprises approximately 35,000,000 BED (3.5 Sv, 350 rem).

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Source: Dark Matter Developers: The Unseen 99%

Summary
Dark Matter Developers are those who don’t engage much with the tech community and keep using mature and well-known products to get work done. They use reliable and open building blocks to build something that lasts for a long time, unlike cutting edge technology.

Fact

🔍 The term “Dark Matter Developers” refers to those who do not engage with the tech community.

💻 They use mature products that are well-known, tested and well-understood.

👨‍💼 They are focused on the business problem at hand.

💡 The term signifies that just as observed physical matter visible in the universe is only a fraction of the matter present, similarly, only a small section of developers are visible or engaged online.

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