Why not both?

Its a tough problem. You have to find something that you want to exist; like an app or a website or a game. For example, try making a GUI for managing SSH keys. You know, like the ones github makes you create in order to clone and push to a repo. Make a visual representation of those keys (stored in the .ssh folder), and tools to add/delete them.

Along the way you’ll find tons of missing things, tools that should exist but don’t. Those are the “real” projects that will really expand your capabilities as a developer.

For example, I was coding in python and wanted to make a function that caches the output because the code was inherently slow.

• but to cache an output we need to know the inputs are the same
• hashes are good for this but lists can’t be hashed with the built-in python hash function
• we can make our own hash, but hashing a list that contains itself is hard
• there is a solution for lists, but then hashing a set that contains itself is a serious problem (MUCH harder than hashing a list)
• turns out hashing a set is the same problem as the graph-coloring problem (graph isomorphism)
• suddenly I have a really deep understanding of recursive data structures all because I wanted to a function that caches its output.

Ignore the name (neural networks might as well be a footnote). A more appropriate title would be “generic problems and algorithms”.

(Artificial Intelligence: A modern approach by Russell and Norvig)

https://github.com/Youquan1/Artificial-intelligence-books/blob/master/Artificial Intelligence A Modern Approach - Stuart J. Russell %2C Peter Norvig.pdf

I agree, and here’s a few different avenues of examples:

1. If trying to get past interviews, Leet code and hacker rank can be great. They’re not so great for real world problems, but not bad.

2. Advent of code is a good middle ground between theory and practice in my opinion.

3. To really learn real world problem solving, I’d recommend implement a specification, without looking at existing implementations. For example, make a basic regex engine (formal Regular Expressions not PCRE expressions), or try to implement the C Preprocessor, or the JS event loop.

“Algorithms to live by” https://www.amazon.com/Algorithms-Live-Computer-Science-Decisions/dp/1627790365

Less technical than you probably want, but it is useful for mapping real world problems to known algorithms.

I didnt upvote the other python-beginer friendly meme cause it wasn’t accurate. But this one is on point.

Partially buried housing (ground cooling effect)

Distros should ship with this this under /readme.jpg

If you paid a true professional to sit down 1-on-1 with you everyday for 6 months, and you are good at learning I think yes, for most but not all software positions. But unless you’re forking over $200k I don’t think any professional dev is going to do that for you.

This could actually be a pretty big deal

1. The Eclipse foundation has been making alternatives to VS Code’s “killer apps” (Docker, Python, Go, C++, SSH, Live share, etc). AKA the closed source ones exclusive to VS Code offical that make all forks of VS Code a huge downgrade. The Eclipse foundation is also running the extension store that powers VS Codium.
2. “why not just use VS Codium?” (With the killer extensions made by Eclipse)
   • VS Codium is great, but because of manpower limits, they always have to be “downstream” of VS Code. They can’t rewrite any of the core systems.
   • As someone who contributes to VS Code, and loves VS Codium, many issues I have with VS Code have been open on github for +7 years, with hundreds of comments and thumbs-ups. We can’t even sort the file explorer view by last-edited and folders-first (but we can do folders-first alphabetical). Thats been open since 2017.
   • Theia looks like it could finally be the hard fork I’ve been waiting for. A hackable editor, trying to be open source, where all my extensions work, and the community can actually make a PR, get it merged, and extensions are not excessively sandboxed.
   • Will it be that? Only time will tell, but the Eclipse foundation has a pretty good record. They’re definitely prepared for long term support.

Theres this old experimental tool called ZeroNet, and it had some really good ways of managing shared data. You could pin websites and files for other people to access, set limits, bandwidth, etc. It’d be nice to have something similar on peertube, like supporting certain creators by immediately hosting their videos for them. Maybe, for example, hosting their latest three videos.

He got convinced, its now Auxolotl!

https://github.com/auxolotl/

Theres going to be an official reevaluation once the governance has finished bootstrapping.

I read it as “a pin nix” like appendix with a lisp

Agreed, I made a thread for it. You’ve got some good names!

https://forum.aux.computer/t/aux-name-enhancement/179

You should learn the nix lang, flakes, zero to nix, etc and try not to get bogged down in the Nix/Aux stuff. Be prepared to wait for things to settle down on that side.

Sadly no AFAIK, even ignoring the licensing issues.

Just commenting here to ping you that I found a new major alternative! I’ve edited the comment but TLDR; search “.NET Avalonia” and see what you think

This is such an awesome answer; exactly what I was looking for. Simple, general, and something I can actually try. Thanks for replying

I read the paper before seeing this video post. Maybe not what you’re looking for but here’s my TLDR takeaways from the publication:

• Infrastructure is the largest driver of carbon emissions at low-tech Urban Agriculture (UA) sites (63% of impacts)
  • A raised bed built and used for five years will have approximately four times the environmental impact per serving as a raised bed used for 20 years. The issue is, with frequent moving and development in urban environments, much of the infrastructure is gone or redone in a short timespan.
  • Climate-friendly sites in the sample cut their emissions by more than 52% by upcycling refuse from the urban environment for raised beds, structures and other infrastructure—twice as much savings as high-carbon sites
• Composing
  • Sites in the sample used 95% less synthetic nutrients than conventional farms
  • poorly managed composting can exacerbate GHGs. The carbon footprint of compost grows tenfold when methane-generating anaerobic conditions persist in compost piles.
  • We estimate that careful compost management could cut GHGs by 39.4% on sites that use small-scale composting.
• rainwater
  • In this study, more than 50 (of ~75) sites practiced rainwater recovery, but only four derived most of their irrigation this way
  • sites primarily used potable municipal water sources or groundwater wells, consistent with the underutilization of rainwater seen across past research
  • Irrigation from these sources emits GHGs from pumping, water treatment and distribution, and this rose to as high as 83% of total emissions on one UA site
• Non caloric benefits
  • UA practitioners overwhelmingly reported improved mental health, diets and social networks
  • Cost–benefit analysis of a collective garden in the UK estimated that social benefits, such as improved well-being and reduced hospital admissions, accounted for 99.4% of total economic value generated on-site
  • Because emissions allocation often follows economic value generation46, growing spaces that maximize social benefits can outcompete conventional agriculture when UA benefits are considered holistically.
  • Although UA may increase the carbon intensity of fruits and vegetables, these foods account for a small share of total dietary carbon impacts, which are driven mainly by meat and dairy. Studies have shown that UA practitioners often reduce their intake of animal products49. Future work should quantify this tradeoff between elevated carbon footprint in urban produce and shifting diets.

Back in 2021 I wrote a whole article What Web3 is Not that discusses exactly what you’re talking about. I’ll post the content of the article below for those who dont use Medium.com.

I’m particularly proud of this quote from the article:

If NFTs were equivalent to high-performance F1 engine oil, then most people would be using engine oil for home cooked meals.

Article

Update: 1/18/2022

This is an update of defeat, as I believe the common definition of Web3 no longer refers to The “decentralized internet”. Through incessant social media posts, and nearly constant edits to the Wikipedia page, crypto bros and the ntf hype squad seem to have successfully distorted Web3 to mean an internet of purely financial transactions.

However, replace “web3" with “decentralized internet” below and the article should still be accurate/useful.

Original Article

Over-hype, misunderstanding, scams, and betrayals associated with “Web3” are bad enough to ruin it’s reputation for a generation.

So let’s get a few things straight before that happens.

1. The NFT Market is not Web3

If NFTs were equivalent to high-performance F1 engine oil, then most people would be using engine oil for home cooked meals. I’m not saying engine oil is useless, I’m saying your NFT purchase for “art” or whatever relates to Web 3 about as much as cooking with engine oil makes you a participant in F1 racing.

If you want to cook with engine oil (and you fully understand the consequences!) be my guest.

And to show that I’m not just dismissing this topic: imagine having a physical key, but the key doesn’t unlock any locks. It is a key to ✨nothing✨. Now imagine the key is made out of pape — actually paper is too valuable — imagine the key is made of compacted garbage. Ta.Da. you’ve successfully imagined almost* every NTF. Software devs can design locks to fit keys, and we can find these keys quite useful. But you, Mr./Mrs. End-User, should be about as excited for NFT’s as an Amish person.

2. Web3 is not Magical, it’s Foundational

In internet-land we (practically) cannot make roads. Instead, to see our neighbor we catch a train to Facebook/Discord/Microsoft HQ, we give them a blood sample, receive a tracker from them, and then they drive us to our neighbor.

With that hellscape in mind, imagine me at your front door, excitedly showing off a 10 ton asphalt paving machine (with WEB3 on the side).

Voila! Now you can … just … pave your own road to your friends house! 😃 \s

Some people (me) are legitimately excited as this tool foundationally changes the balance of power in internet-land.

For obvious reasons, people probably wouldn’t be too excited about receiving a 10 ton paver, since it takes effort, skilled labor, and years of work before anyone benefits.

3. Build it and they-- Wait who is building it?

Did I mention there’s basically no financial incentive for creating community-built roads?

Actually its even worse; self-built roads aggressively threaten mega-corp’s profit margins; corporations that both have all the power in internet-land and every reason to try to destroy, taint, vandalize, and slander community-built roads.

Oh, and I should also clarify; it can be very profitable for scam artists. Which reminds me, did I mention that cons would be totally welcome to build their own roads / labyrinths, and there’s no user-friendly way to distinguish them from legitimate roads?

Well, as I fearlessly sit on my 10 ton paver… yeah I should probably mention those things.

And speaking of funding…

4.1 Maintaining Web3 is not Free

Asphalt pavers run on gas. And if you think gasoline prices are bad, wait till you hear about Ethereum gas prices.

Well, there’s one exception; right now, making a un-changing site, that has a long ugly URL is totally free. But to update a web3 site, you must (as of Dec 2021) pay a hefty gas price to announce to the world “Hello everyone! My website has been updated! (And here’s proof that I’m the owner)”. This high transaction price needs to change (and it is!). The full release of Ethereum 2 should be a major step forward, and might address it entirely.

4.2 Being a user on Web3 is mostly* Free

Right now Google/Facebook/Microsoft often happily pay your storage bill. It’s not a huge bill, but if you want to do everything on Web3, just know that you’re going to need some storage space. You might already have enough space on your device, but maybe you’ll want an extra hard-drive connected to a small always-on computer.

Some costs are more than financial though, which brings me to…

5. Web3 is not Controllable

Web2 is already a public stage, but Web3 is a public stage AND most audience members are individually recording your performance. Once you post data publicly, once it’s been distributed, nobody (and I. mean. nobody.) can reliably force it to be taken down.

No company No government … But also often not even you can

Many times apathy will be on your side; you can ask all the individuals to delete their recording. But you will be relying on good will.

Even for the bravest of us, this can be a uneasy feeling.

However, the most important thing you need to know about Web3 is…

6. Web3 is not a Theory

Its already here! You can publish your own Web3 site today.

Web3 has two forms; I’ll call them federated and mesh.

The mesh form could be considered the “true” Web3. The IPFS (Inter-Planetary File System) is the backbone of the Web3 mesh, and crypto (like Ethereum) are the system’s muscles that allow it to update. The Opera browser and Brave browser have supported IPFS and crypto URLs right out of the box for a while now, even on mobile. FireFox can get IPFS support through the IPFS extension, and crypto support through the Metamask extension. To get your own Web3 URL, and have a website you can update, take a look at Unstoppable Domains, or Ether domains. If you want to see an elegant UI and an impressive precursor to Web3, take a look at ZeroNet.

The federated form of Web3 has several major advantages and major disadvantages. It’s also not separate; it can and will work together with the Web3 mesh. The main difference is the federated system can run entirely on web 2.0 browsers. It is a self-hoster server, but it collaborates with other self-hosted servers to look and feel like a singular website. Take a look at the Fediverse, Lemmy, Mastodon, and Element (formerly Riot) to get an idea of how to join some of these systems. Self hosting servers can be hard, but they are wonderfully capable/flexible systems.

And that’s it! I hope you’re still excited because there is so much potential for a faster, safer, less intrusive internet; we’re just going to need to build it.