Indeed, the Robot is a wonderful piece of good old engineering, and it makes fantastic espresso without much fuss. Haven't had to do any maintenance since I got it, almost four years ago.
And best of all, shameless plug ahead: It's easy to hack, for example if you want to add much needed electronics, like I did with this scale here: https://youtu.be/awvB3pJCmEo (Oh the irony, but some things just need to be done.)
I'm glad I stumbled upon his books when researching design patterns early on in my career. His writing in 'The Timeless Way of Building' left a big impression on me, precisely because it didn't reduce building to a sequence of mechanical steps which are to be followed exactly, but allowed, even called for, gaining a deeper understanding for quality. It's hard to express, but he did a stellar job at it.
It's somewhat ironic that he is said to have laid the foundations of the design patterns movement which, I don't know when, must have taken a series of wrong turns to end up where it did.
Thank you Mr. Alexander for writing about these fuzzy things which dare to be named.
> the design patterns movement which, I don't know when, must have taken a series of wrong turns
Such is always the case, as soon as anything becomes a "school of thought". From Christianity to patterns and agile, someone will evangelise a set of concepts that s/he strongly believes in, and they will be reinterpreted or exploited by others for their own purposes. For design patterns, it was the whole "Enterprise Java" sector who went overboard and became doctrinaire.
Of course this is purely anecdotal, but I also smoke rarely when drinking, and only then. Some nights up to half a pack, sometimes just one or two, but only two to three times a year by now. Interestingly, I have no desire to smoke whatsoever when not drinking, not even a hint.
Something in my brain seems to be wired such that I'm repelled by the taste when it's not in the "right" setting. Even if I wanted, when I only had a beer or two I get so sick from it that I have to stop almost immediately.
It might be that I'm just super lucky, but I feel like there is more to it than that.
I agree on all accounts, however I've always taken "Law is a programming language" or, maybe better, "Law is a program" as more of a metaphor. I see many similarities between law and computer programs, it's just that a law is a program written for humans (judge, jury, ...) to interpret, whereas a computer program is written for a computer.
Thus I think any attempt to translate a written law into something a computer can interpret as a failure, because the interpreter is not optional in the law. The interpreter is part of it and constitutes a vital piece of it, and without it written law does not make a lot of sense at all. Still, it is, in my view, a program which can be "executed", just not without a lot of context.
Regarding point 3: At 150 modules consuming about 25W each, your LED wall is consuming about 3750W max. An 80" TV will consume about 300W.
Power consumption of the LED wall will, however, be highly dependent on the displayed content. A white screen will consume most, a black screen basically nothing, but displaying only dark images is not exactly what LED walls are usually used for.
The equation is simple: The brighter, the more power you'll need, and an LED wall is, as you say, far brighter.
With a LED wall, only the lit pixels will consume power - the backlight of most TVs is full-on all the time. Only exceptions (iirc) are OLED TVs where the pixels themselves generate the light, and TVs which have their background light partitioned to achieve true(r) black by turning down all-black areas.
No, f = O(n log n) means that f doesn't grow significantly faster than n log n. That is true for f = n log n, but it's also true for f = n. The "or better" is implicit by using big-O.
Note that this wouldn't be true if the standard said that it has to be Θ(n log n).
You probably tried this already, but for reference there is an easy fix for the screen issue which seems to work for most. Google "Pebble display fix", takes 5 minutes max.
Es heißt "unhöflich", und da fehlt ein "dass" (...gehe davon aus, dass wir alle...).
Stilistisch etwas besser wäre: "Es tut mir leid, wenn das unhöflich wirkt, aber ich gehe davon aus, dass wir alle unseren Schreibstil verbessern wollen." (I'd say the first comma should be left out, but I have the tendency to leave out vital commas as well, so...)
The visualizer is really nice, the examples could use some work though.
Selection Sort, for example, makes the algorithm look extremely (impossibly) good at first glance - O(n) - because it's not showing the majority of the steps.
Instead of
for (var j = i + 1; j < D.length; j++) {
if (D[j] < D[minJ]) {
tracer._select(j);
minJ = j;
tracer._deselect(j);
}
}
it has to be
for (var j = i + 1; j < D.length; j++) {
tracer._select(j);
if (D[j] < D[minJ]) {
minJ = j;
}
tracer._deselect(j);
}
Bubble Sort has the same problem, as do Quicksort and Mergesort.
Normally I wouldn't mind, but these examples are intended for beginners, and it might give them a false sense of time complexity for these basic algorithms.
And best of all, shameless plug ahead: It's easy to hack, for example if you want to add much needed electronics, like I did with this scale here: https://youtu.be/awvB3pJCmEo (Oh the irony, but some things just need to be done.)