Back in the olde days of programming (I'm talking about compilers from the 80s) the coding connoisseur knew that getting a certain error that seemed like nonsense could easily be solved by adding an extra, or removing a remark line from the top of the code and recompiling.
Well I think goingToCrashIntoEachOther needs to return another drone object. Then don't can take that object. Based on self.serialNo and other.serialNo a mutually beneficial avoiding manoeuvre could be executed.
If you're about to crash into more than one other drone.. Good luck the function specifies "EachOther" meaning just one other drone!
I have a clear memory from the 80s for sure where these were routinely used on pre-sliced bread loaves. I'm sure I have seen them since the 80s. But they became much rarer for certain.
I mean, technically you could use unsigned 32bit if you don't need to handle dates before 1970. But yes, the best course of action now is to use 64bits. The cost is pretty much nothing on modern systems.
I'm just cautious of people judging software from a time with different constraints and expectations, with the current yardstick.
I also wonder what the problem will be. People playing ghost recon in 2038 are going to be "retro" gaming it. There should be an expectation of such problems. Would it prevent you loading or saving the file is the question?
It's not poorly written software if it's is old. Likewise the y2k bug is often declared as bad programming, but at the time the software with the y2k bug was written memory was measured in kilobytes and a lot of accounting software and banking software was written in a time when 64k was the norm. Oh, and I'll tell you now I know of at least some accounting software that is based on code written for the 8088 and has been wrapped and cross compiled so many times now it's unrecognisable. But I know that 40 year old code is still there.
So 2 digits for year was best practice at the time and at the time software vulnerable to the 2038 bug 32bit epoch dates was the best practice.
Now, software written today doing the same, could of course be considered bad, but it's not a good blanket statement.
Fuck all of that. Linux desktop really could use a benevolent dictator that has some vision and understanding what the average user wants.
It already has these. They're called Linux Distros. They decide the combination of packages that make up the end to end experience. And they're all aimed at different types of user.
Why are none explicitly aimed at the average Windows user? I suspect there's one major reason. The average Windows user is incapable of installing an operating system at all, and new PCs invariably come with Windows pre-installed. This isn't a sleight on them by the way, it's just that most computer users don't want or need to know how anything works. They just want to turn it on, and post some crap on Twitter/X then watch cat videos. They don't have an interest in learning how to install another operating system.
Also, a distro aimed at an average Windows user would need to be locked down hard. No choice of window manager, no choice of X11/Wayland. No ability to install applications not in the distro's carefully curated repository, plus MAYBE independently installed flatpak/other pre-packaged things. The risk of allowing otherwise creates a real risk of the system breaking on the next big upgrade. I don't think most existing Linux users would want to use such a limiting distro.
Unless Microsoft really cross a line to the extent that normal users actually don't want anything to do with windows, I cannot imagine things changing too much.
Yep. The ISP doesn't offer it any more. They stopped, I think when RIPE officially "ran out" of new net blocks. But I've moved address twice so far and have kept the allocation. Well, on the last move they messed up and gave new a new single IP. I complained, and they asked why it matters so much to have my old IP. I pointed out I had a netblock, and they fixed it up pretty quickly.
Pretty soon, full fibre will be in my area and available on the same ISP. So, hoping for a smooth transition to keep it for a bit longer.