2024-04-05 22:48:19

Today I read a passage from a Brandon Sanderson book on a standup.

I _think_ my team appreciated it.

Felt quite weird. But sometimes a story has the right words and ideas.

2024-04-03 23:46:42

Worst case then, we encode the board square by square for simplicity.

We’ll probably end up using base64 which gets 6 bits per char.

So our 5-bit representation of spaces/tiles over 225 spaces, 86 bag tiles and the 14 in racks gives us 1625 bits. Which is 271 base64 chars.

Bigger than I hoped.

Hmm.

More tomorrow.

2024-04-03 23:36:30

Stream of consciousness on efficient URL encoding of a Scrabble game…

The board is 15×15, so 225 spaces. We’ll need the “bag”, so 100 tiles but only actually 86 once game starts. 2 “racks” of 7 letters. And the score.

Each space can be empty, letter, blank tile with associated letter.

So all tiles/spaces can fit in 5 bits (up to 32 combos).

It would be good to represent plays as row/col/tile. But I THINK that’s harder to decode. Though row+col fits in 8 bits. Hmm…

2024-04-03 23:01:41

I had this thought about static turn-by-turn game applications that exchange game data in URL parameter strings.

So you'd take your turn, and then share the new URL with the other player.

I guess tic-tac-toe is the obvious starting point. But I was wondering how efficiently you can encode Scrabble-like game data in a URL string.

I have been thinking about this FAR too much. It's a really interesting little problem.

2024-04-03 15:47:01

Do you think Microsoft's Copilot can set up a parental-controlled Minecraft/XBox/Microsoft account? Because I blimmin well can't and I've got a computer science degree and a senior software developer job!!!

2024-04-03 11:39:01

@reckless1280

> my only ask is that you make this article go viral by sharing it in faux-outrage

These engagement numbers are pretty good for my Mastodon account. My phone is buzzing incessantly. Do I win a prize? 😉

2024-04-03 10:48:52

@bw Was really cool hearing you on @shoptalkshow. Your home-cooked apps are great. Such a good principle. And I found out about how tech helps your SMA. You’re a very inspiring person to listen to. Keep up all the great stuff you are doing, and thanks for sharing your creativity with the world.

2024-04-03 10:41:38

Wow. The Verge printer thing is blowing up.

My history of reading The Verge is that I first went there for trusted reviews. Then I went there for tech news. Their live coverage of Apple Events is excellent. And they have an RSS feed with full content. Which I actually feel mean about consuming because I want them to be paid for their content.

Sometimes it’s too much. Populist tech content. I get that it has to be.

But their editor in chief seems really smart. Listen: https://www.theverge.com/24087834/hank-gre

2024-04-03 10:17:15

🫣 Oh no! It’s the school holidays. I’m on DadOps duty. And I’m down to my last two coffee filters!! What do I do? Eat the beans whole and raw? Use a tea strainer or muslin cloth?!Grind them and spread it on toast?!! SEND HELP!!!!!

2024-04-03 09:57:44

The Verge article on the best printer in 2024 is just completely brilliant in so many ways.

And also kinda sad.

https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/2/24117976

2024-04-02 23:12:07

… But now, not only do you not really know what a is, you don’t know what x is either.

And so you shove a ? on the type of x (or things x can become) and off you go again!

Catch errors and absences early. Don’t half-ass your type system… USE IT!

2024-04-02 22:59:51

Coding thoughts:

The combination of optional/nullable types and optional chaining gives you so much temptation to write bad code.

It’s become so easy to just add a little ? here and a “| null” there to quickly fix some error you saw.

But it’s a trap!!

Once you start they breed like crazy through your codebase.

It’s weird for me to see:

x = a?.b?.c

Because if you have an a then you should know that you have a b and a c! (I know this is not the case with TypeScript)

2024-04-02 22:14:44

I’ve been working with it for a while now and I still think that the React eco system is a series of complex and fragile kludges that only exist because everyone wanted to use React. Bundlers. Transpilers. CSS-in-JS. HTML-in-JS. CSS-in-HTML-in-JS. SSR. ISR.

My opinion, of course. I just don’t get it. Maybe I had a bad introduction to it or something. But that spark of understanding simply hasn’t come despite months of open minded exploration.