They kind of burned a breaking major version transition for no good reason with 2-to-3, now they are prefacing a major change with "it won't be like 2-to-3". It sounds like they may be maintaining two operating modes in CPython 3 instead of going forward with another major transition, just because of that history.
> They kind of burned a breaking major version transition for no good reason with 2-to-3
The unicode/text changes alone were a pretty good reason. Division producing floats are also a nice change IMO. I don’t want to discount the challenges with the transition but saying there was no good reason isn’t right to me.
There were a lot of bad reasons as well. The removal of the u string prefix in versions 3.0-3.2 was unnecessary and made the transition much more difficult. It kind of gave Python 3 a bad reputation.
Increasingly, even public agencies require/assume people to have a smartphone now, either an iPhone or an Android.
At that point, you literally cannot live as an adult in the society without FAANG dependence, even if it's a third party Android phone, at least not legally.
Does that include banking and credit card apps? Most of my bank and card accounts require their own phone app to authorise transactions from time to time, and several accounts require their phone app to authenticate login to online banking, even if I'm opening it in a regular desktop browser on another computer. Three of those accounts don't have any other way of being managed than online, so their phone app (or tablet app) is mandatory to do anything with the account.
I had to buy a replacement phone in a hurry last year when my old phone's screen stopped working, just so I could login to make an urgent bank transfer. I would have preferred to take my time over what to buy, but so many financial things I use are blocked without a smartphone now.
99.999% of businesses don't publish APKs or upload them to F-Droid. Expecting people to use third party distribution mechanisms like Aurora store is entirely unreasonable.
As for "working around" it, it's ridiculous to impose that expectation on the general population. Sure, you and I will always be able to find a way to hack around restrictions, but it's inaccessible to the overwhelming majority of the population.
What is unreasonable about showing people there's another interface to access all the apps in the Google Play Store, where you can download and use all of them without signing into a Google account?
Because Google could flip a switch and stop that at any moment. There is a systemic problem with how society is becoming more and more reliant upon a few large tech firms. Work arounds will work whilst they're small enough and fly under the radar, but if they get larger they'll be stopped by the holders of the binaries.
We're increasingly like animals that become dependent on a single source of food or a single watering hole. It's really risky. You could hardly design more fragile systems (or business models) that depend in these very narrow bottlenecks.
You can use android without logging into a google account with the default ROM and settings, just don't log in. I'm surprised more people don't do this, the app store is the only thing you "need" a google account for, and before they banned Aurora it was trivial to use it too.
Aurora store does not work anymore without a google account, at least for now. Google blocked their proxy accounts, I think. So curently there is no secure way to install apps from the play store without an account.
I do. I am beginning to feel the costs though. Even telling people that I don't have one is getting a bit awkward. Imagine the look of incomprehension.
A lot of people talk about 'needing' a smartphone for services/stuff I have never used, and probably would never use. I suppose I just kept living my life as I did before the 2010s, while everyone else changed. I was already in my 30s at that time, so not subject to the same social pressures a younger person would have felt, so perhaps it was easier.
When I tell people that, sorry, I don't have WhatsApp, they either look at me like I have a screw loose, or offer to help me install it (I am a middle-aged lady, so technical incompetence must be my excuse). I'd love to see the reaction to pulling out an old-school flip-phone, or providing an obvious land-line number!
That and my avoidance of Facebook didn't really matter until I had a kid and he started nursery school. I somehow got myself elected head of the Parents' Council, but it's been tough dealing with the mental block the slightly-younger generation has for email, and Signal is apparently a little too out there for non-techy 20/30-somethings of either gender.
I'm not as privacy-conscious as you, as I have a fairly recent iPhone; I'd probably be better described as social-media-skeptical, but your right to live a normal life without a smartphone is tied to my right to live a normal life without intrusive social media.
I've encountered the WhatsApp issue too. It's the communication tool in some parts of the world, but not others. In some circles people cannot imagine that you are a living breathing person who does not have it.
I use a bottom tier flip phone in the US, and a 13 year old Nokia with a pay-as-you go SIM in Europe.
I've noticed that there has been a generational shift towards smartphone-only communications, but I haven't really had to deal with it. I'd like to hear more about that. Oddly I use some of the same communication tools that young kids use, namely Discord, as it doesn't require a phone number. Linking online accounts and communications to a phone number has always put me off.
In Germany, WhatsApp is ubiquitous, possibly because when it hit the app stores, a lot of people were still paying per SMS, but had adequate data plans, and offered easy-enough group chats early on that at least felt private.
Also, even a lot of Facebook skeptics have no idea they’re owned and run by the same company…
I think the shift to smartphone-based communication is part of a vicious cycle of people giving up personal use of “real” computers, making a letter-replacement email something more comfortable to conduct as a bunch of short texts, which also have the “benefit” of quicker feedback before having to reveal the next thought.
Even I spent awhile when I first got a smartphone (ca. 2010) feeling like what I typed into or read on the device in an app was more confidential than what I did on a full computer, even though I intellectually understood what an API was and that apps that communicated outside the phone were essentially very niche web browsers. These little devices that fit in our pockets, have cute cases that we picked out, and are cradled in our hands just feel less scary than a desktop or even laptop that can get viruses and throw up cryptic errors and chime accusingly at us when they don’t like something we did.
So now we all have these little tethers that started out being a lot cheaper than a new laptop (but now easily cost $500+)
Early motherhood is particularly good at providing compelling use cases for a smartphone. Baby spending 45 minutes every 2-3 hours leisurely feeding, frantically reaching out to more experienced friends (or your various moms’ groups) for help with a small but urgent problem - much easier to pick up the little device with your free hand than to break out the laptop.
So once the kid is in nursery school at 12-18 months, even if you used to be a laptop user at home, your communications habits have been thoroughly changed.
And since mothers are the main social organizers, their preferred means of communication will dominate. Absolutely no one was interested when I offered to set up a website for the nursery school Parents’ Council, and from the perspective of people mostly ok with Facebook and WhatsApp, I understand the many reasons why.
I do in the UK (use a desktop for digital services), but I will need a phone next year after my current contract ends since employers like to have a chat via phone after applications.
What do you do when you need it? Banking or CC app for mandatory 2FA? gvmt Covid mandatory app to travel anywhere? QR code for restaurants? Places that require an app in general?
This is ofc locale-dependent, but if before the pandemic you could barely live without a smartphone, today is just impossible (at least in the 2 countries I visit often).
Some places do require an app and while there are alternatives, there may not be another choice in the future. But not today, most of my elderly neighbours also don't own a smartphone and yet they survive in this city (Antwerp).
Life without a smartphone is possible, and imho calmer and more relaxed.
The easiest way to avoid this is by going physically to your bank branch.
> gvmt Covid mandatory app to travel anywhere?
Don't live in a country that does this, so I don't know.
> QR code for restaurants?
I ask for a menu.
> Places that require an app in general?
Haven't seen that happen yet. There are some parking lots that require an app to park in them, but I just park elsewhere. The laundry room in my apartment complex requires an app to pay, so I just go to the laundromat down the street instead.
I do have a smartphone, although I'll switch to the dumbest phone I can find when this one dies. I do not use any apps for doing any commerce or the like, though. It's far too risky for my taste.
Banks tend to have some back up, such as a TAN generator. I have used those for Euro bank accounts that require 2FA. US bank accounts are usually fine with a phone number, which can be a dumb phone. There were no real covid restrictions where I live, and no app, so that was not a problem (but that is definitely something people should push back against, as it's horrifying). I would never, ever eat in a restaurant that required you to use a QR code. They can simply go to hell. It's mostly trendy places that do that, anyway, and I prefer hole-in- the-wall restaurants anyway. I understand this stuff is a lot more advanced in some countries, but even in the US it's pretty easy to get by without any of it.
Aside, one of the best hacks for networking without a smartphone is a small notepad and a pen in your pocket. Write things down for yourself and others e.g. phone numbers, addresses, email addresses, reminders.
To be fair even the surveillance-obsessed UK offered a paper alternative to the vaccine passport scheme, although Partygate completely crippled the government's political capital for keeping restrictions around anyway not long after if I remember correctly.
The title of the article is “C’s biggest mistake.” If you’re going to rebut the article, do so. Otherwise your reply just comes off as “this is the way it is, deal with it!” which is a pretty shallow dismissal.
A-10's replacement is drones, says the writing on the wall.
A-10 was developed for a Fulda Gap Cold War escalation, when Soviet Union had many many tanks at its disposal. China doesn't have near as many tanks as Soviets did, and now Russia's stocks are being depleted in Ukraine.
When you have drone/satellite coverage and know where everything is, you don't need loitering CAS as much, you can strike before threats are immediate with standoff munitions like what F-35 deploys, or artillery. Anything else you can clean up with drone Hellfires etc. loitering with less risk.
Close Air Support is controlled and managed by the guys on the ground. The pilot has to have situational awareness, and capture the nuances of where the dangers are prior to releasing ordinance.
When you 'pop yellow smoke' and need a bomb planted there now, it is not the time to be in satellite comms asking for a drone tasking and then explaining to the operator what you need (being the drone has a soda straw sized view into the situation).
The war in Ukraine has shown that highly integrated drone operator's with small UASs can fill that role. In the future, it isn't going to be a USAF or CIA operated drone circling at 40,000 ft, launching a $200,000 missile or dropping a $25,000 bomb... it will be a platoon or battalion level loitering munition operated by the people on the ground that costs $3,000 or $5,000.
IMO you're both right in the sense that A10s replacement is basically, let's not fight another major land war now that focus has shifted to indopac. If situation can't be avoided, drone authority will just become a lot more permissive until the next IVAS or whatever expensive augmented reality program finally puts grunts in charge of tasking.
Participating in class signaling is optional, starting with the choice of where to live. I can tell you from experience that if you find the right neighborhood, you can have good access and security and not have to cut your grass regularly. It's a big country.
