The Sample Size Curve
In the future correlations article we will learn the following transformation of
the correlation coefficient33 The logit function captures the idea that a
difference in correlation between 0.95 and 0.98 is more difficult to prove than
e.g. a difference between 0.2 and 0.3.:
Build Failure Rate from Build Times
Looking through the articles I’ve started but never finished, I stumbled over a
cool experiment from a few years ago: When a build in a ci environment fails,
it usually does so quicker than the time required for a full, successful build.
This means we ought to be able to find the fraction of failed builds from the
build times alone.11 Don’t ask when this would be useful. I don’t remember.
Using Nix to Try Tools
Achilleas has a trick where they use curl under hyperfine to do basic
benchmarking of web performance. Even if we dislike the methodology, we may be
curious what it looks like. However, we may not want to install hyperfine
globally on our system just for this one experiment.
Book Review: Savage Money
This was my submission for this year’s
This was my submission for this year’s acxacx book review context. I picked
book review context. I picked
Savage MoneySavage Money to review for three reasons:
to review for three reasons:
It changed how I interact with and interpret the actions of other people, and
made me more tolerant of differences;It changed how I interact with and interpret the actions of other people, and
made me more tolerant of differences;
Very few reviews of it seem to exist online; andVery few reviews of it seem to exist online; and
It has a great title.It has a great title.
As always, when I write against a deadline, it gets a bit stilted and rushed,
but I hope you enjoy...
As always, when I write against a deadline, it gets a bit stilted and rushed,
but I hope you enjoy...
So You Think You Know Ada?
This is yet another article I wrote a long time ago but never published, but it
was a joy to proof-read it before publishing now. Ada is a very well-designed
language. It looks funky with its Pascal-like syntax, but it’s clear people
thought hard about how things should fit together to give the programmer a good
experience. There are reasonable alternatives to Ada these days (D, Rust, among
others) but Ada will always hold a special place in my heart.
This is yet another article I wrote a long time ago but never published, but it
was a joy to proof-read it before publishing now. Ada is a very well-designed
language. It looks funky with its Pascal-like syntax, but it’s clear people
thought hard about how things should fit together to give the programmer a good
experience. There are reasonable alternatives to Ada these days (D, Rust, among
others) but Ada will always hold a special place in my heart.