Toots for christophberger@c.im account

Written by Christoph Berger on 2025-02-04 at 19:43

The road to wisdom? Well, it's plain

And simple to express:

Err

and err

and err again,

but less

and less

and less.

The latest Applied Go Weekly Newsletter is here!

https://newsletter.appliedgo.net/archive/error/?utm_source=appliedgo-mastodon

[#]golang

https://newsletter.appliedgo.net/archive/error/?utm_source=appliedgo-mastodon

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Written by Christoph Berger on 2025-01-31 at 15:52

Make it simple but not too simple

Strive for simplicity.

There are good reasons for this:

• Simple solutions are manageable

• Simple solutions are maintainable

• Simple solutions can be communicated better

…but know that complex problems cannot have simple solutions.

• A simple solution to a complex problem is bound to fail

• Strive to simplify the problem as much as possible, but not further

• Then build a solution. Its complexity will match the problem's complexity, and that's ok

Avoid like the plague: Building a complex (let alone complicated) solution for a simple problem.

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Written by Christoph Berger on 2025-01-31 at 15:32

DeepSeek DOES tell you about Tiananmen Square... if you ask it to act as a neutral historian.

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Shared by Christoph Berger on 2025-01-30 at 21:52 (original by kottke.org)

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Written by Christoph Berger on 2025-01-30 at 17:37

If you use DeepSeek, all your data is sent… TO CHINA! 🇨🇳 😱

You may or may not be concerned about this. After all, the Chinese are really nice people, and you have been buying a lot of hardware and software from Chinese companies already, didn't you? DIDN'T YOU?!

But everyone who is concerned about data privacy can use a simple solution: DeepSeek hosted on servers within your jurisdiction. The laws of your country (or conglomerate of countries) apply. If those laws are good, they protect your privacy rights well.

The DeepSeek model can run anywhere because it's open source. (Rule of thumb: Cool companies build open source products.) You can take that model and run it in a data center of your choice (or have the data center run it for you).

I gave Nebius AI Studio a try. Nebius is a company in the Netherlands that runs a long list of open source LLMs on their GPUs, including DeepSeek V3 and R1. I connected my Open WebUI instance to their DeepSeek V3 and R1 instances via an OpenAI-compatible protocol. So far, it runs like a charm.

Question to you: Which EU-based AI model hosting providers (preferably with pay-per-token billing) do you know/use/love?

(Nebius are the first I came across after a very exhau^W superficial search, but there are surely others as well. Not that I'd want to switch, though. Their service runs flawlessly.)

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Written by Christoph Berger on 2025-01-29 at 16:02

"Self-documenting code or external code documentation" is a false dichotomy.

Both are indispensable, on different levels.

And in-between, there are code comments.

• Clearly written code tells you what it does, and how.

• Comments summarize what a function/class/package/module is about, and clarify code that cannot describe itself.

• External documentation explain why the does that, and what it does on a higher level of abstraction (purpose, design, architecture,...)

There is no either-or.

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Written by Christoph Berger on 2025-01-28 at 15:16

Silent observation shouldn't affect the observed. Sometimes, however, you can' avoid to affect the object you observe. For example, to track a data structure across its lifetime, you'd need to hold a pointer to it. But an active pointer to an object prevents it from getting garbage collected.

A catch-22?

Say hello to weak pointers. More on this in the Spotlight section of the latest Applied Go Weekly Newsletter issue.

https://newsletter.appliedgo.net/archive/2025-01-26-a-weak-connection-is-still-a-connection/?utm_source=appliedgo-mastodon

[#]golang

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Shared by Christoph Berger on 2025-01-25 at 16:30 (original by Daniel Supernault)

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Written by Christoph Berger on 2025-01-24 at 17:05

ORM or plain SQL?

Er, no.

The question isn't: "ORM or plain SQL".

The question is: Do you know SQL well enough to use an ORM?

If you don't know how SQL (and relational databases in general) works and you choose to start with an ORM, then you'll be at the ORM's mercy. You'll be prone to writing an infamous "n+1 query", creating data redundancies, difficult-to-query data, and whatnot. Heck, I've seen 1:n relationships implemented as JSON blob columns.

To be clear, the ORM is not the culprit. It's the lack of understanding the fundamentals of relational databases that will have brought you there.

The question, "should I learn SQL or just pick an ORM?" is wrong in itself. Learn SQL, learn relational databases, and then you'll enjoy the freedom of choice. 💐

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Written by Christoph Berger on 2025-01-24 at 08:30

Hey, mich würde mal interessieren, wie viele deutschsprachige Gopher eigentlich hier unterwegs sind!

[#]golang

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Written by Christoph Berger on 2025-01-24 at 07:10

Keith Jarret's The Köln Concert album was released on Jan 24, 1975—50 years ago. (HT to Radio Bayern 2 who made me aware.)

That reminded me that I have stacked a few CDs from Keith Jarret when I was a bit younger.

Time to dig up some old memories... (Now playing: Tabarka, from the album My Song)

[#]jazz #memories

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Written by Christoph Berger on 2025-01-23 at 15:36

BART and IIFE: Two Disparate Spotlights

Two new entries in appliegdo•net/spotlights:

The latest one, fresh from the newsletter:

BART, The Little Routing Table Package That Became Indispensable

https://appliedgo.net/spotlight/bart-routing-table/

And one from the attic:

Immediately Invoked Function Expressions

https://appliedgo.net/spotlight/immediately-invoked-function-expressions/

[#]golang

https://appliedgo.net/spotlight/bart-routing-table/

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Written by Christoph Berger on 2025-01-22 at 15:13

Always be clear about the difference between "complex" and "complicated".

A complicated system has many moving parts, yet they work together in a well-defined way. A combustion engine or a compiler are examples of complex systems.

A complex system has many moving parts whose interactions are poorly defined or even unknown. Predicting the behavior of a complicated system can be impossible.(*)

Treat complex systems merely as complicated at your own peril.

Trivia

The Zen of Python includes these lines for a reason:

Simple is better than complex.

Complex is better than complicated.

(*) This being said, there is some irony in the fact that extra features on a timepiece are called "complications" and not something like "complexifications". (**)

(**) This fact has historical reasons. The term "complication" was coined by clockmakers before modern system theory created the distinction between "complex" and "complicated".

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Shared by Christoph Berger on 2025-01-22 at 12:18 (original by Preslav Rachev)

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Written by Christoph Berger on 2025-01-21 at 15:28

In Ulm's computing domain

Charly builds networks to reign

His tables and lists

Help firewalls persist

While packets flow smooth down the lane

The latest Applied Go Weekly Newsletter is here!

https://newsletter.appliedgo.net/archive/2025-01-19-everyones-favorite-route/?utm_source=appliedgo-mastodon

[#]golang

https://newsletter.appliedgo.net/archive/2025-01-19-everyones-favorite-route/?utm_source=appliedgo-mastodon

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Written by Christoph Berger on 2025-01-20 at 18:13

"Debugging needs a debugger."

Nnnope.

Debugging starts way before starting a debugger.

To reduce bugs in your code:

• Get clear about the problem to solve.

• Use this clarity to write clear code.

• Write tests. Write them even before writing code, to verify your understanding of the problem to solve.

• Place log output strategically. Logs are a protocol of what the code does.

• If code behaves weirdly and you do not see why, sprinkle additional logging across the code to dump program state and data. (For my Go projects, I use appliedgo.net/what for this purpose.)

• Once you can pinpoint the problem, fix it. Adjust the unit tests to describe the new behavior, then rewrite the code to make the tests pass.

• If you can pinpoint but not fix the problem, it's time to start a debugger. Walk through the malfunctioning parts of the code and verify if the state and data changes according to your expectations.

• Go deep until you killed the bug.

• Some bugs pop up only sporadically. If you try to hunt them down, they mysteriously disappear. (These bugs are called Heisenbugs, after Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle.) Use advanced logging, metrics, and tracing to catch them in the act.

Debugging isn't what you do with a debugger. Debugging is everything you do to eliminate undesired behavior in your code. The debugger is but one tool in a large arsenal of debugging tools and techniques.

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Written by Christoph Berger on 2025-01-17 at 17:23

My little remote software stack

I am working on reducing my dependency on my laptop, or any local machine in general.

So far, this is the small stack of (open source) software I use:

• Anytype for managing my projects, research, resources, and other documents. It's an open source, local-first, end-to-end encrypted, block-oriented editor.

• Coolify for managing containerized apps on a VM.

• Restic to backup parts of my NAS

• Forgejo as a mirror for GitHub (early evaluation phase)

• Open WebUI for talking to LLMs

• Syncthing to synchronize Obsidian vaults (but I plan to sunset both in favor of Anytype)

• One of Grist (getgrist), NocoDB, or similar to collect news for my Go newsletter

One goal I pursue is data sovereignty, which is why you see no centralized service of the Big Ones listed.

Curious, what self-hosted software are you using for fun and profit?

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Written by Christoph Berger on 2025-01-16 at 15:47

Two more spotlights are online:

• From the current Applied Go Weekly Newsletter issue:

Big Things Will Happen

https://appliedgo.net/spotlight/big-things-will-happen-2025/

• And one from June 2023:

How To Verify Struct Initialization For Completeness

https://appliedgo.net/spotlight/verify-struct-initialization-complete/

[#]golang

Enjoy reading!

https://appliedgo.net/spotlight/big-things-will-happen-2025/

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Written by Christoph Berger on 2025-01-15 at 15:22

Clean up what the GC can't clean up

Gophers coming from OOP languages may occasionally miss a finalizer in Go. Fret no more: With the AddCleanup function, new in Go 1.24, you can close files, disconnect DB connections, and clean up other resources once the object containing these resources becomes unreachable.

Here is how it works:

• The first parameter of AddCleanup is the object whose resources to clean up.

• The second parameter is a function that expects a resource object to clean up.

• The third parameter is the resource object to be passed to the aforementioned function.

If the object containing the resource becomes unreachable, hence due for garbage collection, the cleanup function is called.

A small but important caveat: The cleanup function must not refer to the object containing the resources. Otherwise, the object would always be referenced by reachable code and would never become subject to garbage collection; hence, the cleanup function would never run.

The example in the screenshot and in the playground is simplified as much as possible. The object is a temporary file, and the cleanup function removes the file from disk.

https://go.dev/play/p/05BWkHUHWZo?v=gotip

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Written by Christoph Berger on 2025-01-14 at 15:51

A new Applied Go Weekly Newsletter issue is available:

• Big things will happen (and how to prepare)

• Go's (not so) secret internals

• Cgo is dangerous—but why?

• DebugString() FTW

• Cup o' Go mentions this newsletter! 🤗

• And more articles, projects,…

https://newsletter.appliedgo.net/archive/2025-01-12-big-things-will-happen/

https://newsletter.appliedgo.net/archive/2025-01-12-big-things-will-happen/

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