Harder than usual

On "one of my other blogs" ('surprise, it's raining...') I am turning to the world with the cynicality it deserves. Not sure this entry should go there :)

While about to install FreeType 2 due to matplotlib which actually my project currently doesn't need at all (well done me, well done us), I came by the lack of obvious setup instructions (but you do find an article about why the name of GNU doesn't matter if you're really interested at that point) on the project's main page.

FreeType apparently is distributed etc. as a community effort (which is great!) and I guess is widely used as a prerequisite for matplotlib (which is ...).

Then it may hit your eye: 'emergency release'.

(... well ...) this severe vulnerability has apparently been 

hanging around since 2.6, which means for a bit over (... not so great...) badum tss

5 years.

I got here as I was looking for the installation instructions and clicked the first hit, which was "How to Install FreeType 2.8 in Ubuntu 16.04, 17.04" (by UbuntuHandbook, from 2017 - a http link, no real need click it).

Not only it opened up with an insecure HTTP protocol about an hour ago, it even seems to redirect your browser from a https access attempt to that one.

So ... well, yes :) I thought 'why not avoid that PPA' and then 'well, it's raining a bit harder than usual'.

May have gotten caught up in a stream ... 'would you like to keep your eyes shut? yes, please.' ;)

P.S.: also note that I'd been trying (without much success) to use my memory foam pillow comfortably (upside down, by the way :D ) for about 7 years now. With any luck I'd have surely made it to 10 if I wasn't to decide to find some reassuring reviews, which I - surprisingly - didn't. I did find some insulting photos though of them, who used it in the right way. The takeaway here is I believe I just got reassured that this pillow is an embarrassment. At least a bit of success at the end of the day =b

P.S. 2: What I actually was (i.e. ye olde matplotlib version was) missing is just a sudo apt install libfreetype6-dev. My bad. Period? ;)

 

Notes to self: configure that git editor

very briefly e.g.:

git config --global core.editor vim

surely I overused nano or pico or what so I'll forget to notice I'm back there next time ... but at least I tried to remind myself :)

3 words to make you happy

Just 3 simple words to make you a really happy, powerful Linux user:

Confirmed, Undecided, Unassigne

You can still keep checking though ... :)

Using Python2 8 months after deprecation? Yes... o.O

Python 2 is allegedly still used by 0.8/1.4 ~ 57% % of the Python-based websites, according to statistics that are updated daily. Hmmm...

A thought about global variables

So there are many many reasons about avoiding the use of global variables and akin to those, singleton classes, then there are often short-term benefits that outweigh the classic enumeration of classic considerations.

Of course singletons can be considered bad OOP/OOD, and instead proper instantiable, replicable, initializable classes/instances can be favourized, that which don't require extra efforts to rip them out of some too conveniently developed web of dependencies and side effects to put under our own conscious control, at a close enough range to our prying test cases.

One nagging thought though ... aren't all classes in Python effectively global variables (or isomorphic with them)? ;)

(To me it feels like just one more hint to the top of the heap that even the best patterns - or avoiding the worst, if there are any, if a ranking of any kind might at all be established - don't work without discipline and thinking, systematic trial error, intuition and luck, and all those things that actually make intellectual work work. And then ... probably there's a plethora of other interesting things out there to outline in relation to the above.)