Hey bro, can I have some antibiotic resistance?

Sure bro, but remember that the heavy metal tolerance gene is a dependency.

Shit, I’m on python 2 but hmrA requires python 3.

  • enkers
    link
    fedilink
    59
    edit-2
    10 months ago

    The tree of life is a git repository. I’m personally partial to the giraffe release.

    • kubica
      link
      fedilink
      4510 months ago

      class Giraffe extends Neck {...} or something like that

        • enkers
          link
          fedilink
          24
          edit-2
          10 months ago

          What, you thought a giraffe was some sort of animal, and not a type of neck? Didn’t you know that snakes, geese, and giraffes all evolved from the common neck: C. neckens?

        • kubica
          link
          fedilink
          1210 months ago

          It’s free style, another alternative if you prefer class Giraffe extends Animal { this.neck = 10*super.neck; }

    • Turun
      link
      fedilink
      2810 months ago

      The one with the 5m long nerve? Because it needs to loop around an artery near the heart, as that was the shortest way back when that nerve first developed. And now the source and destination are still close, but the heart moved. But no one has gotten around to make that legacy code more efficient.

      One of my favorites as well.

      • enkers
        link
        fedilink
        19
        edit-2
        10 months ago

        It’s a feature, not a bug…

        OK, look, we tried refactoring, but everything broke. Just don’t touch it and it’ll be fine.

    • @cm0002
      link
      1410 months ago

      Where is the Human branch maintainer? Why aren’t they reviewing and approving the numerous PRs and merges??? So many open issues…

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        2
        edit-2
        10 months ago

        They left a cryptic note about free will and not mixing textiles a few millennia back and haven’t been on the mammals-dev Slack since.

        It’s alright, we’re pretty sure adoption is going to peak soon anyway.

    • @[email protected]OP
      link
      fedilink
      710 months ago

      Oh yes, DNA is more like a reference library than a blueprint. Proteins and other molecules decide what they want, then activate the appropriate genes. Also most of the DNA is stuff that isn’t in everyday use - genes that are to be used only under certain circumstances, genes that were once functional but are now deprecated, random DNA that got in by mistake, and stuff that serves no discernable purpose but breaks everything if removed.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        5
        edit-2
        10 months ago

        Lol, Junk DNA is rarely used functions and deprecated code. :-}

        Btw, useless fragments of virus’s “imports” are there too, right? And some accidents and jumping sequences too. DNA is wild.

        • @[email protected]OP
          link
          fedilink
          610 months ago

          Rarely used stuff isn’t junk DNA. It is still part of the genome, just expressed only under certain conditions (like stress).

          Viral sequences do get embedded in host DNA. Some stay mostly inactive, others keep jumping around (and shuffling our genes in usually harmful but occassionally useful combinations) and yet others actually become useful to the host.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          610 months ago

          Not a biologist but have to understand some biology and my understanding is that the current consensus is that most of that junk DNA isn’t actually junk and serves some purpose. We just have a very poor understanding of what that is or how it works.

    • @[email protected]OP
      link
      fedilink
      1410 months ago

      Males are bloat. Reproducing asexually and exchanging genes horizontally is clearly more efficient.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        16
        edit-2
        10 months ago

        Only in simpler species, higher animals have too much depencies.

        Other things are simpler. Did you know that there was a group of goats stranded on an island, developed cold-bloodedness to save ressources?

  • @DontRedditMyLemmy
    link
    1310 months ago

    Now I want to know what “tech debt” means. Could someone please Google for me?

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      21
      edit-2
      10 months ago

      It’s mostly a software development term. Bugs are the most obvious kind of tech debt. They have to be fixed or a product will slowly become unusable over time, so when you release something with bugs you’re incurring “debt” they must be “paid” later by fixing them. A lot of tech debt also involves corner cutting and bad design decisions that are hard to explain briefly.

    • Ephera
      link
      fedilink
      1710 months ago

      Implementing a software feature takes a certain amount of time, and time translates pretty directly to money. Sometimes, you may need to meet a deadline or run out of budget, so you end up implementing the feature at a lower quality or without completing the usual checks or constructing it in such a way that nothing else can be built on top.

      This allows you to meet the time/money constraints, but it will come back to haunt you, either making the implementation of future features more costly, or requiring the mess you left behind to be cleaned up, before trying to build on top.
      As such, it feels a lot like you’re taking up ‘technical debt’, which you’ll have to pay for later.

    • @BlackPenguins
      link
      9
      edit-2
      10 months ago

      It’s the cleaning up of code by making it easier to read or rewriting something in a less convoluted way. Originally you just wanted it to be done quick so you coded it in a sloppy way. Now you have “debt” that needs to be fixed. You don’t really gain anything by cleaning it, so it wastes your time instead of implementing something new.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      110 months ago

      Technical debt means how much work it takes to update legacy solution to a modern solution. E.g. each time a new C++ standard is used, all code written with the old standard should be checked. The work time needed to do this is paying up the technical dept.

      Now, if you are lazy, and didn’t clean up the code, used the easy and sloppy solution, next time you have twice the work to be done. So the dept gets worse, if you do nothing.

  • @Pohl
    link
    1210 months ago

    Studying evolutionary biology in my undergrad had a big impact on how I look at systems. Judge them by their effect, and not their parsimony. If the mess inside starts to negatively impact efficacy, it will almost always get replaced and almost never get fixed.

    Getting obsessed with “how the sausage is made” is a pointless endeavor. If it’s good, eat it, if not make something that tastes better.

    • @[email protected]OP
      link
      fedilink
      210 months ago

      Funny thing is, I’m a biologist who learned this lesson when I studied programming. As a famous biologist said, god is a hacker and not an engineer.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    310 months ago

    I touched a piece code that was +10 years old, according to git. Should I be scared? Will my change it survive??