Rants from the Ballmer Peak

In Spain they can force you to work without payment for more than a year

2025-03-13T23:27:00Z

In Spain they can force you to work without payment for more than a year

NOTA: Este artículo es una traducción del original en Español.

NOTE: This is a translation of the original article in Spanish. Beware, its context is very specific to Spain, may not apply to you or your situation at all.

The normal life of an ant

If one turns on the TV at any point in time, in a program about economy, you get the feeling that workers are some kind of tyrants who dominate Spanish firms, dictating unilaterally and at their whim stupid rules like reducing working hours, having paternity leaves, or even getting paid for extra hours. However the law favours firms in many cases, and this article will explain how easy it is for some entrepreneurs to decide whether to pay or not at all their employees. In particular, following the law to the letter, it is possible that an employee may not receive their wage for more than a year. Everything told here is my personal experience, I'm not speaking from hearsay.

In Spain the two most popular types of work are employed (currito) and self-...

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En España te pueden obligar a trabajar sin salario durante más de un año

2025-03-12T18:22:00Z

En España te pueden obligar a trabajar sin salario durante más de un año

NOTE: While most of the blog content is in English, this article is very specific to Spain, so it is written in Spanish. You can read a translation to English if you wish so.

La vida normal de una hormiga

Si uno enciende la televisión en cualquier momento del día, en un programa de debate económico, da la sensación de que los trabajadores son tiranos que dominan a las empresas de España, y dictan unilateralmente y a su antojo normas estúpidas como reducir la jornada de trabajo, tener permisos de paternidad, o incluso cobrar las horas extra. Sin embargo la ley favorece en muchos casos a las empresas, y este artículo desentrañará la facilidad con la que algunos empresarios pueden decidir pagar o no a sus empleados. En particular, siguiendo la ley a pié juntillas, es posible que un trabajador por cuenta ajena no reciba su salario durante más de un año. Todo lo que se comenta aquí es experiencia personal sufrida en primera persona, no hablo de oídas.

En España los dos modos de trabajo más populares son el trabajo por cuenta ajena (currito) y el trabajo por cuenta propia (autónomo). El trabajo por cuenta propia tiene muchos menos derechos y seguridad que el trabajo por cuenta ajen...

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Jetbrains backs off on Kotlin/Native memory model, Android devs too stupid to learn new tricks

2021-05-30T19:28:00Z

Jetbrains backs off on Kotlin/Native memory model, Android devs too stupid to learn new tricks

Now that Google IO 2021 is behind our backs and it essentially boiled down to refining existing libs, fresh coat of paint, and copying Apple Privacy policies, the most shocking revelation to me was Jetbrains update on the Kotlin/Native memory model which dropped like a bomb:

TL;DR: The original Kotlin/Native memory management approach was very easy to implement, but it created a host of problems for developers trying to share their Kotlin code between different platforms.

Of course this reversal is hidden among piles of marketing speech, but is happily pointed out by the comments, where Roman Elizarov can't say much other than, "yeah, we will make that work".

This needed change comes a bit too late to the party, because most Android developers with an interest in Kotlin/Native have probably already touched the big pile of poo that Kotlin/Native memory model ...

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Machine learning is killing Dropbox search

2019-05-04T19:50:00Z

Machine learning is killing Dropbox search

Waking up with your left foot

Recently the Dropbox Tech Blog published one article titled Using machine learning to predict what file you need next which ended ticking me off. The reason is simple, Dropbox search feature stopped working for me about two years ago. Unfortunately I'm used to dozens of products having bugs that make them inconvenient, and you simply learn to live with crap because fixing it is more expensive than ignoring it. As a programmer you learn that software is far from being the product of a single person, and groups of different people have different views on what quality is, means, or how it is achieved. We are all slaves to the financial aspect of business anyway, and we know the business side doesn't really care about bugs unless they torpedo their income, so priorities tend to be somewhere else (shiny new features! Shinyyyyyyy!). So seeing the Dropbox blog gloat about how awesome machine learning is finally prompted me to make public how crap their search actually is, and has been for years.

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From Python windows console to Nim Karax webapp

2019-03-26T20:58:00Z

From Python windows console to Nim Karax webapp

A challenger appears

Between people who really love programming and those who treat technology like inscrutable magic there are those like Kpopalypse who are capable of building software without being dedicated programmers. If you go to Kpopalypse's website and click on Sully you will find out many facts about his persona, but you will miss that he has released sp00ky interactive Halloween fanfiction or adventure games like Escape from the Idol Dungeon or Try Not To Have Gay Sex With Yves, showing higher than average levels of determination to understand and dominate technology.

Most recently Kpopalypse released a fan comment generator, which allows anybody with a Windows computer to mechanize the act of answering posts in crazy kpop forums. The orig...

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Package managers, the lazy alternative to git submodules

2018-11-19T00:30:00Z

Package managers, the lazy alternative to git submodules

The problem

Package managers have always looked strange to me. Why would you want to use one? It is actually not weird to have that point of view, especially if your background comes from programming languages like C or C++, which don't have any well known package manager (even though people keep trying to build some) and developers resort to using the system libraries/packages or git submodules to manage their software builds. On the other hand, people mostly coming from interpreted languages are so used to the idea that not using a package manager seems like crazy advice. Today, software development uses some form of source content management, and it seems like git has won the war, especially since it is used by GitHub, possibly the most popular free repository choice for open source and free software. As such, many de...

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