> I'm not really sure what your point is in criticizing "farming" to C.
If Python is so great how come it can't even express a decent data structure that it needs? I'll happily level the same criticism at Ruby if you like.
> You made a false claim.
Firstly: This is not High School Debate Club. There isn't some kind of point system. Language and expectations like this are not only counterproductive (in that they essentially turn every conversation into a series of verbal ripostes in which the goal is to be most right rather than *learn the most) they're also tedious and unwelcome.
> You referred to Python iteration as not generic,
I did not. I said list comprehensions weren't generic, and then I tried to explain my complaint. It may be that someone has done a legendary feat of going through and creating a bunch of mixins for some of the gaps in the list comprehension coverage such that you can find some way to override how non-determinism is expressed. If so, please point me to it.
> If Python is so great how come it can't even express a decent data structure that it needs?
Why is this a requirement of a "great" language? By not requiring a language to be self-hosting, you are adding more degrees of freedom to your language's design, so I could even see an argument that writing it in C is an improvement. I don't necessarily agree with that, but I don't see why cpython written in C implies it is a bad language. Maybe you could elucidate your thinking?
you are adding more degrees of freedom to your language's design
Why do you think that? Languages/runtimes with high C integration and fairly exposed C bowels like Python and Ruby have, over time, turned out to be very hard to evolve compatibly.
Because it's a fact? With cpython you can develop things in python if that suits you or C if that suits you. You have more freedom to choose what fits your use case. I'm not saying this is necessarily good, but I don't think it's obviously bad. I'd like to hear from people who think it's the case.
> Languages/runtimes with high C integration and fairly exposed C bowels like Python and Ruby have, over time, turned out to be very hard to evolve compatibly.
That is true, but it's also arguably one of the reasons cpython became so popular in the first place. The ability to write C-extensions when appropriate has been very powerful. It's certainly caused issues, but I think if python didn't have exposed bowels it may never have become nearly as popular. What if numpy wasn't ever written? (This isn't to say that they couldn't have exposed a better C-api with fewer issues, but hindsight is 20/20...)
I guess I don't understand how 'the design gets stuck in amber' (which you seem to agree with) and 'gives you lots of design degrees of freedom' can be true at the same time.
It gives you flexibility in writing libraries while making it harder to design a new compatible runtime. That said, PyPy has achieved pretty good C extension support while making the language faster.
The claim was 'degrees of freedom in your language's design'. It's an odd one because the history of a bunch of similar languages has been exactly the opposite. Compare, say, JS to Ruby and Python. Even with the seemingly crippling burden of browser compatibility, Javascript has evolved out of its various design and implementation ruts a lot more gracefully than either Ruby or Python.
> Language and expectations like this are not only counterproductive ... they're also tedious and unwelcome.
Who gets to be the language police? I'm fine with "High School Debate" but "verbal ripostes in which the goal is to be most right rather than learn the most" is not an accurate description of that.
You can do this if you like. In the past, I'm guilty of it as well.
But I won't engage with someone who does this the same way, because they're not engaging me as a human. Unless, of course, they're already dehumanizing me (as occasionally happens on this website) and then I don't feel quite so bad about it.
If Python is so great how come it can't even express a decent data structure that it needs?
I'm sure you know this is a deliberate design choice/tradeoff. It's arguably turned out to be a bit of a millstone for languages that eventually want to grow up to be general-purpose-ish, but that wasn't as obvious at the time.
> You made a false claim. You referred to Python iteration as not generic, when what you really meant is that Python lacks first class monad support.
Are you really that lacking in self-awareness that you responded to someone annoyed about programming culture by going full "debate with logic, facts and reason" mode?
Well that sounds like a personal problem and it has nothing to do with the language. As a counter-anecdote, I've been working on Python projects for over a decade and have yet to experience the draconian linter settings you described.
There's quite a class divide between corner pub and brew-pub clientele. It feels like for every trendy brewery thriving, a few anonymous bars are failing. I'm not saying it's wrong, but it is different, and I'm not sure that a popular brew-pub is a useful counterexample to the general decline of dive bars.
And you've gotten to the root of the decline of places like pubs: Inflation with mostly stagnant wages. Sure, you can have a "cheap" burger and beer, but more often than not you'll end up eating roadkill and drinking chemicals.
Most people just can't afford to hang out the bar all the time anymore.
Medical and religious reasons are totally exempt in my book. Though I strongly recommend getting wasted on Raki with (Muslim) Turks. They have hollow legs. And it totally breaks down any preconceptions or irrational prejudices one might have. I once had a Pakistani Muslim over for Christmas dinner, and I offered him some single malt scotch. He said his duty to accept my hospitality outweighed his duty to abstain from alcohol. We had an excellent time. :)
But really if it's medical, it can't be helped. And if it is really a matter of faith, then abstinence is absolutely worthy of respect.
Known many, and that I respect as well. True alcoholism is an absolute monster, and the truth is that some people simply cannot stop once they start. Don't assume I think everyone should drink just for the sake of it--many people have excellent reasons for not doing so. Totally understandable. Many people who do not drink are beyond reproach.
And then some others are, well, Cathy/Kate from Steinbeck's 'East of Eden'.
Might change my original position to 'I don't trust anyone who doesn't drink without a good explanation such as a medical condition that precludes the enjoyment of the drink, religious convictions, or a history of or proclivity towards alcoholism. Sounds rather like an American prescription drug ad though.
Agreed, it takes a special kind of asshole to run a bar while "[his] own family has been afflicted by alcoholism."
> Richard had spent untold hours trading stories with friends, cementing connections with them, with the space, and with the city outside. A few people had gathered to continue their remembrance. All changed utterly, everything constant, I ordered a drink from the bar and sat down.
And it takes a special kind of asshole to be a professional grave digger when his entire family will die and be buried. Same kind of illogical argument.
Nor a bartender is contributing to the death of people, even when they drink themselves to death. Let's see where is the personal responsibility of each of the people involved.
I saw this kind of logic trying to blame gun manufacturers, but it should extend to car sellers (there are many more deaths in traffic), knife sellers, soft drink sellers (diabetes kills), etc. No, they are not contributing to someone's death just because they sell them something that person uses and eventually die.
> (2) It's arguably the most valuable battleground in logistics - developing a "last mile" delivery network at scale.
How is Uber Eats any different from the many other operations strapping boxes to the backs of bicyclists? I don't see anything innovative about Uber's last mile logistics compared to Amazon (who aren't even that great) for instance.
It sounds more like an excuse Uber's leadership would make as they desperately search for profitable business.
There is no "last mile delivery network at scale".
Well there is, its called the postal system but there sure as heck isn't any just-in-time last mile network "at scale". You just have fuck tonnes of delivery drivers who need to get paid. There is no magic "at scale" wand to wave over it to make it economically viable.
The excuses for Uber losing money is getting jaw dropping now.
Uber Eats like Uber ride sharing are marketplace businesses.
In order for a new entrant to come in they need to grow both businesses and consumers at the same time. Which is hard with no competitors. But very hard with cash rich companies like Uber trying to stop you.
We saw this all play out in Australia where we initially had Foodora and Deliveroo. Then Uber joined with aggressive marketing and pricing. They pushed Foodora out and the number of businesses in Deliveroo is dropping. It is going to be a winner take all situation. At which point prices will rise and the profits will roll in.
I've found that this isn't the experience. Most options I'm after are available in multiple apps.
More to the point, all drivers seem to use multiple apps. I often get my food in bags from the wrong company. The barrier to switching for drivers _and_ the customers is zero.
As a result this feels less like money spent on a unique strategy and more like money spent buying the business.
It's worth pointing out that in my area of Melbourne the number of places available on any of the platforms is rising, but the platform that is increasing the quickest in my area is Menulog.
Uber Eats just changed their delivery price to be based on distance, which has vastly increased the average delivery fee, and the prices on Uber Eats are inflated over every other delivery platform because of the cut they take.
And in Melbourne CBD, by far the largest number of bikes I see are delivering for Easi.
Not sure that the market is actually struggling here.
Melbourne CBD is a bit of an anomaly as you have a super high concentration of Asian students in one area. Hence the growth of Easi.
But everywhere else Uber is still by far the leader. Foodora couldn't compete. Deliveroo is struggling and Menulog isn't really competitive given lack of marketing spend.
Restaurants aren't limited to a single service, though. This isn't a winner take all situation. We will end up with an oligopoly but the barriers will be low enough to prevent the winners from being too greedy or complacent.
I’m not sure I agree with your conclusion because the cost of switching is almost zero, and none of the parties involved have an incentive for loyalty. Here in DC, the restaurants heavily promote whoever is giving them the best rate and the drivers all work for multiple vendors, to the point that I’ve had orders from one accompanied by a suggestion to switch to a competitor. If anyone starts raising prices business can shift overnight, and there’s a ceiling over which people stop buying or fallback to the non-app delivery guy.
I think they claim the prices are not unsustainable once they get economies of scale. Every new company "subsidizes" their customers until they reach a critical mass that allows them to achieve profitability.
Isn't it possible that the sole reason that this market niche exist is because of competitive prices?
Maybe Uber is killing the market it is trying to monopolize and by the time it gets it all, the pricing it will have to practice to actually make it profitable will drive customers back to eating in person in the restaurant
1 - “desperately search for profitable business” - UBERs core business is a breath away from profitability. And trending quickly in the right direction. Looking at their corporate overhead and new market bets it’s clear they could cut their way to profitability today. But they are chasing a larger prize.
2 - Logistics is mind bogglingly difficult and capital intensive. Uber’s built in driver base has idle time that is an outrageously deep moat in competing in this space. Uber has 3 million drivers, say each vehicle costs $10k avg that is $30b In free capital equipment that they are starting with. Their internal traffic / route data that they collect from all 3m drivers all the time is the richest in the world. FedEx - for example - has “only” 85,000 vehicles.
driver base has idle time that is an outrageously deep moat in competing in this space
It isn’t a moat at all! Every driver has all the apps and picks jobs from any of them. If I use Lyft instead of Uber the chances are I'll get the same driver in the same car anyway. And he’ll follow his in-car GPS to find me and then to take me to my destination so there’s no value in the route data either.
In theory there may be economies of scale in food delivery if a single driver can deliver multiple orders from the same restaurant. Uber Eats already offers free/cheap delivery when there's already an order out to a given restaurant.
It's not theoretical. Uber Eats already does single-origin, multiple-destination batching to squeeze efficiency out of their network (I have a friend who works there). Afaik there are other kinds of batching they have not yet implemented.
1. Many of their restaurants are simply not geared well for being in the delivery business. They don’t have good parking for drivers. Their menu is built around dining in, not 30 mins in a car. Their delivery packaging is subpar or overkill. They really have to train their restaurant partners to succeed or they won’t get repeat business. They have an inventory problem.
2. The value proposition of food delivery really only exists in the largest cities. Not everyone wants to eat out, but in smaller towns it’s easy to access and social. For somebody who spends 3 hours commuting each day, cooking and dining out lack appeal, but that isn’t a problem for the majority of Americans.
3. There simply isn’t much margin in the restaurant business. Most are happy to run on 1-3% margin. Food cost, scheduling labor around varying demand, and overhead with tremendous fixed and surprise costs. A spike in fuel prices can spell for a losing year, simply based on food cost and reduced demand.
I think a new model of kitchen is in order. An on-demand food service would be able to provide very fresh and hot food in short order, without soggy packaging. It could run by a network of sort of Forward Operating Bases that are positioned around predicted demand, and may move based on data. They may take walk up orders but are tooled around providing delicious food to delivery vehicles. I can imagine a lot of frictionless ways to get food into cars, scooters, or even autonomous delivery wagons, if you knew in advance that is the business you are in. They can take preorders and run their inventories based on that data to avoid food waste. There are no tables to bus, plates to break and wash, or floors to maintain. With good planning the kitchens can be cheap to build, own, and run. And the food can be the very best, made by people in the neighborhood for the neighborhood.
Until all that is common, ya I don’t think the thing works without subsidies. If we did then food delivery would have been much more common; it’s never been a technological problem.
Case in point of delivery optimized to the hilt: Dominos Pizza. It actually all comes down to the menu.
And that assumes that a restaurant business that's geared to delivery and pickup exclusively/primarily is possible. Which AFAIK is mostly limited to pizza and Chinese in most places--where delivery is mostly a solved problem.
Uber's main (only?) advantage here is their ability to take advantage of a shared labor pool. By increasing the demand for driving + food delivery, it makes the Uber labor pool bigger and further increases the lock-in effect so Uber drivers don't want to open other apps.
Thanks, was going to write that this article was rather disappointing. It is more concerned with metadata about the miniseries and economic consequences rather than the story at the center.
Do you have a definition of tourism that doesn't imply travelling ?
The only point of comparison I have is amsterdam and people are definitely flying/road tripping there for short "drug vacations" (I genuinely think everyone I know has been there at least once for that purpose), which in my book is not so good for the environment and a more than debatable reason to fly/drive hundreds of kms.
