The current thing I’m working on (processor for iptv m3u files) isn’t public yet, it’s still in the very early stages. Some of the “learning to fly” rust projects I’ve done so far are here though:

https://git.nerfed.net/r00ty/bingo_rust (it’s a multi-threaded bingo game simulator, that I made because of the stand-up maths video on the subject).
https://git.nerfed.net/r00ty/spectrum_screen (this is a port of part of a general CPU emulation project I did in C#, it emulates the ZX spectrum screen, you can load in the 6912 byte screens and it will show it in a 2x scaled window).

I think both of these are rather using Arc<RwLock<Thing>> because they both operate in a threaded environment. Bingo is wholly multi-threaded and the spectrum screen is meant to be used by a CPU emulator running in another thread. So not quite the same thing. But you can probably see a lot of jamming the wrong shape in the wrong hole in both of those.

The current project isn’t multi-threaded. So it has a lot of the Rc/Rc<RefCell> action instead.

EDIT: Just to give the reason for Rc<RefCell> in the current project. I’m reading in a M3U file and I’m going to be referencing it against an Excel file. So in the structure for the m3u file, I have two BtreeMaps, one for order by channel number and one by name. Each containing references to the same Channel object.

Likewise the same channel objects are stored in the structure for the Excel file that is read in (searched for in the m3u file structure).

BTreeMaps used because in different scenarios the contents will be output in either name order or channel order. So just better to put them in, in that order in the first place.

The problem with rust, I always find is that when you’re from the previous coding generation like myself. Where I grew up on 8 bit machines with basic and assembly language that you could actually use moving into OO languages… I find that with rust, I’m always trying to shove a round block in a square hole.

When I look at other projects done originally in rust, I think they’re using a different design paradigm.

Not to say, what I make doesn’t work and isn’t still fast and mostly efficient (mostly…). But one example is, because I’m used to working with references and shoving them in different storage. Everything ends up surrounded by Rc<xxx> or Rc<RefCell<xxx>> and accessed with blah.as_ptr().borrow().x etc.

Nothing wrong with that, but the code (to me at least) feels messy in comparison to say C# which is where I do most of my day job work these days. But since I see often that things are done very different in rust projects I see online, I feel like to really get on with the language I need a design paradigm shift somewhere.

I do still persist with rust because I think it’s way more portable than other languages. By that I mean it will make executable files for linux and windows with the same code that really only needs the standard libraries installed on the machine. So when I think of writing a project I want to work on multi platforms, I’m generally looking at rust first these days.

I just realised this is programmerhumor. Sorry, not a very funny comment. Unless you’re a rust developer and laughing at my plight of trying to make rust work for me.

I’ve been using thinkpads as a work laptop since they were branded IBM Thinkpad. So, I have nothing further to comment.

This does tally up with what I’ve been hearing. Where I’m at there’s been a few hires straight into senior. I’ve not heard of an official junior freeze. At the same time it’s been a long time since I’ve seen a new one.

The problem, as I commented prior, is that if we no longer bring in junior devs to gain this kind of experience, we lose the flow of junior -> senior. But in most places, the people making the decisions won’t consider anything beyond the end of the current fin year.

I don’t think developers are doing it. It’s managers making this kind of decision I’d say.

I’ve been told about companies in the same field as mine with a hiring freeze on juniors. So it’s kinda second hand.

I think it goes further than that. There’s two things happening with regard to AI and software development.

1: Stack overflow has become less common as a resource to solve problems. This, as you say has a problem of input into LLMs for future problems to solve.
2: Junior developers are being hired less because of AI. I assume the idea is that seniors will use AI in the same way they would usually use juniors. Except, they’ve done what business always does. Not think one bit about the future. Today’s senior developers are yesterdays junior developers.

The combination of AI performance drop due to point 1, and the lack of new developers because of point 2 makes for potentially, a bad future for the profession.

Specifically answering this question. It works transparently with IPv4. Organisations running servers can run both IPv4 and IPv6 operations with very little effort on their part. ISPs can deploy this and router makers include support with only a reasonable amount of effort.

As users AND servers get IPv6 addresses, in the background they will just be used. At some point there would be so much IPv6 adoption they could turn off IPv4. There is a thing called “6to4” but dual stack has (I think rightly) became the main way people run both.

In the UK I think at least half the ISPs provide IPv6 now. I think also in Europe it’s the same or better. But still we’re far from replacing IPv4 and I wonder when it might ever happen.

I’m going to just answer each point in turn. Maybe it’s useful. I don’t know.

It offers a shitload of IP addresses

It does. Generally most ISPs assign each user the equivalent of the IPv4 address space multiplied by itself. There’s a lot of address space to go around.

They look really complicated

This is true. But you rarely need to remember a full IP address. Most resources you access via DNS. If you have servers on your own network you will probably need to remember your own prefix (first 3 or 4 blocks of 4 hex numbers) and your servers you want to access would likely be ::1 and ::2 etc in that allocation. So you’d learn them. Also most routers allow for local DNS entries and there’s other things that will help here.

Something about every device in your local network being visible from everywhere?

This is a concern, but that’s mostly because router makers now are often badly configuring their routers. The correct way to configure a router is to allow outgoing/established connections by default and block all incoming (until you specifically open a port). Once this is done the security is very similar to NAT.

Some claim it obsoletes NAT?

Yes, NAT was created to make a small address space work in an era of multiple internet consumers behind a single connection. But when each device can get a routable IPv6 address, NAT is not needed. However the security I talk about above IS essential to apply to consumer routers.

Now, I’ll elaborate on some of the features of IPv6 (a lot of which are just not being used when they could have been).

IPv6 privacy extensions (RFC4951)

This allows normal client machines (the kind that would usually be behind NAT entirely) to have a similar level of security and privacy provided by NAT. One concern with just plain IPv6 with a fixed IPv6 allocation is that people could ID a specific machine from web logs etc and could be used against you in privacy terms. This extension ensures that you have multiple active IPv6 addresses. One could be the one you perhaps have some ports open on. That address will not be used for outgoing connections. A random IP will be used for outgoing connections and this IP will not have any ports open and will change frequently. I think on windows this is enabled by default (when you look in ipconfig you will often see multiple “temporary addresses”).

Harder to portscan

Currently it doesn’t take THAT long to portscan the whole IPv4 address space. And because almost every public address is hosting multiple hosts behind it, there’s a good chance ports will be open on a lot of the IPs scanned.

With IPv6 the public address space is huge. With normal machines having their allocations made randomly within a huge allocation per user and every IP would still need every port scanned. This makes active port scanning much harder. The above privacy extensions also mean that passive port scanning (port scanning IPs found in web logs for example) is harder too.

User experience

Provided consumer routers are configured well from the factory and ISPs are making sensible decisions regarding allocation of address space, the user will benefit from the advantages and not even know they’re using IPv6 in many cases. When you go to google/facebook/youtube etc you will be on IPv6 and not even know it.

We used to have it terrible in the UK in the 90s and 2000s. Basic ADSL was trialled in 1999 and available in maybe late 2000 I think. But it stagnated for a while.

When it came to fibre, interesting things are happening. As well as the “national” (although privatised) telco installing it, there are many independent companies fitting it. Where I live I have the option of the official telco (1000/110) and a private company (1000/1000). Of course I chose the latter :P

Some people have 3 or more options.

Yeah in the future there might well be a handful of overall winners that vacuum up the losers and carve up the territory. But right now, it’s a good time for the normal people… At least for internet.

EDIT: Just to add, some are ISPs and will only sell their own product. Some are wholesale, so even if they’re the only company in your area, you can often buy from multiple ISPs through them.

20 years into the trump dynasty dictatorship, they will still be saying “thanks Biden” to every financial inconvenience.

This is actually a very big difference with the USA and the UK (and possibly most of Europe, not sure though). We generally store eggs outside of the fridge. On a shelf or in a pantry/cupboard for example.

Slimey’s back!

I wouldn’t even bother replying to comments from hexbear mk II. I just automatically assume troll.

Yeah, it’s not really new. In the movie Falling Down from 1993 (weird, I thought it was late 80s) has the whole scene where he’s complaining about the difference between the advert and what you’re served in a fast food place (well also that they wouldn’t serve breakfast because it was like a couple of minutes late and almost certainly had some still hot breakfast around, but that’s another story).

It’s been this way for a long time, all over the world. I’d be amazed if this turned into a world changing case after all this time.

I think it had its uses in the past, specifically if it had the memory backup to prevent full array rebuilds and cached data loss on power failure.

Also at the height of raid controller use (I would say 90s and 2000s) there probably was some compute savings by shifting the work to a dedicated controller.

In modern day, completely agree.

I’m sure I’ve seen paid software that will detect and read data from several popular hardware controllers. Maybe there’s something free that can do the same.

For the future, I’d say that with modern copy on write filesystems, so long as you don’t mind the long rebuild on power failures, software raid is fine for most people.

I found this, which seems to be someone trying to do something similar with a drive array built with an Intel raid controller

https://blog.bramp.net/post/2021/09/12/recovering-a-raid-5-intel-storage-matrix-on-linux-without-the-hardware/

Note, they are using drive images, you should be too.

The OP made clear it was a controller failure or entire system (I read hardware here) failure. Which does complicate things somewhat.

Yeah, I was going to say. Not pension, but I put money into two different blended portfolios (I didn’t choose the contents, just the two choices from a list). I started it in Feb 2021 and the overall gain has been over 35%. I have no idea what the pension fund put their money into there, but it seems like some bad choices.

OP should check the options they have.

Yes, came to say the same. It’s very easy to get a voip number in most countries. But many places that want to use it for ID purposes (finance etc including paypal) will know the voip allocations and block them.