starless @starless@pixie.town

@dragon https://social.pixie.town/@starless/108162394497787218

it's a little python script that prints out a pseudo-random tarot card (no fancy seeds or anything) and a little interpreted meaning on a receipt printer. I just updated it to work on a bluetooth cat printer off ali express ($20 if you've got cash to burn).

@dragon lol no worries. I was just like "Wow, they must be talking about my little cat tarot printer project. Okay, okay, this is weird, but maybe not that surprising for mastodon."

Silly me. :P

@dragon I think decreasing variable re-use is why most style guides I've used prefer local definitions over defs at the top of the function.

I think most compilers optimize lines like
for(int x = 0; x<3; x++)
{
int i = x +i
print(i)
}
such that i isn't actually re-allocated each time, but like, yeah, most places I've seen would have you define int i right before the loop, but not at the top of the function, and ideally, if i isn't used elsewhere, to wrap the whole thing in something for scope management. That loop does look a bit wasteful.

The little overview of what's to come is neat, though, I totally agree there.

@dragon Not to, like make this a paragraph, but I think I prefer the opposite.

The main benefit of defining your variables later is that they're closer to the context in which they're used/relevant.

It's a bit of a balance between "is my code interesting/hard to understand because of the logic it's driving, or is my code interesting because of the computer things it's accomplishing?"

If it's the latter, I could see having the memory all allocated at the same time as being real helpful, but if it's the former, it can help with local readability. I prefer to work on things that are logically interesting, but computationally boring, so my preferences might make some sense here.

To each is their own, tho. :)

@dragon I feel like I'm getting a code review via toot! :P

I mostly tend to focus on the end goal so much that I find I get bored with even the most minor complexity introductions until the whole thing 'works' end-to-end... But I might just be, like, some kind of barbarian dev here.