I definitely don't want to keep unused code in version control, but for debugging or for working on things iteratively as the sibling comment said, my Go code usually ends up peppered with
if 1==2 { ...some code to temporarily disable ... }
"Just comment it out" is not always enough because when I want to quickly toggle the code on and off multiple times in a single session, it's not possible to do by only commenting/uncommenting that single block.
Sometimes the code that's commented out contains the only reference to an imported package, and by commenting it out the autoformatter helpfully removes the import from the top of the file, so then uncommenting the line is not enough -- I need to go back and re-add the import.
Or I may want to comment out this line
x = f(a, b)
but that makes a and b in turn become unused as well, and I need to travel up to wherever they're defined and comment them out too, and so on with anything else that became thus unused in that chain.
And this is all suboptimal because the warning is also important when debugging. I do want to get warned about the unused code! Just let me compile.
> Sometimes the code that's commented out contains the only reference to an imported package, and by commenting it out the autoformatter helpfully removes the import from the top of the file, so then uncommenting the line is not enough -- I need to go back and re-add the import.
The same tool that removes your imports also adds them so there usually isn’t an extra step.
Once the autoformatter sees the named import is unused it removes it. Then when I uncomment my code again the autoformatter doesn't remember that it's supposed to use a named import. So in my example it wouldn't know "bstuff" is actually "beta/stuff".
US sanctions worsen the already bad economic situation but to claim the problem is caused by US sanctions is extremely misleading. We were already seeing severe shortages way before the 2014 sanctions (which were placed on individuals, anyway). The reasons are too complex to put in a short snippet.
Crimea and Venezuela are hard to compare. While there's the common point of having an authoritarian government, they're different in many other factors such as public support of the government, geography, pre-existing economy and timing and severity of the sanctions.
Though this is very true for both, I think:
> What these policies forget is a lot of general citizens don't have much choice over the regime that leads them. They are just often people doing their thing.
and from the POV of the authoritarian government on the sanctioned country it makes sense to double down upon receiving sanctions because the sanctioning country(ies) don't have a bigger stick than that (unless they resort to military aggression).
> While Goldman Sachs defended its trade by saying that it bought the bonds on the open market from a broker, bankers and traders say the money ultimately ended up in Venezuela’s treasury because the seller was an institution with ties to the government.
But you can be the Venezuelan central bank and buy $2.8 billion in PDVSA-issued bonds and later sell those bonds at a 70 percent discount (i.e. around 840$ million) to Goldman Sachs.
Until the moment of the sale to GS the money had only been transferred between two entities associated with the government.
It doesn't generate free money. On the contrary, it generates very expensive money.
For this operation, the central bank received about $840 million in cash from GS, and PDVSA must now pay back $2.8 billion plus interest to GS.
Whereas before this operation, PDVSA (owned by the Venezuelan state) had to pay back $2.8 billion plus interest to the central bank (also owned by the Venezuelan state).
But where did the central bank get the 2.8 billion USD? Venezuelan central bank can't print USD. So, net the country owes 2.8 billion USD + interest either way. It's just that the ultimate creditors have changed.
The 2.8 billion are PDVSA-issued bonds not USD, they only exist on paper and aren't worth a cent unless Venezuela can pay. Afaik Venezuela can print as many of those as it wants.
> So, net the country owes 2.8 billion USD + interest either way.
Venezuelas right hand owes money to Venezuelas left hand, both are Venezuela so Venezuela owes nobody. Now we have Goldman buying that dept from Venezuelas left hand and some more ( it can print as much as it wants of that ) for $5, Venezuela now owes 2.8 billion to someone else it has to pay back in the future in exchange for having $5 now. Those $5 benefit the current government and will affect any future government negatively.
I may be missing something. They make USD by selling bonds, as long as they make more USD then the scheme has running cost they can increase the amount of USD they have right now by selling more bonds below value, leaving any future government in dept.
Venezuela cannot produce USD dollars out of thin air. If their monetary regime allows it, they may print Venezuelan bolivar at the cost of raising inflation in the country.
When we say "Venezuela issues a 2.8 billion USD bond" that means that the central bank sells new bonds denominated in USD on the international market (most likely an auction among bank players in London or NY).
What had happened here is that they did that and then unbeknownst to them one banker sold their bonds to another banker. The act of reselling that debt on the secondary market does not magically increase that debt. It just changes whom you have to repay it to.
Yeah, but they are not. If I sell you a car for $5000, I get the $5000 and you get the car. When you then resell the car to someone else, I am not involved in the deal in any way.
What stops Maduro from issuing a bond for $1000 and selling it for $100? After all he knows he'll be dead or in Switzerland when the bond matures. He just cares about the $100 now.
When he issues a bond, he takes a piece of paper (perhaps not literally...) and stamps "Venezuela will pay bearer $1000 on 1 January 2025" (or whatever) on it. When he sells it, he gives the piece of paper to someone else and in return they give him money, theoretically the present value of the bond. The discount between the two amounts is mostly an indication of Venezuela's creditworthiness, but of course a portion of the difference is just a reflection of the discount rate for assets to be delivered in future. This is exactly the same as when any other entity issues a bond.
We've been using WAL-E for about 4 years and it has worked well for us.
One way to continuously test that your files are being pushed up correctly is to have a hot standby pulling WAL files from S3 and check periodically that the data in the standby looks sane.
Although not a replacement for full "restore from backups" tests (because that process involves a base backup too), it's a good way to quickly notice issues preventing WAL files from being stored on S3 or from being decrypted.
What about prior to 1999? The people running Venezuela had many decades and centuries to create a "robust economy" in Venezuela. I wasn't seeing constant US headlines about how Venezuelan leaders were mismanaging the economy in those times.
Venezuela is being hurt by the same thing hurting every oil producing state - low oil prices.
Those in Venezuela who wanted to create a "robust economy" had decades to do so. As soon as power falls from their hands, everything becomes a crisis, they suddenly notice Venezuela lacks a "robust economy".
So it's okay for the economy to be mismanaged now, because it was mismanaged before 1999, as long as the people doing the mismanagement are different? We shouldn't criticize the current leadership and wish for something new because the previous one was also bad?
The people running Venezuela now have had over a decade in power with the highest oil windfall in its history, you'd expect things to be better or at least the same as before 1999, not far far worse, as they are now.
The PSUV has been continually reelected since 1999, they must be doing something right, the people of Venezuela keep putting them into power.
They must be doing something right to keep getting elected, which is not the same as doing something right to improve social conditions and the lives of Venezuelans for today and in the future.
Remembering the New York Times editorial page celebrating the coup d'etat against Chavez's elected government, by the head of the Venezuelan business council, who, surrounded by the heads of the military, abolished the parliament, I'm slightly skeptical of the concern of the owners of US media outlets for the economic well-being of the average Venezuelan.
The fact that US media outlets are not concerned about the well-being of the average Venezuelan does not mean that the rampant crime, sky-high murder rate, shortages, inflation, lack of disaster prevention in poor areas prone to flooding, government-promoted homophobia, government control of the media, gross environmental mismanagement, use of state funds to promote the ruling party, pervasive corruption, lack of medicines and medical supplies, etc. don't exist.
The fact that US media outlets are not concerned about the well-being of the average Venezuelan does not mean that the rampant crime, sky-high murder rate, shortages, inflation, lack of disaster prevention in poor areas prone to flooding, government-promoted homophobia, government control of the media, gross environmental mismanagement, use of state funds to promote the ruling party, pervasive corruption, lack of medicines and medical supplies, etc. don't exist.
Really wasn't sure if you were talking about Venezuela or the U.S. for a moment there.
The electoral system itself can be audited and found to be fair. However, it's unfair to:
* Abuse the State's massive control of the media in favor of the ruling party.
* Threaten people, fire them from their government positions, deny scholarships, or otherwise attack people for being against the government(see: Lista Tascón).
* Shamelessly use resources of the State for political propaganda in favor of the ruling party.
* Take power away from elected officials and create alternate institutions to replace them, when the electoral results don't favor the ruling party (see: Caracas Mayor).
* Deny audits after an election, an integral part of fair elections.
* Finally: kill, attack or detain people for opposing the ruling party, which is what's going on as of this moment while we type comments here.
So whether the voting machines work correctly is far from the only thing needed to consider elections fair.
Yes, as your link very well shows, there are many occurrences of tweets with pictures from other places being used as if they were from Venezuelan protests. Unfortunately these often get retweeted unknowingly.
Here are some videos that can be verified from Venezuela:
I bought one of the Dell laptops that came with Ubuntu a few years ago and I'm typing this on it.
I simply installed stock Ubuntu immediately after receiving it due to the same fear of crapware. But still, having it come with Ubuntu preinstalled means I knew all the hardware would work, as it has so far. Also it means I voted with my dollars for wider adoption of Linux by vendors.
Sometimes the code that's commented out contains the only reference to an imported package, and by commenting it out the autoformatter helpfully removes the import from the top of the file, so then uncommenting the line is not enough -- I need to go back and re-add the import.
Or I may want to comment out this line
but that makes a and b in turn become unused as well, and I need to travel up to wherever they're defined and comment them out too, and so on with anything else that became thus unused in that chain.And this is all suboptimal because the warning is also important when debugging. I do want to get warned about the unused code! Just let me compile.