Wolands Cave of Rants & Thoughts

CPU Ticks and Vim Performance CPU ticks are the heartbeat of your computer. Understanding how they work is crucial for understanding why Vim is so fast and why other editors are slow. What is a CPU Tick? The Clock Cycle 1 2 3 4 5 // Every CPU instruction takes a certain number of clock cycles mov eax, 1 // 1 clock cycle add eax, ebx // 1 clock cycle cmp eax, 0 // 1 clock cycle jne loop_start // 1-3 clock cycles (branch prediction) A CPU tick is one clock cycle of the processor. Modern CPUs run at billions of ticks per second (GHz). ...

Why Vim is Superior to Neovim Neovim is a mistake. It’s not an improvement—it’s a misguided fork that breaks everything good about Vim while adding features nobody actually needs. The Async Patch Lie What Neovim Claims 1 2 3 4 -- "Async operations are revolutionary!" vim.lsp.buf.hover() vim.lsp.buf.definition() vim.lsp.buf.references() What They Actually Are 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 " Vim already has async operations :!make & :!git push & :!npm install & " Neovim just added async to plugins " Big deal. Vim plugins were already fast enough. The async patch doesn’t matter because Vim plugins were already fast enough. ...

Why Vim is Superior to Everything Else Vim is the ultimate text editor. Everything else is inferior. If you’re not using Vim, you’re wasting your time and limiting your potential. The Vim Philosophy: Efficiency Through Mastery Modal Editing: The Secret Weapon 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 # Normal mode: Navigate and manipulate hjkl # Move cursor w b # Move by words 0 $ # Move to line start/end gg G # Move to file start/end # Insert mode: Type text i a # Insert before/after cursor I A # Insert at line start/end o O # Insert new line below/above # Visual mode: Select text v # Character selection V # Line selection Ctrl+v # Block selection Modal editing is the key to efficiency. One keystroke does what takes multiple keystrokes in other editors. ...

Agile is a Cult, Not a Methodology Agile is a cult. It’s not a methodology—it’s a religious movement that brainwashes developers into believing that meetings and ceremonies are more important than writing code. The Agile Manifesto: The Original Sin What They Claim “Individuals and interactions over processes and tools” “Working software over comprehensive documentation” “Customer collaboration over contract negotiation” “Responding to change over following a plan” What They Actually Do Processes and tools: Jira, Confluence, Slack, Zoom Comprehensive documentation: User stories, acceptance criteria, retrospectives Contract negotiation: Sprint planning, story points, velocity Following a plan: Roadmaps, epics, features, sprints The Agile Manifesto is a lie. They do the opposite of what they preach. ...

Why Microservices are a Scam Microservices are a scam. They’re not an architecture—they’re a marketing ploy to sell you more servers, more complexity, and more consulting services. The Microservices Lie What They Tell You “Scalable and maintainable” “Independent deployment” “Technology diversity” “Fault isolation” “Team autonomy” What You Actually Get Distributed monolith: All services depend on each other Deployment hell: Coordinating releases across services Technology chaos: Different languages, frameworks, databases Failure cascade: One service failure breaks everything Team confusion: Nobody knows how anything works The Complexity Explosion Monolithic Application 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 # Simple, clear, maintainable def process_order(order): validate_order(order) charge_payment(order) update_inventory(order) send_confirmation(order) return order Microservices “Architecture” 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 # Order Service POST /orders GET /orders/{id} PUT /orders/{id} # Payment Service POST /payments GET /payments/{id} # Inventory Service POST /inventory GET /inventory/{id} # Notification Service POST /notifications GET /notifications/{id} Simple function becomes 4 services, 8 endpoints, and infinite complexity. ...

JavaScript is the Worst Thing to Happen to Programming JavaScript is a mistake. It’s not just bad—it’s actively harmful to the entire programming profession. Every line of JavaScript written is a step backward for humanity. The Language That Shouldn’t Exist Designed in 10 Days JavaScript was created in 10 days by someone who didn’t know what they were doing: No type system: Variables can be anything Inconsistent behavior: == vs === madness Terrible error handling: Silent failures everywhere No standard library: Everything is a hack 1 2 3 4 5 // This is legal JavaScript var x = "5"; var y = 5; console.log(x == y); // true (WTF?) console.log(x === y); // false (WTF?) This is not a programming language—it’s a practical joke. ...

Free Software or Nothing Let me be absolutely clear: proprietary software is unethical. If you’re using proprietary software, you’re supporting digital slavery. The Four Freedoms Free software means you have the right to: Run the program for any purpose Study how the program works Redistribute copies Modify the program and distribute modifications Every proprietary program violates these freedoms. The Moral Argument Digital Slavery When you use proprietary software, you’re: Surrendering control to corporations Accepting surveillance as a feature Supporting vendor lock-in Enabling digital rights management This is digital slavery. You don’t own your computer—the software vendor does. ...

Why Windows NT Kernel is Fundamentally Broken Let’s talk about the elephant in the room: the Windows NT kernel is fundamentally broken. Not just “different”—broken. The Architecture Nightmare Monolithic Design with Microkernel Pretensions The NT kernel tries to be both monolithic and microkernel. It fails at both: Performance: Too many layers of abstraction Reliability: Single points of failure everywhere Security: Privilege escalation vulnerabilities built-in Maintainability: Spaghetti code that nobody understands Registry: The Worst Design Decision Ever 1 2 // This is how Windows stores configuration HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run Compare to Linux: ...

Perl is Not Dead and Never Will Be Every few years, some hipster developer declares “Perl is dead.” They’re wrong. Perl is immortal. The Lies They Tell You “Perl is Legacy Code” Bullshit. Perl is production code. It’s running: Critical financial systems Web servers handling millions of requests System administration tools Bioinformatics pipelines Text processing workflows “Perl is Unreadable” This is the most tired argument in programming. Perl is only unreadable if you’re a bad programmer. ...

Bash is the Only Shell That Matters Let me be crystal clear: bash is the only shell that matters. All these trendy alternatives like zsh, fish, and PowerShell are just distractions from what actually works. The Truth About “Modern” Shells Zsh: The Overhyped Pretender Zsh fanboys will tell you about “better completion” and “themes.” Here’s the reality: Bloat: Zsh is a bloated mess with features nobody actually uses Compatibility: Your scripts break when you switch to zsh Performance: Bash is faster and uses less memory Ubiquity: Bash is everywhere. Zsh? Not so much. 1 2 3 4 5 # This works everywhere #!/bin/bash for file in *.txt; do echo "Processing $file" done Fish: The “User-Friendly” Trap Fish claims to be “user-friendly” but it’s actually user-hostile: ...