Just out of curiosity why? I personally can't imagine why someone would choose it as a favorite. Not because I think it is bad, but because I feel its kind of a kitchen sink language that doesn't really have any clear advantages or features.
In short: because it doesn't make me think about it, freeing me up to think about the problem, and gets out of my way. You're right in that it's a kitchen-sink language, but IMO it's a well-curated one, and I don't find myself having to think about patterns or other crap as I do when using Java (which I've used professionally) or wrestling with poor tooling and spooky-action-at-a-distance language design in Scala (ditto--and I like Scala, but for a lot of things it just won't get out of my way).
First, the claim is not that microbes evolved in response to humans. They appeared much before us. The assumption presented here is that some microbes have evolved in ways, recently, that let them (also) attack humans.
Second, yes, it is very natural for us to assume that when we see an effective reproducing pathogen that affects us, that it has evolved to attack us. That is the case with most viruses affecting humans, as the article mentions - everything in the article about coincidence has nothing to do with viruses. (Sometimes a virus is zoonotic, i.e. originated in another species, but has then adapted significantly to us.)
To be effective against humans, typically the pathogen needs to evolve to do so. That is a very reasonable assumption, and yes, we have been making it, and for rational reasons. Interestingly, it turns out that for some bacteria, it is not the case, as the article shows.
Well, yes. I did and I appreciate this correction. Another fine example of the fact that correlation is not necessarily causation. One our old brains are incredibly prone to overlook.
The language is large, supports multiple paradigms and in general allows many different ways to express the same thing. That's great for short term productivity and/or small and tightly knit teams, but I worry about less ideal conditions. In theory a strict and well defined style guide should take care of that (I have used them successfully in C++), but I feel with Scala that will not be enough. Expressed differently: Scala is a great language for smart and careful programmers, but a ticking bomb for the less talented masses.
Golang, in comparison, is very transparent, WSYIWYG.
there is a difference between it being cool and being acceptable. you had an identity as a nerd. you were accepted as a nerd, and cool people were probably happy that you were because it put you lower on the totem pole.
Actually I have been able to do this pretty easily, but its probably because I commute an hour and a half each way to work on a train. So I get 3 hours a day to work on things I want to work on.
I think it should be pointed out that bayesian's believe bayes theorem as a statement about plausibility of statements, so intuitions about an event space (which are obvious statements about sets) don't carry over to the general case.
The best reference is Jaynes's Probability Theory: The Logic of Science. The first three chapters are online for free and explain the development of probability theory as a logic for plausible reasoning [1]. If you want to get a quick taste, I wrote a short blog post that introduces the theory while working through an interesting coin-toss problem [2].
I tend to disagree slightly. I have a math/cs degree, but work with a lot of physicists turned programmers. They are all smart and have plenty of experience at doing what they are doing, but have no idea what is out there CS wise. They reinvent the wheel quite often when building large systems. By not having the time taken out to read real cs text and instead focusing on just getting things done they missed a lot of sound computer science. They are all very bright, but just doing the relevant work only helps you on that type of work. Being exposed to a ton of different areas (as might happen in a cs degree, but there are other ways of course), lets you know what is out there in terms of different approaches.
Because in silicon valley and the startup scene in general you will see mostly 20 somethings as software engineers. Companies like that they can pay them less and get long hours out of them . (No children, work is #1 priority, etc).
