If you get pulled over and have your fake plates ran you've already lost any gains from skipping tolls. If they're using ANPR, they don't even need to pull you over.

I had this exact discussion at work.

Say you have test(X). X is a random number in range A to B.

Say someone else has test_range(A, B). Instead of running for one input, it runs test for the full range of inputs.

Actually, both tests run on the same set of inputs. The difference is that, for the first test, you're not running all of the inputs at once. You're running some of the inputs with your commit, some with a colleague's later commit, some when a customer downloads the program and tries to run it... by making the input random, you're accepting the possibility of merging code that sometimes fails the tests.

And, actually, it will take you far more time running code to run the full set of inputs because there's nothing preventing you from running the same test twice.

So then I'd ask why you're not just running the full set before you commit. If it's too expensive to run, my opinion is one or more of:

A) You should be running fuzzing 24/7

B) You're using randomness as a means of avoiding deciding the inputs yourself because you don't the problem space

C) There's not actually a need to test the full set, X being 222348 is isomorphic to X being 222349.

>On the one hand, I understand the argument that random data makes your test irreproducible; so if something breaks the test, it make take a while to figure out exactly what and why fails the test.

Usually I see random tests saving the seed if they fail.

> B) You're using randomness as a means of avoiding deciding the inputs yourself because you don't the problem space

This is one you can definitely improve on. Learning how to partition your inputs into different groups/types that are likely bring out different behavior/issues/bugs with the code is important.

If you have an [add] method over integers, testing for [+,+], [+,-], [-,+], [-,-], [0,+], [0,-], [+,0], [-,0], and [0,0] are reasonable. The more complex the method, the more partitions you can wind up with; which also teaches building smaller methods.

I agree. Random data makes the tests less specific, so I'd wager the authors would probably also argue against it.

Assuming you trust your unit tests, you can claim a passing test suite means: (1) given current understanding, the code is most likely correct and (2) based on the same assumption, other developers agree that the code is most likely correct, for the current version of the program

I personally believe randomness has a place (fuzzing), but should stay semantically distinct from unit testing for the above reasons.

There have been multiple other UK cities with proposals for congestion charges which have been rejected. Transport doesn't really work the same way outside of the M25.

The congestion charge applies only to a tiny area inside the M25.

The congestion charges in Singapore and London weren't popular when they were introduced either. So not sure what rejection elsewhere tells us?

Payment providers already sell this data to the finance sector.

And the other IO device? People absolutely will tell you you're typing the wrong way.

>that's a pretty obvious hint that there's something wrong with the tool.

Or that the problem space is inherently difficult.

>random three-letter combination that is pronounceable, and not actually used by any common UNIX command.

>actually

Many native French speakers use 'actually' when they mean 'currently' because of the 'actuellement' false-cognate. This looks like the same mistake but neither Swedish nor Finnish have a word that looks like 'actually' when I machine-translate 'currently'.

Any ideas?

I know nothing of Finnish, but, in poking around on Google translate, I found 'nykyinen', commonly translated as 'currently', but sometimes as 'existing'. To rephrase the sentence to say "there is no existing use..." would be a little awkward in English, but would convey the same message.

I felt that in this particular sentence, neither 'actually' nor 'currently' are necessary, but to be sure I wanted to check the context, only to find that this sentence is not currently to be found in the article.

Finn here. I don't think the use of "actually" comes from any Finnish expression specifically but it might be some sort of literary habit that stems from the desire to emphasize how things turned out to be. It's somewhat common in Finnish to say how things turned out, rather than that someone (or you) made it so.

Thinking about it, I might've used the word in a similarly redundant fashion myself occasionally.

Reads like fine English to me. The meaning is "really". As in, he had more favored name ideas, but they were taken.

I am a native Swedish speaker though, so I may share some language blindness with Linus.

>Many native French speakers use 'actually' when they mean 'currently' because of the 'actuellement' false-cognate.

It's also a false friend in German: "aktuell". Wiktionary states that the Swedish word is based on French or German [0]

"From French actuel, perhaps via German aktuell, from Late Latin actuālis, from Latin āctus + -ālis."

[0] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/aktuell#Swedish

I think you’re overthinking it. The first definition in the Oxford Dictionary for “actually” equates it with “really”, a substitution which works fine here.

1. as the truth or facts of a situation; really.

"we must pay attention to what young people are actually doing"

That's definitely a possibility I didn't give the proper consideration. On the other hand, if I wrote that sentence with that intention, I would strip 'actually' it for being unnecessary.

Overthinking? Well I can hardly characterise this tangent as important.

In Swedish we have the word "aktuell" which means current (in time).

Another anecdata from a Swedish native:

"Actually" is sometimes used purely for effect (affect?) without any reflection on the meaning of it, similar to how "ducking" is used.

I'm imagining "git" wasn't his first try at finding a unique TLA, and the actually is there to signal effort spent.

That sentence reads fine to me. Possibly for the reasons you listed, which then lead to that usage being common in the language.

Actually is also a false friend in Spanish.

>you would need something else other than just possession of a number to make that possession illegal.

Yes, the index, which would itself be the encoding of the file. It's just Huffman coding optimising for the ratio between a circle's circumference and its diameter.

Not currency, unless you're a forex trader. And not if you're aiming to collect a dividend* or to exert control over a company.

*In the tech hysteria, it's easy to forget that this is where the fundamental value comes from.

This figure includes the second phase up to Liverpool