For strings: single quotes or double quotes?

Which ones do you prefer?

What's the best natural language processing software that won't f you up?

I'm a big fan of Alexa's capabilities but we all know that Alexa is to security what North Korea is to democracy.

Is there any software that can compete with powerhouses that are Alexa, Google home, Siri or cortana?

TIFU by running DELETE-INSERT on a live server and losing thousands of rows from a separate table. 🤤

TIL If you delete data from indexed table, it will affect any linked tables. I think. Fml. 🤕

At least it was a learning experience for all of us. Hopefully if I keep repeating it enough it will become true...

If your JavaScript and css is not loading on your server, make sure your folder and files have the right permissions.

Two days of running around like a headless chicken because I'm retarded... 😫

Idea for weekly if you need some:

What's the most interesting problem you encountered/solved?

❤ @dfox

**Day 2 of glaring at the code.😩 The bits are collapsing in front of my eyes into bytes and the glaring dark theme of sublime engraves the code into my retinas. Is it day or is it night? I can no longer tell. Having scoured every corner of the internet and applying every fix I can find the bug persists... was I ever destined to program? For the doubt eclipses my hope of ever seeing the light. I peer over the edge of the world into the abyss and the abyss... **

"Wait 🔎, shouldn't there be apostrophes' in here? MOTHERF-" 😡😠💥☠

**tests**

**works**

*glee* 😄

"God, I love programming!" 😃

What's the software/hardware/plugins that has become integrated part of your working structure?

Stuff that immediately gets includes on any machine you use and can't imagine working w/o?

Uncle: Programmers who design physics engines do so by typing 1s and 0s on a console. That's why they get paid so much.

Me: 🤔🔪

Given how much talk there's around security, I think it'd be grand idea to dedicate a weekly rant to cybersecurity. Could spark an interesting discussion, especially in today's heated climate. Thoughts?

E.g. Best way to increase security/privacy?

Over the past couple of days I did nothing but focus on programming. Well, today I fell asleep while working, became semi-lucid and managed to access root directory of my brain and went into a folder called "dreams" and viewed my yesterday's dream.

That felt mental when I woke up. I wonder if it really was yesterday's dream or was it my dream thinking it's yesterday's dream? Can I reprogram myself? Damn. Does that mean I did a reverse Matrix?

A request to all of you posting these feel-good rants about your past teachers.

Maybe shoot them a message to tell them how much you appreciated them, teaching is a very rough and thankless job for the most part.

It's funny how much it meant to some of my past teachers...

I grew up poor. First time I saw a computer face to face was when I was 11 years old. Back then any other references to computers came through media. I genuinely believed that hacking was as seen on TV, didn't even question 2 idiots 1 keyboard and thought it was genius to unplug a computer during "an attack"

Fact is I arrived in this country when I was 11. By the time I had my first laptop I was around 13-14, as you can imagine it went really poorly for someone who was just awarded a machine of never-ending stories and entertainment with absolute fear that a single mistake can cause everything to crash and burn. Heck, I remember when I went to Vodafone and someone recommended Firefox, it was such a novelty back then, heh.

I didn't understand computers. My IT lessons were replaced to work on my dialect, but truth be told it was an awful waste of time. I've learned more from forums than I ever learned from any English teacher. I just sat there twidling my thumbs in agitation.

With no concept of what IT industry entitles (my idea of programming was cubicles and call centres), I never had a slightest clue programming could be for me. I always thought of myself closer to engineering or physics type, but that never really drew my interests. So I dwelled in depression thinking I'm broken. Useless. That there was no calling for me.

I'm 22. For the past year I dipped in and out of programming, it still felt like such black magic.vLast month or so the spell dispelled and I finally feel like my eyes have been opened. I've spent the past 3 days sitting in front of my computer learning or actively programming, with occasional dips into DevRant reading your stories, frustrations and victories and I truly feel at home.

In retrospect I feel like I made the right decision for not chasing any mathematical/physics/engineering degrees, while certainly a goal of mine, I feel like I'd be miserable in those communities. They're closer to hobbies, really.

I guess what I wanted to say is thank you. Thank you DevRant for being the spark in my null future and giving me a sense of purpose and belonging. For the first time I feel like I can make it, like there was hope somewhere over the horizon.

If you could travel back in time and give your young dev-self advice, what advice would you give?