# Wasting time on ...



## Alain De Vos (May 4, 2021)

My waste time was sometime trying to get good "use-flags" for  Gentoo-linux.
(side-node it is impossible, because they always clash, you can never get them right).
What was your waste time , a technical impossible task ?


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## Menelkir (May 4, 2021)

It's almost the exact same thing if you manually set package options in freebsd and build the package via ports. You will have the same issues in FreeBSD if you start changing options too much everywhere, that's why is better to stick to the defaults.


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## rootbert (May 4, 2021)

optimizing code. Be it speed of execution, IO, memory usage or beauty, I have spent definitely too many hours in improving code, from assembler to C and python/java/c++, but probably most in python. I think it is kind of my obsession


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## astyle (May 4, 2021)

Menelkir said:


> It's almost the exact same thing if you manually set package options in freebsd and build the package via ports. You will have the same issues in FreeBSD if you start changing options too much everywhere, that's why is better to stick to the defaults.


I don't think it's exactly a waste of time - I spent a weekend compiling KDE from ports, turning on as many makefile options as I could find. And now my system is much more stable, Konqueror doesn't crash, and VLC handles subtitles just fine. When I was using pre-compiled packages, VLC could not handle subtitles (I had to get KMPplayer for that), and Konqueror crashed when I tried to hit f5 anywhere.

My timewaster is bitcoin, because I still do my exploring and learning about it, even though the gold rush boat left 10 years ago. I don't expect to make any profit, just to get education and have an adventure along the way.


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## kpedersen (May 4, 2021)

I have wasted far too much time trying to find ways to make the C++ STL 100% memory safe.

It just can't be done. There are too many corner cases, the C++ standards committees seem too concerned with performance compared to safety, the recent lambda callback "fad" is making lifetimes very complex to handle and you also end up calling into unsafe C libraries for so much functionality anyway. Ironically I have made much better progress at making C memory safe.

My second biggest waste of time was probably ripping up and re-engineering an old (bizarrely written) Quake III level editor to make it a portable and suitable Blender replacement. It was satisfying I suppose.


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## Menelkir (May 4, 2021)

astyle said:


> I don't think it's exactly a waste of time - I spent a weekend compiling KDE from ports, turning on as many makefile options as I could find. And now my system is much more stable, Konqueror doesn't crash, and VLC handles subtitles just fine. When I was using pre-compiled packages, VLC could not handle subtitles (I had to get KMPplayer for that), and Konqueror crashed when I tried to hit f5 anywhere.
> 
> My timewaster is bitcoin, because I still do my exploring and learning about it, even though the gold rush boat left 10 years ago. I don't expect to make any profit, just to get education and have an adventure along the way.


I was refering at OP, but I forgot to quote. And yes, I have a lot of ports with custom options too with no issues.


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## bsduck (May 4, 2021)

Trying to get decent performance with jack and real-time synthesizers on Linux.
While it just works wonderfully on FreeBSD with `hw.snd.latency_profile=0`


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## Jose (May 5, 2021)

kpedersen said:


> ...the recent lambda callback "fad" is making lifetimes very complex to handle...


It's making Java unreadable and encouraging copy-paste, but hey it's "modern". Progress!


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## Jose (May 5, 2021)

...projects that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines.


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## a6h (May 5, 2021)

Keeping NTFS around, and using COMPAT_LINUX and emulators/wine (e.g. foobar2000) instead of finding alt-ports (e.g. audio/deadbeef).


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## Crivens (May 5, 2021)

Trying to make people happy who are never satisfied.


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## bobmc (May 5, 2021)

Crivens said:


> Trying to make people happy who are never satisfied.


I am unsatisfied with FreeBSD but happy anyway


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## Deleted member 30996 (May 7, 2021)

Learning to write valid XHTML 1.0 Frameset. And I loved it so...

But it won't be wasted time for long. I'm going to include a Frameset version of my site as a demo and an oddity to the SmartPhone Generation Oddity, when I find the time to waste on it.


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