20791
Programmer Competency Matrix (2016)
A matrix for rating programmers on computer science, software engineering, programming, security, infrastructure, data, AI-assisted development, experience and knowledge, from 2ⁿ to log(n).
Top posts
Every blog post that took off on Hacker News, ranked by the votes of its best submission. 49,240 posts.
20792
Please don't be spooky
A piece of advice I wish I could give my manager is don't be spooky. My manager regularly messages me things like Hey, can you talk? or Got a minute now? ...
20793
C++ Patterns: The Badge
This post describes the C++ Badge template used to enhance member function access control in Serenity Operating System.
20794
The beauty of finished software
Let me introduce you to WordStar 4.0, a popular word processor from the early 80s. WordStar 4.0 As old as it seems, George R.R. Martin used it to write “A Song of Ice and Fire”. Why would someone use such an old piece of software to write over 5,000 pages? I love how he puts it: It does everything I want a word…
20795
Make your program slower with threads
Years ago, while taking a numerical methods course, I wrote some code to calculate the expected number of shared birthdays in a group. The code is very simple: each attempt constructs a vector of N birthdays, then counts the duplicates. The outer loop runs millions of attempts, and calculates the mean number of shared…
20796
How Does Esperanto Sound?
When people hear Esperanto for the first time, they sometimes think they're hearing Italian, or maybe Spanish. A good amount of vocabulary in Esperanto is taken from romance roots, so this isn't totally surprising.
20797
Compiler Optimizations are Awesome
Another reason for optimizing compilers: It allows us to write simple and obvious code expecting that the compiler will do the optimization. This both reduces the initial defect count and makes the code more maintainable in the long-run. Note that these are also often the simplest optimizations (e.g. a calculation…
20798
Two types of software engineers
One assumes it's easy because it's a non-technical problem, the other assumes that's why it's hard
20799
The Price of Discipline
David shares how discipline can lead to unhappiness and stifle learning for both children and adults. Read now.
20800
What I’m Teaching my Son about Money
I’m not going to lie to you – being wealthy is a lot of fun. And I’m not just talking about novelty fun that you get from driving around in a fancy car. True wealth is more of a b…
20801
Domain Knowledge or a Lack Thereof
I believe that a lack of domain knowledge is the root cause of a lot of very bad software that gets developed and I think that it is up to computer programmers and their managers to deal with this. Acquiring domain knowledge is an essential component in the development of software that really works well for its users…
20802
Why introductory chemistry is boring: a long-term historical perspective
Looking for flashcards for chemistry? Try 21st Night ! It allows you to create and share flashcards with anything on them: images, videos, equations, you name it . Plus, there’s a built-in to-do list!
20803
How I lost control of our bank accounts to a phone scammer
Yesterday, instead of having a productive afternoon at home, I had the privilege of sitting at the bank for a couple of hours, resolving a problem completely of my own doing: I fell for a phone scammer. My wife and I had to close our accounts—which were in excess of 25 years old—and set up new ones. I then spent hours…
20804
3D Printing Sex Toys
Ok so, sex toys! Admit it. You've thought about it. 😉But it seems so complex! You can't use a sex toy straight from the printer because the materials and nozzles aren't body safe, and even if they were, the layer lines are a breeding ground for bacteria. So traditionally you'd have to print a blank and smooth it (with…
20805
The tech industry's use of persuasive techniques on children
How psychology — a discipline that we associate with healing — is being used as a weapon against children
20806
Where we're going, we don't need headphones
If there is one single complaint about work I hear most often from clients and friends, it’s that they have a hard time focusing in their office. No matter if you’re pairing with someone or need some quiet time - if you can’t escape the background noise, you’ll have a hard time getting any work done. Let me share with…
20807
Old bills in Yemen are worth 10% more than new ones
I often write about odd monetary phenomena on this blog. Here's a new contender, Yemen's dual banknote system. Yemen uses the Yemeni ri...
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20811
Chromium and the Browser Monoculture Problem
Okay, folks. This is new territory for me. I'm stepping into the world of.... t h i n k p i e c e s...
20812
Titled Tuesday Cheating
Fantastic Cheaters and Where to Find Them
20813
Mourning and moving on: rituals for leaving a career (2014)
I decided to leave what had been a promising career in organic chemistry about a year ago. Deciding to leave my program, and then to leave the field entirely, was one of the hardest decisions I hav…
20814
An aggressive, stealthy web spider operating from Microsoft IP space
You're probably reading this page because you've attempted to access some part of my blog (Wandering Thoughts) or CSpace , the wiki thing it's part of. Unfortunately you're using a browser version that my anti-crawler precautions consider suspicious, most often because it's too old (most often this applies to versions…
20815
JavaScript: The Modern Parts
In the last few months, I have learned a lot about modern JavaScript and CSS development with a local toolchain powered by Node 8, Webpack 4, and Babel 7. As part of that, I am doing my second “re-introduction to JavaScript”. I first learned JS in 1998. Then relearned it…
20816
Email Isn’t the Thing We’re Bad At
You and me, we’re bad at a lot of things. But email isn’t one of those things, no matter how much it seems like it.
20817
Tracking users via CSS
I try to be a friendly citizen of the web. I try to keep my site in good shape. It should load quickly, track nothing beyond your basic server logs, not hassle you about cookies, GDPR or my newsletter. I do have a newsletter but it won't pop up in your face here. I try to stay firmly on the side of friendly and a good…
20818
Yahoo Lays Off Flickr Support Staff
nolan caudill's internet house
20819
Getting too absorbed in side projects
Does anyone else get too absorbed in side projects that you forget about life
20820
Why 'Atomic Habits' may not be working for you
Couple of weeks ago, we were discussing random things at work, and we landed on the topic of discipline. One of my colleagues was praising me for having a very disciplined life. It felt as if he was talking about someone else.