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FTL: WebKit’s LLVM-based JIT
Over the past year, the WebKit project made tremendous progress on the ability to optimize JavaScript applications. A major part of that effort was the introduction of the Fourth Tier LLVM (FTL) JIT.
Topics /
Programming Languages
The most popular blog posts about programming languages on Hacker News. 5,634 posts.
4082
PyPy 1.4: Ouroboros in practice
We're pleased to announce the 1.4 release of PyPy. This is a major breakthrough in our long journey, as PyPy 1.4 is the first PyPy release t...
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GCC 4.8.1 released, C++11 feature complete
The release of GCC 4.8.1 was announced today (31 May 2013) on the gcc mailing list. In addition to many bug fixes, GCC 4.8.1 adds support for C++11 ref-qualifiers, the final missing C++11 feature. This makes GCC the first C++11 [Ed.: language specification] feature complete compiler to be released.
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On-Crash Backtraces in Swift
The new Swift 5.9 release contains a number of helpful, new features for debugging code, including an out-of-process, interactive crash handler to inspect crashes in real time, the ability to trigger the debugger for just-in-time debugging, along with concurrency-aware backtracing to make it easier to understand…
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Python's GIL implemented in pure Python
Python's GIL explained in Python code
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Designing a garbage collector in Rust
For a while I’ve been working on a garbage collector for Rust with Nika Layzell. I thought this would be a good time to talk of our design and …
4087
A simple core.async job system in Clojure
In my off time (and my on time, for that matter) I've been working on this quirky thing I've called Scinamalink (sounds like 'skinamarink'). Scinamalink lets customers send Magic login links to their users with a single REST API call. If you don't know what a magic
4088
The state of static analysis in the GCC 12 compiler
New features and a substantial reduction in false positives bring GCC's static analysis closer to being production-ready for C code.
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Modern C is now feature complete
You find the latest version of my book at the usual place at This now contains all the material that I plan to put into it. New are “experience” parts about performance, function-like m…
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Is Fortran “A Dead Language”? (2022)
Some C++ folk seem to think so, but they're wrong!
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The JavaScript Problem
It makes many aspects of JavaScript sane and convenient, and you get a compilation check that verifies syntax, however it still suffers greatly from weak-typing.
4093
Why We Chose Rails to Build Gitlab
Here's our CEO on GitLab’s inception using Rails, and how challenges are being handled along the way.
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What’s New in Swift 5.2
Key path expressions as functions, callAsFunction, and more
4095
Programming without objects
Recently I gave an itemis internal talk about basic functional programming (FP) concepts. Towards the end I made a claim that objects and their blueprints (a.k.a. classes) have severe downsides and that it is much better to "leave data alone", which is exactly how Clojure and Haskell treat this subject.
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C++ Has Become More Pythonic (2014)
C++ has changed a lot in recent years. The last two revisions, C++11 and C++14, introduce so many new features that, in the words of Bjarne Stroustrup, “It feels like a new …
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Kotlin, the Swift of Android
Well, not quite but let's start from the beginning.
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Nim Version 1.6.6 Released
The Nim team is happy to announce version 1.6.6, our third patch release for Nim 1.6.
4102
Rust for Professionals
This is a short introduction to Rust, intended for developers that already know another language. In the examples, Rust is compared with TypeScript, JavaScript or Java, sometimes with C++ or Kotlin.
4103
Why Lisp Will Never Win (2003)
For 2003 OSCON I proposed to give nine five-minute talks in a 45-minute slot. To avoid confusing this with the real lightning talks sessions, Nat decided to call my talk ``Nine Views of Mark Jason Dominus''. At first I didn't like that title, which sounded too much like self-promotion. But I warmed up to it after a…
4104
Parse, Don't Validate – In a Language That Doesn't Want You To
Applying Alexis King's parse-don't-validate principle in TypeScript, where the type system fights back just enough to be annoying.
4105
Go 1.21 will (probably) download newer toolchains on demand by default
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…
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Why not to use (f)lex, yacc or bison
flex and bison still work, but modern parser generators beat them on Unicode, grammar format, keeping code out of the grammar, and documentation. A point-by-point comparison.
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Why I write recursive descent parsers, despite their issues (2020)
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…
4108
Big Programming, Small Programming – Glow, the language
Programming is complicated. Different programs have different abstraction levels, domains, platforms, longevity, team sizes, etc ad infinitum. There …
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Common Lisp's block / return-from and unwind-protect
I was just chatting with Ben Titzer on Twitter about control flow in his Virgil language (which is cool and you should definitely check ...