1081
APL: An Array Oriented Programming Language (2018)
APL was invented by Ken Iverson in the early 1960s as a notation for array oriented calculations. It was precise and useful enough, so it…
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Software Engineering
The most popular blog posts about software engineering on Hacker News. 1,136 posts.
1082
Rust in 2023: Growing Up
When I started working on Rust in 2011, my daughter was about three months old. She’s now in sixth grade, and she’s started growing rapidly. Sometimes we wake up to find that her clothes don’t quite fit anymore: the sleeves might be a little too short, or the legs come up to her ankles. Rust is experiencing something…
1083
Oops, You Wrote a Database
Those who fail to study databases are doomed to write them
1084
Does Go Have Subtyping?
I’ve been noodling on a static type system for my current hobby language. To try to keep the language as simple as possible, I’m trying to see if I can live without subtyping. Since most of my programming experience is in object-oriented languages, I’ve been learning more about languages that lack—or at least claim to…
1085
An easy way to concurrency and parallelism with Python stdlib
Because life doesn't have to be hard all the time
1086
Church vs. Curry Types
Static vs dynamic typing debates often flounder because the debators see from two different perspectives without knowing it. Learning to identify the two perspectives can calm the discussion. The tension between the two perspectives has led to Gradual Typing and other technologies.
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Deobfuscating World of Warships' Python Scripts
An in-depth analysis of how World of Warships obfuscates its game scripts and how to mostly deobfuscate them automatically.
1089
Grouping digits in SQL
PostgreSQL 16 was released last week. This is the story of a feature.
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Curl 25 Years Online Celebration
curl turns 25 years old and what better way to celebrate this than to join fellow curl friends, developers and fans online on the exact birthday? At 17:00 UTC March 20, 2023. We run an Online birthday party open for everyone to join. Consider muting yourself when you join, but feel encouraged to leave the … Continue…
1092
"Useless Ruby sugar": Endless (one-line) methods
Or, about the virtue of exactly one phrase.
1093
Hacking with Style: TrueType VT220 Font (2009)
VT220 TrueType font
1094
Playing with genetic algorithms in Python
Edit: This post made it to the front page of Hacker News! You can find the discussion here.
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The Changing "Guarantees" Given by Python's Global Interpreter Lock
A look into the implementation details of CPython's Global Interpreter Lock (GIL) and how they changed between Python 3.9 and the current development branch that will become Python 3.13.
1098
Makefiles for web work
A set of recipes for using Makefiles for web development.
1099
Formalising a new proof that the square root of two is irrational
Recently, somebody shared on Twitter a new proof of the irrationality of √2. Its claimed advantage is that “it requires no knowledge of mathematics above the definition of what it means for a number to be irrational, and can be written almost in one line.” These claims are dubious: the usual proof, which I’ve…
1100
Replacing Pandas with Polars
I remember those days, oh so long ago, it seems like another lifetime. I haven’t used Pandas in many a year, decades, or whatever. We’ve all been there, done that. Pandas I mean. I would dare say it’s a rite of passage for most data folk. For those using Python, it’s probably one of the […]
1101
How to Do a TypeScript Conversion
Addressing a very common question: do-it-as-you-go or follow the dependency graph?
1102
Building a ChatGPT-enhanced Python REPL
In this blog I share my experience in building a Python REPL augmented with ChatGPT. I explore how the application is built, and speculate on software engineering patterns and paradigms that might emerge in systems built on Large Language Models (LLMs). GEPL - Generate, Evaluate, Print, Loop Link to this section…
1103
Writing a chat application in Django 4.2 using async StreamingHttpResponse
StreamingHttpResponse now supports async iterators when Django is served via ASGI.
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Visual programming with Elixir: Learning to write binary parsers (2019)
Visualize binary protocols by building parsers in Elixir.
1106
Let's create a Python Debugger together
An article series where I show you how to write a fully functional Python debugger.
1107
Pgvector 0.5.0 Feature Highlights and how tos
An overview of new features in pgvector 0.5.0, including HNSW, parallel index builds, and more!
1108
Rethinking Infrastructure as Code from Scratch
Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about infrastructure complexity, and the current state of infrastructure as code. This is problem space that many talented people are tackling.
1109
Iterators in Go: A proposed extension
Iterators in Go are a neat way to write “lazy loops”, where we never generate more results than we actually use. Let’s see what that would look like in Go programs, and what new facilities it gives us in the standard library.
1110
I don't understand terminals, shells and SSH
Confession time: I don't fully understand how terminals, shells and SSH really work (and my guess is you don't either). And I don't mean the cryptography behind SSH. I mean how SSH and the terminal — and the shell for that matter — interact with one another.