991
How the SNES Graphics System Works
Last week's article discussed how the Super Nintendo's Video system feeds the TV's CRT. Today I'll summarize what I understand of the hardware generating these graphics.
Topics /
Software Engineering
The most popular blog posts about software engineering on Hacker News. 1,535 posts.
992
Programming a CH32v003 with light
A comedic example, parked nicely on the thinnest wedge of the venn diagram, is the HamFurs – people who do amateur radio while wearing fur suits. While it isn't my cup of tea, I love that such a group exists. They seemed like nice people when I chatted to them.
993
What Is a Staff Engineer?
"I've worked with a couple of Staff Engineers on different teams in the past and I've seen them do different things, but I've not been able to pin down exactly what they do." I get this question quite frequently. Sometimes from engineers looking to elevate their roles.
994
Converting Codebases with LLMs
Leverage LLMs with context like code structure, libraries, and screenshots to streamline code conversion tasks and accelerate development.
995
Swift for C++ Practitioners, Part 1: Intro and Value Types
Swift for C++ Practitioners, Part 1: Intro & Value Types
996
IPC in Rust – A Ping Pong Comparison
I wanted to explore different ways of communicating between different processes executing on the same machine, and doing so as fast as possible. We're focussing on high speed inter-process communication (IPC), but some of these approaches can be extended across a network. We'll do this exploration in Rust.
997
A brief interview with Tcl creator John Ousterhout (2023)
Dr. John Ousterhout is a computer science luminary who has made significant contributions to the fie
998
Refactoring Python with Tree-sitter and Jedi
I was toying around with a refactor the other day that would have taken me ages by hand as it involved 100s of files. I wanted to rename every instance of...
999
Smart Pointers in (GNU) C
I am a big fan of C, but some part of me always yearn to have just enough higher level constructs.
1000
It's not just you, Next.js is getting harder to use
I wrote a blog post the other day about how Next.js Middleware can be useful for working around some of the restrictions imposed by server components. This led to some fun discussions in the world about whether this was a reasonable approach or if Next.js DX was just... bad. From my perspective, Next.js’ App Router…
1001
Htmy – Async, pure-Python rendering engine
Unleash your creativity with the full power and Python, without the hassle of learning a new templating language or dealing with its limitations!
1002
Swift sucks at web serving or does it?
A few weeks ago, Axel Roest published a simple web server comparison , that turned out to not be doing what it was thought to be doing. Figuring that out was a very interesting discussion that warrants a retrospective, to look at which parts were particularly helpful and which not so much.
1003
Enum of Arrays
A popular data-oriented design pattern is a Struct of Arrays. Is an Array of Enums also useful? Yes! But let’s do a refresher on struct of arrays (SoA) first:
1004
We were not accepted into Google Summer of Code. So, we started our own
Introducing Qdrant Summer of Code 2024 program. GSoC alternative.
1005
Shadama: A particle simulation programming environment for everyone
We present a prototype of a programming system called Shadama. Shadama is designed for writing programs that create, control and visualize large numbers of objects. The basic execution model follows the tradition of StarLogo and its "turtles and patches" abstraction. Turtles, Termites, and Traffic Jams: Explorations…
1006
Lessons learned from a successful Rust rewrite
I have written about my on-going rewrite-it-to-Rust effort at work: 1 , 2 , 3 . And now it's finished, meaning it's 100% Rust and 0% C++ - the public C API has not changed, just the implementation, one function at time until the end. Let's have a look back at what worked, what didn't, and what can be done about it.
1007
A lowering strategy for control effects in Rust
The Rust language has incrementally grown a set of patterns to support control-flow effects including error handling, iteration, and asynchronous I/O. In The registers of Rust , boats lays out four aspects of this pattern shared by Rust’s three effects. Today these effects are typically used in isolation, or at most…
1008
Verified curl
Don't trust. Verify. I could not resist making a fake book cover Here follows a brief description on how you can detect if the curl package would ever make an xz. xz (and its library liblzma) was presumably selected as a target because it is an often used component and by extension via systemd it … Continue reading…
1009
Lightstorm: Minimalistic Ruby Compiler
Some time ago I was talking about an ahead-of-time Ruby compiler. We started the project with certain goals and hypotheses in mind, and while the original compiler is at nearly 90% completion, there are still those other 90% that needs to be done.
1010
Rust panics under the hood, and implementing them in .NET
I am currently working on a Rust to .NET compiler, rustc_codegen_clr . To get it to work, I need to implement many Rust features using .NET APIs. One of such features is panicking and unwinding.
1011
The Birth of Parquet
15 years ago (2007-2011) I was at Yahoo! working with Map/Reduce and Apache Pig, which was the better Map/Reduce at the time. The Dremel paper just came out and, as everything I worked with seemed to be inspired from Google papers, I read it. I could see it applying to what we were doing at Yahoo! and this was to…
1012
A History of Source Control Systems: SCCS and RCS
dsp's personal site
1013
Optimizing a bignum library for fun
Can I make math operations run 100x faster on really, really big numbers?
1014
Nash equilibria in Ballmer's binary-search interview game
Yesterday John Graham-Cumming posted about “Steve Ballmer’s incorrect binary search interview question,” and in the Hacker News discussion, among the predictable “interview culture is flawed!!” complaints, there was some discussion of whether binary search was even the right way to solve Ballmer’s puzzle. Here’s a…
1015
Building a Game with the Real Engine
Some people make games using the Unreal Engine. That’s nice, but I wanted something a little different. That’s why I’m using the Real Engine.
1016
After 41 years, my first assembly program on my first computer, the Tomy Tutor
We got it in 1983, I think, so it only took me about 41 years to get around to it. This Tomy Tutor isn't a replacement system I secondarily ...
1017
From string to AST: parsing (2019)
Whether you have to do with data in the form of CSV, JSON or a full-blooded programming language like C, JavaScript, Scala, or maybe a query language like SQL, you always transform some sequence of characters (or binary values) into a structured representation. Whatever you’ll do with that representation depends on…
1018
Trade-offs between Different CRDTs
🔰If CRDTs are new to you, here are some introductory links. - An interactive intro to CRDTs - An introduction to state-based CRDTs - CRDTs for non-academics - CRDT: The Hard Parts - Readings in CRDTs - crdt.tech What are the trade-offs between different kinds of CRDTs (Conflict-free Replicated
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