Category: Development

Revolutionary Keyboard: Markov Chain-Based Dynamic Layout

2024-12-19

Tired of static keyboard layouts? The MarkovKeyboard project revolutionizes typing! It uses a Markov chain algorithm to dynamically adjust the keyboard layout based on your typing habits, moving frequently used keys closer to the home row. This Emacs library updates the layout with each keypress. While currently supporting only letters, it dynamically adapts. You can use a pre-trained model or train your own data for a personalized layout.

Firenvim: Embed Neovim in Your Browser for Enhanced Editing

2024-12-19

Firenvim is a browser extension that seamlessly integrates the Neovim editor into Chrome, Firefox, and other browsers. With a simple click on any textarea, you can instantly edit webpage content using Neovim's powerful features. Save changes with ':w' and close the editor with ':q'. Installation is straightforward, and extensive customization options allow you to fine-tune the plugin's behavior, including element selection, auto-takeover settings, command-line options, and more. Firenvim offers advanced features such as manual triggering, temporary disabling, custom configuration, special character handling, and webpage interaction. However, be aware that compatibility issues may arise with certain websites.

Development code editing

GitHub Open Source Project yadm: Yet Another Dotfiles Manager

2024-12-19

yadm is a dotfiles manager based on Git, supporting system-specific alternative files or templated files and encrypting private data using tools like GnuPG and OpenSSL. It offers customizable initialization and hooks for executing custom scripts before and after any operation. Features include adding, committing, encrypting, and decrypting files, and creating OS-specific configurations. Project address: https://github.com/yadm-dev/yadm

Reservoirs Lab: Lightweight Postgres VectorDB GUI

2024-12-19

Reservoirs Lab is a lightweight Electron app that connects directly to a Postgres database to visualize high-dimensional vector embeddings stored alongside structured data. Users can interactively explore their data and see correlations between metadata and the semantic similarity of vector embeddings. Features include Postgres integration, vector visualization, neighborhood exploration, and a local, privacy-preserving workflow.

Perl Advent Calendar 2024: Randal Schwartz's 'Half My Life with Perl'

2024-12-19

The Perl Advent Calendar 2024 features a unique video presentation by Randal Schwartz, titled 'Half My Life with Perl'. Randal, a Perl veteran, recounts his journey with the language from its early days to the modern era, including his involvement in creating the Camel and Llama books, and his humorous anecdotes of conquering the comp.unix.questions forum with Perl 2. This marks the first time a video has been included in the Perl Advent Calendar, offering a fresh and engaging perspective on the language's history.

Development programming history

GreptimeDB: A Deep Dive into Error Handling for Large Rust Projects

2024-12-19

This GreptimeDB blog post delves into their error handling practices within large Rust projects. It details how they built a cheaper, more accurate error stack to replace system backtraces, how they organize errors in large projects, and how they present errors differently to logs and end-users. GreptimeDB leverages the snafu crate for error management and implements a "virtual user stack." This approach proves more efficient and memory-friendly than system backtraces, providing clearer, more understandable error messages for both developers and end-users.

Development

Piccolo OS: A Tiny, Educational Multitasking OS for Raspberry Pi Pico

2024-12-19

Piccolo OS is a small multitasking operating system designed for the Raspberry Pi Pico, primarily as a teaching tool. It demonstrates the fundamentals of a cooperative multitasking OS and the Arm Cortex-M0+ architecture. Tasks are scheduled in a simple round-robin fashion, using MSP and PSP stack pointers for context switching and transitioning between Thread and Handler modes. While simplified in functionality, it clearly illustrates core multitasking OS principles, making it ideal for learning about operating system internals.

Development operating system

ScyllaDB Shifts to Source-Available License for its Database

2024-12-19

ScyllaDB announced it's transitioning its flagship product, ScyllaDB Enterprise, from closed-source to a source-available license, offering a free tier with full enterprise capabilities. This simplifies their dual release stream, providing greater community value. The future involves a single release stream, consolidating core features for improved performance and efficiency; examples include 30X faster node addition/removal via file-based streaming and workload prioritization for balancing multiple workloads on a single cluster. While potentially unpopular with some open-source users, ScyllaDB believes this change benefits the company and accelerates progress on roadmap milestones like Raft for data, optimized tablet elasticity, and tiered (S3) storage.

Debunking the RAM Myth: Optimizing Memory Access

2024-12-19

This article challenges the common misconception about modern computer memory—the RAM myth—that assumes memory access is always random and uniform. By analyzing data sharding algorithms, the author demonstrates that simple linear algorithms are inefficient for large datasets due to frequent cache misses. To address this, an optimized strategy based on radix sort is proposed. Techniques like pre-sorting data, using generators, and pre-allocating memory significantly improve data sharding efficiency. Experimental results show that the optimized algorithm achieves a 2.5 to 9x speedup when processing large datasets.

MoonBit Compiler Goes Open Source: A High-Performance Language for WebAssembly

2024-12-19

After two years of development, the MoonBit compiler, including its Wasm backend, is now open source! MoonBit aims to be a WebAssembly-optimized programming language, known for its speed, compactness, and ease of use. This release uses a modified SSPL license, allowing users to freely choose the license for their generated artifacts and permitting modifications to the compiler for non-commercial purposes. The team chose this license to maintain stability while the project is still in beta and to prevent large cloud vendors from misusing their work. In the future, MoonBit plans to open source more components and generate revenue through hosting services and hardware SDKs, aiming to build a vibrant community ecosystem.

Development Open Source Compiler

Embedding Lua in Rust for Configurable Static SQL Analysis in sqleibniz

2024-12-19

sqleibniz, a static SQL analysis tool for the SQLite dialect, has been enhanced with Lua scripting for increased configurability and extensibility. The author details the integration using the mlua crate in Rust, covering data structure conversion, Lua function calls, and error handling. Lua scripts allow users to define custom rules and hooks, enabling flexible static analysis such as customized diagnostics and style checks. This significantly improves sqleibniz's extensibility and user experience.

Development Static Analysis

SQL Syntax Without a Database: Introducing Musoq

2024-12-18

Musoq is an open-source project enabling developers to query diverse data sources like files, directories, and images using SQL-like syntax, without needing a database. It boasts a plugin architecture supporting various data sources including file systems, archives, Git repositories, C# code, Docker and Kubernetes resources, and even integrates with AI models like OpenAI and Ollama for advanced analysis. Musoq aims to simplify data querying, boosting developer efficiency, especially for ad-hoc queries on smaller to medium-sized datasets. While employing SQL-like syntax, it's not fully SQL compliant; prioritising user-friendly syntax and efficient execution.

Development Data Querying

Open Source Solaar: A Linux Manager for Logitech Devices

2024-12-18

Solaar is an open-source Linux device manager for many Logitech keyboards, mice, and other devices connecting wirelessly via Unifying, Bolt, Lightspeed, or Nano receivers, as well as many Logitech devices connecting via USB cable or Bluetooth. It's not a device driver; it responds to special messages from devices otherwise ignored by the Linux input system. Solaar supports pairing/unpairing devices with receivers, configuring device settings, custom button configurations, and running rules in response to special messages from devices. Installation options include pre-built packages and source code compilation.

Development

K8s Cleaner: Optimize Your Kubernetes Clusters

2024-12-18

K8s Cleaner is a Kubernetes cluster cleanup tool designed for administrators. It efficiently identifies and removes unused resources to boost cluster performance and reduce operational costs. Supporting all resource types, including CRDs, it offers pre-defined rules and customizable options (time-based, label-based, or custom Lua scripts). Notifications are sent via Slack, Email, and more, while a dry-run mode prevents accidental changes. K8s Cleaner streamlines Kubernetes resource management.

Java for Small Programs: Scripts and Notebooks

2024-12-18

This article explores the surprising effectiveness of Java for small programs, particularly scripting and exploratory programming. The author details how Java's features, like implicit classes, records, and enums, simplify code, highlighting the ease of running Java scripts without compilation (using JEP 330 and JEP 458). Managing external dependencies with JBang is also discussed. The article further delves into using Java within Jupyter Notebooks, acknowledging current limitations while expressing hope for future improvements in the ecosystem. The author's experience automating tedious tasks showcases Java's strength over alternatives like bash scripting and Python, emphasizing the advantages of static typing and robust tool support.

Development Scripting

BlackSheep: A Fast and Lightweight ASGI Web Framework for Python

2024-12-18

BlackSheep is a fast asynchronous ASGI web framework for Python, inspired by Flask, ASP.NET Core, and the work of Yury Selivanov. It offers a CLI for rapid project bootstrapping, supports automatic binding, dependency injection, OpenAPI documentation generation, and various authentication and authorization strategies. BlackSheep boasts broad platform and runtime compatibility, and features middleware, WebSocket, SSE, static file serving, and Jinja2 integration, making it ideal for building high-performance web applications.

GitHub Copilot: Your AI Pair Programmer

2024-12-18

GitHub Copilot is an AI-powered pair programmer that provides real-time code suggestions based on your code and natural language prompts. It supports multiple programming languages and IDEs, offering free and paid plans to suit various needs. Copilot boasts powerful debugging and security vulnerability fixing capabilities, along with multi-file editing and cross-platform support. While trained on public code repositories, it doesn't copy-paste code but generates suggestions probabilistically, offering an optional code referencing filter to mitigate copyright concerns.

ISO 8583: The Secret Language of Credit Cards

2024-12-18

Every time you tap your card or pay online, you're interacting with the ISO 8583 protocol. This 1987 standard defines the format of real-time transaction messages between banking networks. It includes core fields like message type indicators, bitmaps, and data elements, but networks vary in their extensions and serialization, leading to compatibility challenges. This article delves into the complexities of ISO 8583's structure, field encoding, nested message handling, and demonstrates building a robust ISO 8583 parser to handle network variations and error scenarios.

Castle Game Engine Update: Web Target, IFC Support, and mORMot Collaboration

2024-12-18

The Castle Game Engine team announced updates including a web target (using JS+WebAssembly for browser-based game execution), support for the IFC (Industry Foundation Classes) format, and collaborative editing using mORMot2. The web target currently handles basic functions and is improving WebGL support. IFC support allows loading, modifying, and saving models, with future enhancements planned. Collaborative editing is still under development but already enables 3D world modification and server synchronization.

Development game engine

Brisk: A Cross-Platform C++20 GUI Framework for High-Performance Rendering

2024-12-18

Brisk is a modern, cross-platform C++20 GUI framework built for creating responsive, high-performance applications with ease. Leveraging an MVVM architecture and reactive capabilities, Brisk boasts scalable GPU-accelerated rendering, making it ideal for graphics-intensive projects. It supports multiple backends (D3D11, D3D12, Vulkan, OpenGL, Metal, WebGPU) and features declarative GUI, stylesheets, and full Unicode support. Currently under active development, contributions are welcome.

Hadrius Hiring Founding UI/UX Designer, Up to $150K

2024-12-18

Hadrius, a Y Combinator-backed fintech startup, is hiring a Founding UI/UX Designer. They're using AI to automate the back office for financial firms, preventing future financial crises. The role is full-time in New York City, offering $80K-$150K salary and 0.01%-0.15% equity. The ideal candidate is a highly skilled designer with experience at a design-focused tech company, proficient in Figma, and passionate about Hadrius's mission. The team boasts engineers from Google, Chime, and other top companies, and the company is experiencing hyper-growth, doubling revenue every three months.

Development UI/UX Design

Leadership Power Tools: SQL, Statistics, and Data-Driven Decisions

2024-12-18

This article explores how engineering leaders can leverage SQL and statistical methods for data-driven decision-making. The author points out that many engineering leaders are uncomfortable extracting and interpreting data, recommending learning SQL (e.g., using DuckDB) and statistical tools. The article covers summary statistics, distributions, confidence intervals, and Bayesian reasoning, demonstrating how to calculate confidence intervals by analyzing Firefox bug tracking data, using Monte Carlo simulations for project time estimation, and applying Bayesian inference to update project completion probabilities. The article emphasizes the importance of data analysis skills for engineering leaders, enabling more precise predictions and decisions.

Canva Engineering Cuts CI Build Times from Hours to Under 30 Minutes

2024-12-18

Canva's engineering team dramatically reduced their continuous integration (CI) build times, from an average of 80 minutes to under 30 minutes, sometimes as low as 15. This was achieved through a multifaceted approach. They identified and resolved Bazel caching issues, optimized pipeline structures, improved Git repository checkouts and caching, and leveraged Bazel Remote Build Execution (RBE). Extensive experimentation, including testing different instance types and adjusting Bazel configurations, played a crucial role. A series of incremental improvements significantly increased CI efficiency, reduced costs, and enhanced the developer experience.

GitHub Project ted: A Turing Machine-based File Editor

2024-12-18

ted is a command-line tool written in Go that allows users to edit files according to the rules of a provided Turing machine. Inspired by the author's need to process log files, ted uses state machines to precisely extract the desired information. It supports various operations, including regular expression matching, sed command execution, variable assignment, capture and output control, and offers features such as multi-line capture, regex capture groups, and file head/tail movement.

Homescreen App: Redefining Your Home Screen Experience

2024-12-18

Homescreen is an app designed to revolutionize the home screen experience on your phone. Breaking free from the limitations of traditional phone desktops, it offers users a more personalized, efficient, and convenient way to interact with their devices. Users can customize widgets, themes, and layouts to create a unique home screen, boosting productivity and enjoyment. Homescreen isn't just a simple desktop replacement; it's a refreshing approach to how we use our phones.

Reclaiming Sensor Data: Breaking Free from the Cloud

2024-12-18

This article details how an embedded software engineer regained control of data from a cloud-connected radon sensor by bypassing the manufacturer's servers. By analyzing network traffic, the engineer discovered a vulnerability where the sensor didn't properly validate server certificates. Leveraging a local DNS server and a custom Python web server, the engineer successfully intercepted and read the raw sensor data. This grants programmatic access and ensures continued functionality even if the manufacturer's servers go down. The article highlights the importance of network security and the privacy risks associated with DNS traffic.

Browser Extension 'refoorest' Accused of Fraudulent Tree-Planting Scheme

2024-12-18

An investigation into Colibri Hero's browser extension, refoorest, and its Impact Hero SDK reveals a deceptive affiliate marketing scheme disguised as a tree-planting initiative. The extension misrepresents the number of trees planted, exploits user data through incentivized reviews and sharing, and the SDK gains excessive user permissions without proper disclosure, violating Chrome Web Store policies. The article exposes a pattern of opaque practices, including fake testimonials, financial secrecy, and data security vulnerabilities, casting serious doubt on the company's claims of environmental responsibility.

Optimizing Ruby's JSON: Part 1

2024-12-18

This blog post details how the author optimized Ruby's `json` gem to become one of the fastest JSON parsers and generators. Instead of complex techniques, simple optimizations were applied based on profiling, such as avoiding redundant checks, prioritizing cheaper conditions, reducing setup costs, and using lookup tables. These improvements apply to both C and Ruby code. The optimizations significantly boosted the `json` gem's performance, making it competitive with alternatives like `oj`, reducing the need for monkey patching, and addressing stability and compatibility issues associated with `oj`.

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