Webtagr - Technology News Summarizer

YAGRI: You Are Gonna Read It

2025-04-23

YAGNI (You Ain't Gonna Need It) advises against over-engineering. But the author introduces YAGRI (You Are Gonna Read It): don't just store the minimum data; store data you'll likely need later, like timestamps and metadata. This is crucial when handling user deletions. Simply deleting a database row isn't enough; log who deleted it, how, when, and why. The author suggests storing created_at, updated_at, deleted_at, created_by, and permissions used in CRUD operations on almost every table. While not every field will be used, a single field saving you from a future debugging crisis or a boss's sudden request justifies the effort. Maintaining data is a crucial engineering task.

(www.scottantipa.com)

Development database design

Index: The SOTA Open-Source Browser Agent for Autonomous Web Tasks

2025-04-23

Index is a state-of-the-art open-source browser agent capable of autonomously executing complex web tasks. It leverages powerful LLMs like Anthropic's Claude and OpenAI's models, allowing users to issue prompts such as "go to ycombinator.com, summarize the first 3 companies in the W25 batch and make a new spreadsheet in Google Sheets." Index offers a serverless API for production use, an interactive CLI for local development, browser state persistence, and more. Its ease of use and powerful features make it ideal for automating web data extraction and complex web interactions.

(github.com)

Development Browser Agent

Self-Contained Apache Lucene Examples: A Beginner's Guide to Full-Text Search

2025-04-23

This GitHub repository provides a collection of Apache Lucene examples with detailed Markdown comments. Each example is self-contained and runnable, allowing learners to explore Lucene through reading the code, debugging, or interactive web documentation (https://msfroh.github.io/lucene-university/docs/SimpleSearch.html). The repository uses Lucene 10 and requires JDK 21 or higher. Contributions are welcome!

(github.com)

Development Full-text search Code examples

C++26: A Giant Leap for constexpr

2025-04-23

C++26 is set to revolutionize constexpr! Upcoming features include constexpr casts from void*, enabling more flexible compile-time memory manipulation; constexpr placement new, allowing object placement within constant expressions; and constexpr structured bindings, bringing compile-time structured binding. These improvements drastically expand constexpr's reach and empower the standard library with significantly enhanced compile-time capabilities.

(www.sandordargo.com)

Development compile-time computation

The AI Coding Revolution: At What Cost to Joy?

2025-04-23

This article explores the author's concern about the loss of joy in software development due to AI assistance. While acknowledging the productivity gains, the author laments the diminishing experience of flow state – that deep immersion and satisfaction once derived from crafting code. AI tools, while efficient, create a more passive, curatorial role, potentially leading to highly productive yet unfulfilled developers. The author suggests a need to redefine joy in an AI-augmented world, advocating for intentional preservation of manual coding to maintain happiness and creativity.

(terriblesoftware.org)

Development developer happiness flow state

Exploring a New Protocol for Online Interaction: Spring83

2025-04-23

This document introduces Spring83, an experimental protocol designed to explore novel ways of interacting online. It's not intended for users, but rather as an invitation for co-investigators to explore and develop it. Several implementations in various programming languages already exist, and the author encourages further contributions to this open project.

(github.com)

Development online interaction experimental protocol open source project

Livecoding Graphics in Common Lisp: Building a Boids Program Without Restarts

2025-04-23

This article demonstrates livecoding in Common Lisp for graphics programming, using the Boids algorithm as an example. Common Lisp's powerful recompilation feature allows code modification and immediate effect while the program is running, eliminating the need for restarts. The author utilizes the Sketch graphics framework, incrementally implementing the Boids algorithm and showcasing the efficient development process enabled by livecoding. By modifying code and observing the real-time effects, the core Boids algorithm—including separation, cohesion, and alignment rules—is implemented, culminating in a mouse-following Boids simulation. Livecoding significantly enhances development efficiency and interactivity.

(kevingal.com)

Development Livecoding Boids Algorithm

ClickHouse at Scale: Handling Reads and Writes

2025-04-23

This post, the second in a series, dives deep into optimizing read performance in ClickHouse under heavy load. The author debunks the myth of completely decoupling reads and writes, highlighting how frequent data ingestion impacts read efficiency. It explores strategies for handling various traffic types (real-time, long-running queries, backfills), query design best practices (sorting key design, filter optimization, `max_threads` configuration), and cluster monitoring and error handling. The article also covers materialized view management, troubleshooting common issues, and shares practical experiences from Tinybird.

(www.tinybird.co)

Development high availability

Moose: Build Analytical Backends in TypeScript/Python with One Command

2025-04-23

Moose is a revolutionary framework that lets you build analytical backends in pure TypeScript or Python. It solves the pain points of traditional approaches: tool fragmentation, schema drift, painful workflows, and SQL-only processing. Moose makes your code the single source of truth for both your data application logic AND your data infrastructure. It provides pre-configured integration with ClickHouse, Redpanda, and Temporal, enabling one-command local startup and hot-reloading development for drastically improved efficiency. Define your model once and use it seamlessly across your APIs, streams, and database—no extra steps needed.

(docs.fiveonefour.com)

Development

Deep Dive into ZGC Memory Allocation: Enhancements with Mapped Cache (JDK-8350441)

2025-04-23

This post delves into the intricacies of Java heap memory allocation in ZGC, an OpenJDK garbage collector. It highlights improvements introduced in JDK-8350441 with the Mapped Cache. ZGC organizes heap memory into pages (Small, Medium, Large) managed by a Page Allocator and partitions. The allocation process is meticulously explained, covering capacity management, the interplay between physical and virtual memory, and the Mapped Cache's role in optimizing allocation speed and reducing fragmentation. The article details NUMA architecture's impact on multi-partition allocation, memory commitment, reclamation, and defragmentation. Finally, it discusses the trade-off between startup time and runtime latency.

(joelsiks.com)

Development Java Memory Management

Why I'm Quitting Vibe Coding

2025-04-23

Varun Raghu, a programmer, announced he's breaking up with 'vibe coding'—using AI to quickly build apps without deeply learning the concepts. He realized that while AI sped up development, it hindered his learning. He concluded that coding is about the process, problem-solving, and critical thinking, not just the end product. He's returning to writing 'bad' code, slowly and deliberately, to truly master programming.

(varunraghu.com)

Development

Advanced Alchemy: A High-Performance Companion Library for SQLAlchemy

2025-04-23

Advanced Alchemy is a carefully crafted, thoroughly tested, and optimized companion library for SQLAlchemy. It offers sync and async repositories with common CRUD operations and highly optimized bulk operations. It integrates with major web frameworks including Litestar, Starlette, FastAPI, and Sanic, and features a custom-built Alembic configuration and CLI. Built-in features include a File Object data type supporting various storage backends (fsspec and obstore), optimized JSON types, support for UUID6 and UUID7, and pre-configured base classes. Advanced Alchemy simplifies CRUD operations on SQLAlchemy models and provides features like pagination, sorting, and filtering.

(github.com)

Development

Zero-Cost, Minimalist Blogging: Obsidian, Hugo, and Cloudflare Pages

2025-04-23

I've switched to Obsidian for all my writing, and combined it with Hugo and Cloudflare Pages for a completely free blogging setup. Obsidian's local-first model and minimal theme keep writing focused and efficient; iCloud syncs notes across devices seamlessly; Hugo and the Bear theme provide a fast, minimal website; and GitHub and Cloudflare Pages offer free, reliable deployment. This gives me complete control – no subscriptions, no vendor lock-in. Setting up requires some technical knowledge, but the result is a frictionless publishing workflow.

(ingau.me)

Development

Geocoding API Showdown: A Deep Dive into Pricing, Limits, and Terms

2025-04-23

This article compares seven popular geocoding APIs (HERE, Google Maps, Azure Maps, OpenCage, TomTom Maps, LocationIQ, and Nominatim) across pricing, free tiers, rate limits, and terms of use. It finds Azure Maps and Google Maps to be pricier and more restrictive; OpenCage and LocationIQ offer flexible monthly plans, with LocationIQ boasting a more generous free tier; TomTom Maps provides a high daily free quota, ideal for inconsistent usage; HERE suits high-volume needs; and Nominatim is best for small, non-commercial projects. The best API depends on project scale, budget, and specific requirements.

(www.bitoff.org)

Development geocoding API pricing comparison API selection

A Global Language List Revealed!

2025-04-23

This code snippet showcases an impressive list of languages from around the globe, spanning Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. It highlights the globalization of the internet and the flourishing exchange of global cultures. This is a valuable resource for developers creating multilingual applications or websites.

(www.vaticannews.va)

Development

MinC 6.1: A Lightweight Unix Environment

2025-04-23

MinC 6.1 is a lightweight Unix environment emulator now featuring a simplified installation wizard. It bundles a rich set of common Unix commands, encompassing file management, compression, networking tools, and development utilities. While some services and daemons are not yet supported, the developer promises their imminent release. Users can support the project through donations and suggest software for future inclusions. Post-installation, antivirus adjustments might be necessary for proper functionality, and integration with VS Code as a terminal is possible.

(minc.commandlinerevolution.nl)

Development

Solving eBPF Portability: BPF CO-RE to the Rescue

2025-04-23

eBPF program execution relies heavily on the kernel version, and differences in struct definitions across kernel versions can cause programs to crash. This article introduces BPF CO-RE, a technique that generates relocation information during compilation and uses BTF (BPF Type Format) information at runtime to correct field offsets, thus solving the portability problem of eBPF programs. Even without BTF support on the target kernel, pre-downloading and embedding BTF files achieves cross-kernel compatibility. The author also provides a GitHub repository with a complete solution that automatically downloads and embeds BTF data, producing a single binary that runs across a wide range of kernels without requiring BTF support on the target system.

(ebpfchirp.substack.com)

Development

14 Underrated Python Features to Level Up Your Skills

2025-04-23

This article explores 14 lesser-known yet powerful Python features. From type overloading and keyword-only arguments to structural pattern matching and metaclasses, it delves into advanced techniques that can significantly improve code efficiency and readability. Learn how to leverage features like generics for type safety, optimize performance with caching (@cache), and streamline conditional logic with pattern matching. Even seasoned Python developers will discover new tricks and insights to boost their coding prowess.

(blog.edward-li.com)

Development Python tips advanced Python

GitHub Code Suggestion Application Restrictions

2025-04-23

Several limitations prevent applying code suggestions in GitHub code reviews. These include: no code changes made, the pull request being closed, viewing a subset of changes, only one suggestion per line allowed, applying to deleted lines, suggestions already applied or marked resolved, suggestions from pending reviews, multi-line comments, the pull request being queued to merge, or system limitations.

(github.com)

Development limitations

Earthly Lunar: Taming the Chaos of Engineering at Scale

2025-04-23

Earthly discovered that the biggest challenge for large engineering teams isn't CI/CD speed, but the chaos caused by the diversity of tech stacks resulting from microservices and containerization. Teams have wildly different setups, leading to platform teams constantly firefighting, app teams reinventing the wheel, security teams lacking visibility, and leadership struggling to maintain quality and standards. Earthly's solution is Lunar, a platform that monitors the entire SDLC (Software Development Lifecycle), not just CI/CD, to address this. Lunar collects and analyzes metadata about how code is built, tested, scanned, and deployed, enforcing standards based on custom policies to improve engineering quality and compliance without sacrificing developer velocity.

(earthly.dev)

Development

Stop Waiting to Be Asked: A Developer's Guide to Career Advancement

2025-04-23

A developer shares his journey from coder to cofounder and back, revealing that job titles define minimum expectations, not limits. He advocates focusing on the intersection of skills, company needs, and personal interests. Instead of waiting for promotions, proactively tackle unmet needs and demonstrate initiative. Even if unappreciated by your current employer, this experience strengthens future job applications. The author illustrates this by detailing self-initiated projects like creating a company newsletter and internal documentation, highlighting the importance of creating your own opportunities.

(notes.eatonphil.com)

Development proactive

Local Expo Android Builds: The eas-like-local-builder Docker Image

2025-04-22

Tired of expensive EAS cloud builds? The eas-like-local-builder Docker image provides a solution for building Expo Android apps locally. It mirrors the EAS build environment, including Ubuntu 22.04, JDK 17, NDK r26b, and other necessary components, allowing developers to build in their local or CI/CD environments. The image supports custom build profiles (e.g., production) and allows skipping version control checks via environment variables. Developers only need to run simple Docker commands and mount their project directory to build, greatly simplifying the local build process.

(github.com)

Development

AutoKitteh: A Python-based Workflow Automation Platform

2025-04-22

AutoKitteh is a developer-friendly workflow automation and orchestration platform built on Python, offering a code-based alternative to no/low-code platforms. It boasts unlimited flexibility and leverages Temporal for durable execution, abstracting away infrastructure and coding complexities. AutoKitteh supports self-hosting and cloud deployment, is suitable for DevOps, FinOps, MLOps, SOAR, and more, and features built-in integrations and a scalable 'serverless' architecture.

(github.com)

Development workflow automation

Atuin Desktop: Executable Runbooks That End Copy-Pasting

2025-04-22

Atuin Desktop is a local-first, executable runbook editor that looks like a doc but runs like your terminal. It combines script blocks, embedded terminals, database clients, and Prometheus charts, solving the problem of teams relying on individual memory and outdated documentation for workflows. With repeatable, shareable, and reliable workflows, Atuin Desktop helps teams escape the struggle of searching Slack and Notion for answers and digging through shell history, ultimately enabling efficient collaboration and automated operations.

(blog.atuin.sh)

Development runbooks

WinFile: The Nostalgia-Inducing Windows File Manager Returns!

2025-04-22

Microsoft announced that it will archive the WinFile project on March 1, 2025, but the good news is that this classic Windows File Manager has been resurrected as a native x86, x64, and arm64 desktop app, supporting all currently supported versions of Windows, including Windows 11. The maintainer welcomes bug fixes and suggestions for improvements but will not be developing new branches. The WinFile project source code includes two main versions: the `original_plus` branch, which is kept as close to the original as possible, and the actively developed `master` branch. Users can download pre-compiled versions from the Microsoft Store or the project page.

(github.com)

Development File Manager

Sapphire: A Next-Gen Package Manager in Rust

2025-04-22

Sapphire is an experimental, Rust-powered package manager inspired by Homebrew. It's designed to install and manage command-line tools, libraries, languages, desktop applications, and more. Features include parallel downloads, automatic dependency resolution, and building from source. Currently ARM-only, with potential x86 support in the future. This is alpha software; use at your own risk.

(github.com)

Development

Native Twitch App Built with SwiftUI and C++ Interop: A Deep Dive into Kulve's Tech Stack

2025-04-22

Kulve is a native Twitch application built using SwiftUI and C++ interoperability, leveraging Swift 5.9's features for a cross-platform, high-performance experience. The backend utilizes CMake and VSCode for development, ensuring cross-platform compatibility, while the frontend employs Xcode and SwiftUI for the UI. C++ handles low-level tasks like threading, asynchronous networking, and runtime, while Swift focuses on UI rendering. The article details a clever memory management scheme using Swift wrappers around raw C++ pointers to prevent leaks and boost performance, enabling Kulve to efficiently handle large datasets, such as embedding databases within chat messages.

(www.kulve.org)

Development

Parcom: A Concise Parser Combinator Library for Common Lisp

2025-04-22

Parcom is a concise parser combinator library for Common Lisp, similar in style to Haskell's Parsec and Rust's Nom. Operating directly on strings with no dependencies, it boasts broad Common Lisp implementation support and offers a rich set of parsers and combinators for building custom parsers. Parcom also includes an optional JSON parser supporting Unicode. Its strength lies in its ability to combine existing parsers to create complex parsing logic, delivering powerful functionality through a clean API.

(github.com)

Development Parser Combinators

Easy AI Chat API Integration with Python's Rowboat Library

2025-04-22

This Python code demonstrates how to interact with an AI chat API using the Rowboat library. It initializes a client, connecting to a locally hosted API service. The code then shows two ways to interact: using the `StatefulChat` class for stateful conversations, and using the lower-level `client.chat` method to send message arrays directly. Both methods successfully retrieve and print AI responses, showcasing Rowboat's ease of use for quickly integrating AI chat functionality into Python projects.

(github.com)

Development

Checking for Constant Expressions in C: A Macro Approach

2025-04-22

This article explores various methods for creating a C macro that detects if an expression is a constant expression. The author investigates several techniques, including C23's static compound literals, GNU extension `__builtin_constant_p`, `static_assert`, `sizeof` combined with compound literal arrays, `sizeof` with enum constants, and the comma operator. Each method has its pros and cons; C23 support is limited, `__builtin_constant_p` relies on GNU extensions, `static_assert` and `sizeof` methods might alter the expression's type, and the comma operator generates warnings. The author concludes that a perfect solution is elusive, and the best choice depends on specific needs and the C standard version.

(nrk.neocities.org)

Development Macro Constant Expression

Category: Development