Webtagr - Technology News Summarizer

ResurrectedGod: A Robust Ruby Process Management Framework

2025-08-17

ResurrectedGod is a Ruby-based process monitoring framework forked from mojombo/god. It aims to simplify the management of server processes and tasks, offering easy configuration and extension, striving to be the simplest and most powerful monitoring application available. Documentation is available in the repository and online, with a mailing list for community interaction.

(github.com)

Development process monitoring

C STL Library Performance Showdown: Does M*LIB Reign Supreme?

2025-08-17

This project compares several C libraries offering C++ STL-like container template functionalities. The author is a primary contributor to one of these libraries, M*LIB. For comparison, the author implemented the same simple programs using each library and compared performance and API ergonomics. Results show a mixed bag in terms of performance and features, with M*LIB showing promise. However, the project is a work in progress and contributions are welcome.

(github.com)

Development

VictoriaLogs Practical Ingestion Guide: Mastering Log Processing

2025-08-17

This VictoriaLogs guide provides a concise overview of its core concepts, covering essential documentation points and common issues encountered in real-world scenarios. It delves into the crucial concepts of message, time, and stream, explaining how optimal stream field selection enhances query performance, preventing "fat streams" and high cardinality problems. The guide also details VictoriaLogs' ingestion mechanisms, timestamp formats, compression strategies, and nested field handling, enabling users to leverage VictoriaLogs for efficient log processing.

(victoriametrics.com)

Development Log Processing

arXivLabs: Building New arXiv Features with Community Collaboration

2025-08-17

arXivLabs is a framework enabling individuals and organizations to develop and share new arXiv features directly on the website. All collaborators must adhere to arXiv's values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. Got an idea to enhance the arXiv community? Learn more about arXivLabs.

(arxiv.org)

Development

Porffor: Blazing Fast JavaScript Runtime via WebAssembly

2025-08-17

Porffor is a JS engine/runtime that compiles JavaScript ahead-of-time to WebAssembly and native binaries, resulting in tiny (<1MB), fast (millisecond-level) binaries. Benchmarks on AWS Lambda show it's 12x faster than Node.js and 4x faster than Amazon's LLRT, with lower costs. While still pre-alpha with limited JS support and lacking I/O and Node compatibility, its potential for optimizing small Lambda functions is significant.

(goose.icu)

Development

Building a Local-First, End-to-End Encrypted, and Reactive App: A SQLite Sync Engine Implementation

2025-08-17

The author attempted to build a local-first, end-to-end encrypted, and reactive application with data stored in a local SQLite database and synced to a remote server. Initial attempts using Electric and PGlite encountered performance and stability issues. Ultimately, a simpler approach was chosen: using SQLite with simple polling for data synchronization, and leveraging the Broadcast Channel API and triggers for reactive updates. This solution proved efficient for single-user scenarios, resulting in a highly responsive application with minimal loading times.

(www.finkelstein.fr)

Development

The Unsung Heroes of Open Source: Quiet Giants Making a Big Impact

2025-08-17

At developer conferences, laptop stickers showcase trendy cloud-native companies and databases. But the companies quietly contributing massive amounts of code often go unnoticed. This article highlights these unsung heroes, like Oracle, which was the top contributor to the Linux 6.1 kernel by lines of code changed. They quietly maintain memory management and block device drivers, crucial for everyday use. These giants treat open source as foundational to their business, not just marketing, demonstrating a significant, often unseen, impact.

(www.infoworld.com)

Development

Lue: A Powerful CLI E-book Reader

2025-08-17

Lue is a powerful command-line e-book reader supporting various formats like EPUB, PDF, TXT, etc. It features a modular TTS system, defaulting to Edge TTS but also supporting the offline Kokoro TTS engine. Lue boasts a rich terminal UI with customizable themes and full mouse/keyboard support, along with smart persistence features like automatic progress saving and cross-session continuity. It's cross-platform (macOS, Linux, Windows), multilingual (100+ languages), and offers intuitive navigation shortcuts. Users can easily customize voice, language, and filtering options via command-line arguments.

(github.com)

Development

Small is the New Big: Building for One in the Age of AI

2025-08-17

In the era of AI-assisted coding, the cost of building small, personal applications has plummeted. The author shares anecdotes of creating several small utilities: a private Slack workspace for a hundred people, a simple app for sending postcards to his mother, and a small program that calls her to remind her to take medication. These aren't designed for scale, but to meet specific needs for himself and a small circle. The author argues that the real luxury isn't speed or cost, but the freedom to stop, to build something small, useful, and perfectly personal, without the obligation to grow it until it breaks. In a world obsessed with scale, there's quiet satisfaction in leaving 'good enough' alone.

(derwiki.medium.com)

Development personal applications small is beautiful

Lisp Interpreter in 99 Lines of C

2025-08-17

This article presents Tinylisp, a Lisp interpreter implemented in a mere 99 lines of C code. Leveraging NaN boxing and clever C programming techniques, it boasts 21 built-in Lisp primitives, simple garbage collection, and a REPL. The author details its design, implementation, and extension possibilities, even providing examples of running it on a vintage Sharp PC-G850 pocket computer. Tinylisp's concise code is readily understandable and extensible, making it an excellent learning resource for both Lisp and C.

(github.com)

Development

494x Faster Word Counting with SIMD and Threads

2025-08-17

This article details the author's journey in optimizing a word counting program, achieving a remarkable 494x speedup. Starting with a naive Python implementation (89.6 seconds), the author progressively improved performance using CPython's `re` module (13.7 seconds), a C scalar loop (1.205 seconds), and finally, SIMD instructions and multithreading (181 milliseconds). Each optimization step is explained, covering leveraging C extensions, efficient C loops, and multi-core CPU utilization. While multithreading yielded less than expected gains, the final version reached an impressive 5.52 GiB/s processing speed. The author invites readers to suggest further optimizations.

(healeycodes.com)

Development

Running Qt Applications as Non-Root Users in Embedded Linux with Wayland

2025-08-17

Embedded Linux systems often run Qt applications as root, posing a security risk. This article details a solution to run Qt applications as a non-root user (weston) within a Yocto-built system using Wayland. By modifying the Weston and Qt application service units and configuring the `XDG_RUNTIME_DIR` and `WAYLAND_DISPLAY` environment variables, the article ensures both the Wayland server and clients use the same socket file, enhancing security and complying with the EU Cyber Resilience Act. Key steps include altering the user and group in weston.service and weston.socket, and generating the weston-client environment file within weston-init.bbappend. This effectively allows Qt applications to run without root privileges.

(embeddeduse.com)

Development

Raft: Simplifying Consensus in Distributed Systems

2025-08-17

Raft is a consensus algorithm designed for ease of understanding. It offers fault-tolerance and performance equivalent to Paxos, but decomposes the problem into simpler, independent subproblems, making it more practical. Consensus is fundamental in fault-tolerant distributed systems, requiring multiple servers to agree on values. Raft ensures that even with server failures (as long as a majority remain operational), all servers process the same commands, ultimately achieving a consistent state across the replicated state machines.

(raft.github.io)

Development consensus algorithm

Node.js v22.18.0 (LTS) Released: Native TypeScript Support!

2025-08-17

Node.js v22.18.0 (LTS) is out, bringing native TypeScript support! Now you can execute TypeScript files directly without extra configuration, streamlining your workflow. While there are some limitations in supported syntax, this is an experimental feature under active development. This release also includes numerous other improvements and bug fixes across file system, modules, crypto, and core functionalities.

(nodejs.org)

Development

Dyna: A Declarative Language for Machine Learning Researchers

2025-08-17

Dyna is a programming language designed by and for machine learning researchers. Building upon logic programming paradigms like Datalog and Prolog, Dyna allows flexible execution orders and weighted rules, enabling complex programs to be expressed concisely. From matrix multiplication and Fibonacci sequences to CKY parsing and even infinite neural networks, Dyna achieves impressive brevity. Started in 2004 to bridge the gap between mathematical concepts and executable code, Dyna has evolved through versions 1.0 and 2.0, continuously improving and expanding its capabilities. Current research focuses on building a flexible and complete implementation using relational algebra and term rewriting, and employing reinforcement learning to optimize execution strategies.

(dyna.org)

Development declarative programming

Time to Increase TCP's Initial Congestion Window... Again

2025-08-17

This article argues for increasing TCP's initial congestion window, citing the limitations of the current setting in handling the demands of modern web pages and API calls. While Google increased this value to 10 in 2011, the author contends that this is no longer sufficient due to the growth in internet traffic and the increasing size of web assets. The article proposes increasing the window to 20-40 and adopting the BBR congestion control algorithm to mitigate bufferbloat. Although QUIC offers a solution, legacy equipment and enterprise reliance on TCP necessitate optimizing TCP for better performance.

(jeclark.net)

Development Congestion Control

The Surprising Power of Randomness in Algorithms

2025-08-16

From simulating nuclear processes to primality testing, randomness plays a surprisingly crucial role in computer science. While seemingly paradoxical, pure randomness helps uncover the structure that solves a problem. For instance, Fermat's Little Theorem, combined with random numbers, provides an efficient way to test if a large number is prime. Although deterministic equivalents exist in theory, randomized algorithms often prove more efficient in practice. In some cases, like finding shortest paths in graphs with negative edge weights, randomized algorithms are the only known efficient approach. Randomness offers a clever strategy to tackle complex computational problems.

(www.quantamagazine.org)

Development randomized algorithms primality testing

Your Open Office is Giving You Secondhand ADHD

2025-08-16

A developer tracked his coding patterns for a month and discovered he's three times more creative at home than in the office. Constant interruptions in the open office led to significant 'exploring' time (re-reading code) instead of focused coding. This isn't just about productivity; the environment fundamentally alters his work style. Research shows it takes 23 minutes to refocus after an interruption, impossible in a busy office. He used data to convince his manager to let him work from home on complex tasks, reserving office time for collaboration. The article highlights how office environments impact individual productivity and the power of data-driven optimization.

(floustate.com)

Development open office

Ten Windows 11 Improvements We Actually Want

2025-08-16

Windows 11 is plagued by useless features and annoying pop-up ads, neglecting what users truly need. This article lists ten crucial improvements: multiple clipboards, multiple clocks in the taskbar, a fourth modifier key, remapping all keyboard shortcuts, a movable and resizable taskbar, an audio firewall, pinning apps to specific screens, program groups launching multiple apps at once, easier audio device switching, and a reduction in Microsoft's distracting features. These enhancements would significantly boost user productivity instead of focusing on flashy, unnecessary features.

(www.theregister.com)

Development OS Improvements

Developer Traps: Hidden Bugs Lurking in Your Code

2025-08-16

This article summarizes common pitfalls developers encounter in HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Go, Java, C/C++, Python, SQL databases, concurrency, Git, and networking. These traps, often subtle and hard to debug, include issues like CSS `min-width` priority, quirks of floating elements, Block Formatting Contexts (BFCs) and stacking contexts, Unicode character handling, floating-point precision problems, leap seconds and time zones in time handling, and various language and library specific behaviors. The article details the causes and solutions, aiming to help developers write more robust and reliable code.

(qouteall.fun)

Development developer traps coding best practices

Replicating OpenBSD's pflog in Linux: nftables and ulogd2

2025-08-16

This article details how to replicate OpenBSD and FreeBSD's convenient pflog functionality on Linux using nftables and ulogd2 for network packet logging and analysis. By adding 'log group' statements to nftables rules and forwarding logs to different netlink sockets, you can use tcpdump for live monitoring and ulogd2 for disk logging. The article walks through configuring ulogd2, logging to pcap files, and notes limitations and alternatives to ulogd2.

(utcc.utoronto.ca)

Development

Rediscovering `document.write()`: HTML Templating for Static Sites

2025-08-16

This article explores a clever use of JavaScript's `document.write()` function as a simple HTML templating engine for building static websites. The author demonstrates how to safely use `document.write()` to reuse HTML snippets, avoiding page repaints, resulting in fast and efficient static sites. They share usage tips, caveats, and comparisons with other approaches. While `document.write()` is deprecated, the author argues for its advantages in specific scenarios and provides two safety rules to mitigate potential risks. Alternatives like `document.currentScript.replaceWith()` are also discussed.

(vladimirslepnev.me)

Development HTML Templating Static Sites

AI to Write All Code Within a Year? Anthropic CEO's Bold Prediction

2025-08-16

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei predicts that within a year, AI will replace software developers, writing all software code. He foresees AI writing 90% of code in three to six months, and essentially all code within a year. While human developers will still play a role in the short term, designing features and conditions, Amodei believes AI will eventually handle all tasks currently performed by humans, impacting all industries. This prediction is supported by Y Combinator president Garry Tan, who reported that 25% of their Winter 2025 batch used AI to generate 95% of their code. The managing director of the IMF also noted AI's potential impact on roughly 40% of global jobs.

(www.businessinsider.com)

Development

Escape the Cloud Vendor Lock-in: Build Your Own Heroku with CoreOS and Dokploy

2025-08-16

This article tackles the pain points of cloud hosting costs and maintenance, exploring the trade-offs between expensive VPSs and convenient serverless solutions. The author proposes a middle ground: combining CoreOS (a stable, secure, and maintenance-free container OS) with Dokploy (an open-source CI/CD tool similar to Heroku) to transform a VPS into a low-cost, easy-to-maintain platform. Dokploy simplifies container orchestration, deployment, and log management, offering a PaaS-like experience while retaining the cost advantages and independence of a VPS. This approach is suitable for developers with some technical experience who want to balance cost and convenience.

(nikodunk.com)

Development

Good System Design: It's Not About Clever Tricks

2025-08-16

This article critiques system designs focused on flashy techniques, arguing that good system design prioritizes simplicity and reliability over complex distributed consensus mechanisms or CQRS. The author emphasizes the importance of state management, advocating for minimizing stateful components. Key aspects like database design (schemas, indexes), caching, background jobs, event-driven architectures, and handling bottlenecks are discussed in detail. The article stresses leveraging the database's capabilities, avoiding unnecessary in-memory processing. It highlights the importance of hot paths, logging, and monitoring, along with fault tolerance strategies like circuit breakers, retries, and graceful degradation. Ultimately, the author champions understated, effective design built on well-tested components, rejecting showy techniques in favor of robust functionality.

(www.seangoedecke.com)

Development

GitHub Code Suggestion Application Restrictions

2025-08-16

Applying code suggestions in GitHub code review has several limitations. These include: only single-line suggestions can be applied, suggestions cannot be applied to deleted lines, they cannot be applied to closed pull requests, or when viewing a subset of changes, and several other temporary limitations are also noted. These limitations highlight the complexity and thoroughness of GitHub's code review mechanism to ensure accuracy and security of code changes.

(github.com)

Development

Solidity Compiler Crash: A Perfect Storm of Ancient Bugs

2025-08-16

A perplexing crash in the Solidity compiler has recently emerged: it segfaults even when compiling perfectly valid code. The root cause was traced to a 12-year-old overload resolution bug in G++ versions below 11.4, interacting with C++20's implicit comparison rewrite rules when handling Boost's `boost::rational` type. This combination leads to infinite recursion and a stack overflow. The issue isn't in the Solidity code itself, but a surprising interaction between G++, Boost, and the C++20 specification. The solution is upgrading Boost to 1.75 or higher, or upgrading G++ to version 14 or later.

(osec.io)

Development Compiler Bug

Recto: A Truly 2D Programming Language

2025-08-16

Recto is a groundbreaking 2D programming language that uses nested rectangles as its core syntax, encoding structure and recursion directly in space instead of a linear stream of text. Challenging the one-dimensionality of traditional programming languages, Recto explores new ways to write, parse, and reason about code—and even natural language—spatially. Rectangles represent data structures, intuitively visualizing multi-dimensional data, and supporting functions, control flow, and more. While still in its prototype stage, Recto demonstrates potential for improved code readability and collaborative development, particularly beneficial for fields like linear algebra, computer graphics, and machine learning.

(masatohagiwara.net)

Development 2D programming language

Metaflow: Streamlining ML Application Development

2025-08-16

Metaflow, developed at Netflix, tackles the challenges data scientists and ML engineers face in building applications. It simplifies data processing, compute resource management, workflow orchestration, version control, and deployment. This robust yet user-friendly platform empowers users to quickly iterate on ideas using Python and deploy confidently, leaving the low-level infrastructure—data, compute, orchestration, and versioning—to Metaflow. Now powering thousands of applications at companies like Netflix and CNN, Metaflow offers commercial support through Outerbounds.

(docs.metaflow.org)

Development

TextKit 2: Four Years Later, Not a Silver Bullet

2025-08-16

Announced at WWDC21, TextKit 2, after four years, falls short of its promised ease of use. While the architecture is sound, the implementation is riddled with issues. NSTextContentStorage is the only viable storage implementation, severely limiting customization. Furthermore, the viewport mechanism, intended to optimize performance, results in unstable scrollbar positioning and jittering during scrolling. The author encountered numerous bugs, some unresolved for extended periods, significantly impacting user experience. In short, TextKit 2 is not a perfect text layout solution, especially for text editing UIs.

(blog.krzyzanowskim.com)

Development Text Layout

Category: Development