Webtagr - Technology News Summarizer

SQLite3: The Unsung Hero of Databases

2024-12-29

SQLite3 is a powerful, lightweight embedded database that quietly handles data for billions of deployments. Unlike its louder, more complex counterparts, SQLite3 operates as a single file, requiring no server setup. It boasts full SQL functionality, outperforming direct file I/O in speed, and managing databases up to 281 terabytes. From phones to websites, its stability, ease of use, and robust features make it an ideal choice for many projects, particularly those with moderate data needs or simpler database management requirements.

(calmlog.medium.com)

Development embedded database

GitHub Open Source Project libsearch: Index-Free Full-Text Search for JavaScript

2024-12-29

libsearch is an open-source JavaScript full-text search library on GitHub that allows for fast text searching without requiring a pre-built index. It leverages the highly optimized regular expression engine of modern JavaScript engines, transforming query strings into regular expression filters for searching and employing an approximate TF-IDF algorithm for ranking. This library is suitable for simple applications that don't require complex indexing, especially useful for rapid prototyping and small web apps.

(github.com)

Development open-source library

Programmer's Revenge: The Tribulations of Running HelloWorld on z/OS

2024-12-29

A programmer, once dismissive of operating system interaction in graduate school, found herself grappling with IBM's z/OS system years later for a blog post. z/OS, vastly different from modern software engineering environments, presented numerous challenges with its text-based interface, JCL scripts, and IBM's unique naming conventions. The article details her struggles in creating files (datasets), using the ISPF editor, allocating datasets, compiling, linking, loading, and handling output with SPOOL. It shares practical tips and lessons learned, a testament to the challenges of working with legacy systems.

(medium.com)

Development

WebGL Fluid Simulation App Launched: Experience Realistic Fluid Effects!

2024-12-29

The "Try Fluid Simulation" app has arrived! Leveraging WebGL, it delivers stunningly realistic fluid simulations right in your browser. Experience the mesmerizing movement of liquids, the ebb and flow of waves, and more, all with simple controls. Create fluids of various shapes and textures with a few clicks, witnessing the power of physics engines in action. This app is perfect for developers learning WebGL and enthusiasts fascinated by computer graphics and fluid simulation. Dive into this mesmerizing world of fluids!

(paveldogreat.github.io)

Development Fluid Simulation

resizer2: Manage Windows Like KDE/i3 with Win+Mouse

2024-12-29

resizer2 is a Windows window manager that lets you resize and move windows using Win key + mouse, similar to KDE or i3 window managers. It offers features like moving, resizing, opacity adjustment, minimizing, and maximizing windows, even across multiple monitors. While it requires administrator privileges to move system windows and has some known quirks (like incompatibility with certain fullscreen apps), resizer2 provides a more efficient and convenient window management experience for Windows users.

(github.com)

Development window management productivity tool

Setting up a Personal Mail Server on OpenBSD

2024-12-29

This blog post provides a step-by-step guide to setting up a personal mail server on OpenBSD. The author details the process, using Opensmtpd, Dovecot, DKIMProxy, and Spamd, offering solutions for common issues like Dovecot's open file limit. The guide covers server selection, system configuration, security measures, and detailed component setups, making it a valuable resource for users with some Linux experience.

(nicolascarpi.github.io)

Development Mail Server Server Setup

Convoy Ditches UUIDv4 for ULIDs: Efficiency and Scalability in the Big Data Era

2024-12-28

During a database migration from MongoDB to Postgres, Convoy decided to replace UUIDv4 with ULIDs as unique identifiers. The article compares UUIDv4 and ULIDs, highlighting ULID's advantages: lexicographical sortability, URL friendliness, and improved database indexing efficiency, albeit with slightly slower generation and insertion speeds. Convoy chose ULIDs primarily to solve pagination performance issues with large datasets. While ULIDs are marginally slower to generate, the performance gains, especially for large-scale data processing, are deemed worthwhile. The article also discusses potential time information leakage risks and user data implications of ULIDs, and briefly mentions the potential future adoption of UUIDv7.

(jirevwe.github.io)

Development

Fish Shell 4.0: An Epic Rewrite from C++ to Rust

2024-12-28

The Fish shell team completed a massive undertaking: rewriting Fish shell from C++ to Rust over nearly two years. Driven by limitations in C++'s tooling, compiler/platform differences, ergonomics, and thread safety, the team chose Rust to enhance performance, security, and developer experience. Employing a "Ship of Theseus" approach, they incrementally replaced components, ensuring stability throughout the process. While challenges arose, such as compatibility issues with autocxx, the team successfully released the Fish 4.0 beta, boasting performance improvements, new features, and easier-to-install statically linked versions.

(fishshell.com)

Development

Libero: Unleash Your Programming Potential!

2024-12-28

Libero, a free software tool from iMatix, empowers programmers to write better programs. It uses visual state diagrams for program design, supports multiple languages (including C, Java, PHP), and generates program frameworks for rapid prototyping. Based on the GNU General Public License, Libero's source code is open and freely available for use and improvement. While commercial licenses are available for support and updates, Libero's core remains free.

(imatix-legacy.github.io)

Development programming tool

Microsoft's Phi-3-Mini: A Lightweight LLM for Enhanced Development

2024-12-28

Microsoft unveiled Phi-3-Mini, a lightweight language model offering GPT-3.5-level performance on resource-constrained devices. This article explores its strengths, including robust reasoning and coding capabilities, and seamless integration with tools like Ollama and Pieces. Running Phi-3-Mini locally via Ollama, combined with Pieces for code snippet management, streamlines code generation and refactoring, boosting developer productivity. While context overflow remains an issue with long texts, Phi-3-Mini's lightweight nature and powerful features make it a valuable asset in AI development.

(pieces.app)

Development developer tools

An Engineer's Journey with Forth: From Fascination to Abandonment

2024-12-28

This blog post recounts an engineer's experience learning and using the Forth programming language. Initially captivated by Forth's brevity and extensibility, the author delved into the source code of pForth, marveling at its compile-time self-modifying capabilities. However, in real-world projects, the author found Forth more suitable for number crunching, struggling with tasks like text processing. While designing a custom hardware embedded system, the author leveraged Forth to design the system's CPU instruction set, but ultimately found C more efficient and abandoned Forth. The author concludes that Forth is ideal for minimalist engineers seeking extreme efficiency, while he himself prefers a more pragmatic approach, opting for more widely used languages.

(yosefk.com)

Development

Unicon Programming Language: An Extension and Enhancement of Icon

2024-12-28

Unicon is a powerful programming language that extends and improves upon the Icon programming language. It inherits many of Icon's strengths, such as concise code, powerful string processing capabilities, and goal-directed evaluation, while adding modern features like object-oriented programming, a POSIX layer, and networking capabilities. Unicon supports multiple programming paradigms, including imperative, procedural, concurrent, and object-oriented, and boasts a rich set of built-in functions and a powerful graphics library. This document details Unicon's syntax, semantics, features, and installation methods, and provides numerous code examples.

(btiffin.users.sourceforge.net)

Development

Developer Automates Job Application Process, Sends 250 Applications in 20 Minutes

2024-12-28

Tired of the repetitive job hunt, a developer built an automated system that sent out 250 job applications in just 20 minutes—and landed a job offer before even finishing the project! The system uses Python scripts and large language models (LLMs) to scrape job postings, parse data, and generate personalized cover letters. It also includes email sending and tracking features to avoid spam filters. This is part one; part two details the system's refinement and improvements.

(blog.daviddodda.com)

Development job search

EmacsConf 2024: A Smoothly Run Online Conference

2024-12-28

EmacsConf 2024 successfully concluded! This post, written by Sacha Chua, reflects on the conference's preparation, execution, and lessons learned. From the call for proposals to the final presentations, organizers cleverly used automation tools (Org mode, emacsconf-mail.el, Ansible, etc.) to boost efficiency and leveraged technologies like BigBlueButton and WhisperX for a smooth experience. While technical challenges (BBB server configuration, audio syncing) arose, they were effectively addressed. Sacha shares insights into time management, volunteer coordination, and future improvements, showcasing dedication to the open-source community.

(sachachua.com)

Development online conference

So You Want to Write Java in Neovim?

2024-12-28

This post details how to efficiently develop Java code within the Neovim editor. The author shares their positive experience using Neovim for Java at work, recommending JDTLS as the LSP server and either nvim-java or nvim-jdtls as Neovim plugins. The article thoroughly explains JDTLS configuration, including debugging and testing setups, and provides a personal configuration example featuring codelens and debugger functionality. Even if you're not a Neovim devotee, you can still learn valuable Java development techniques.

(ptrtojoel.dev)

Development Java Development

Sonair Accelerates 3D Ultrasonic Sensor Development with Rust

2024-12-28

Sonair leveraged the Rust programming language to dramatically accelerate the development of its groundbreaking 3D ultrasonic sensor. The article details the reasons for choosing Rust, including its speed, safety, and robust ecosystem. Despite the team's initial lack of Rust experience, they found it surprisingly easy to learn, and its strong type system and borrow checker helped them write safer, more reliable code. Sonair uses Rust for production and Python for algorithm prototyping, creating an efficient workflow. Ultimately, Sonair aims to be among the first to deploy a safety-certified Rust implementation, setting a new standard for functional safety in embedded systems.

(www.sonair.com)

Development 3D Ultrasonic Sensor Functional Safety

Scrapscript: A Compact Programming Language Serialized with Msgpack

2024-12-28

Scrapscript is a novel programming language that compiles programs into "flat scraps" in the Msgpack format, enabling efficient network transmission and storage. Using reverse Polish notation and custom operators, Scrapscript supports various data types and operations, and is interoperable with multiple languages. Its compact nature makes it ideal for bandwidth-constrained environments and offers potential advantages in code hashing and optimization.

(taylor.town)

Development serialization

Netflix Asks Writers to Have Characters Announce Their Actions

2024-12-28

Netflix is instructing its writers to have characters explicitly state their actions and plans, a move aimed at ensuring viewers don't miss plot points even if they're only casually watching. This approach, while generating controversy among some writers who see it as a violation of established storytelling principles, highlights Netflix's concern over dwindling viewer attention spans. This follows a previous request for more dramatic opening scenes within the first five minutes of its productions, further underscoring the platform's focus on viewer retention.

(www.worldofreel.com)

Development screenwriting viewer attention

libobscura: Tackling the Challenges of Camera Programming on Linux

2024-12-28

Using cameras on Linux isn't easy, leading to the creation of libobscura. This project aims to simplify the Video4Linux interface, providing a user-friendly point-and-shoot API. Born from experience developing the camera stack for the Librem 5 and addressing the complexities of libcamera, the talk dives into the intricate details of modern camera control. From pixel formats and depths to media entities, sensitivity, denoising, and more, the challenges are numerous. Funded by the Prototype Fund, libobscura seeks to navigate these complexities, ultimately creating a more accessible camera API for Linux users.

(media.ccc.de)

Development camera

LLMs: The Biggest Mistake in Computing?

2024-12-28

The author criticizes Large Language Models (LLMs), arguing they are not the future of computing but a potential setback. For decades, corporations prioritized profit over software quality and user experience, resulting in slow, bloated, and buggy software. LLMs perpetuate this trend, being slow, expensive, and unreliable. The author worries that massive investments will prevent their abandonment, leading to a computing world dominated by a few giants, stifling innovation, and depriving future generations of high-quality software.

(crys.site)

Development Tech Ethics

Free Software Needs Free Tools: An Ethical Dilemma in Open Source Development

2024-12-28

This article explores the ethical dilemma faced by free software developers who use non-free development tools. The author argues that, for efficiency's sake, many developers have opted for proprietary tools or network services like BitKeeper, SourceForge, and GitHub, sacrificing the freedom of both developers and users. The author uses the example of the Linux kernel's move to BitKeeper and the subsequent forced development of Git to illustrate the risks of relying on proprietary tools. Using non-free tools, the author emphasizes, not only harms the credibility of the open-source movement but also restricts software freedom, ultimately resulting in software that isn't truly free. The author calls on developers to prioritize free and open-source development tools, upholding the values of open-source software and avoiding the sacrifice of freedom for efficiency.

(mako.cc)

Development development tools

Ada's Dependent Types: An Unexpected Coincidence

2024-12-28

This article explores the lesser-known dependent types feature in the Ada programming language. The author argues that Ada's design goal of avoiding unnecessary dynamic memory allocation led to its unique implementation of dependent types: using a second non-call stack to return data of unknown compile-time size, cleverly circumventing the need for dynamic allocation. This unexpectedly coincides with the formal definition of dependent types, showcasing an unforeseen serendipity in Ada's design. The article further explains concepts in Ada's type system such as derived types, subtypes, discriminated records, and type predicates, demonstrating how these features enable the implementation of dependent types. Finally, the author discusses the interesting interplay between Ada's design philosophy and academic research on type theory, suggesting that many of Ada's type system features didn't originate directly from type theory research, but rather evolved naturally to meet specific needs.

(nytpu.com)

Development

Beware of Over-Abstraction: The Hidden Costs in Software Development

2024-12-28

Overuse of abstraction layers in software development can lead to performance degradation and code complexity. The article argues that good abstractions should hide underlying complexity, such as the TCP protocol. However, many so-called abstractions merely add extra layers of indirection without providing real value, increasing cognitive load, debugging difficulty, and performance overhead. The author advises developers to use abstractions judiciously, prioritizing code simplicity and performance, and avoiding abstraction for abstraction's sake.

(fhur.me)

Development abstraction

Mixin: A Powerful Bytecode Weaving Framework for Java

2024-12-28

Mixin is a trait/mixin and bytecode weaving framework for Java using ASM, hooking into the runtime classloading process via pluggable services. It supports Mojang's LegacyLauncher (deprecated in favor of the more extensible ModLauncher), and is compatible with Java 8 and later. Mixin offers extensive documentation, Maven repositories, and tooling, including an Annotation Processor for handling obfuscation tasks, and integration with Eclipse and IntelliJ IDEA. Its version history details feature additions and bug fixes, aiding developers in choosing the appropriate version.

(github.com)

Development bytecode Mixin framework

Ghostty Terminal Emulator Reaches 1.0: A Journey of Challenges and Triumphs

2024-12-28

Mitchell Hashimoto's journey to release Ghostty 1.0, his terminal emulator, spanned two years and overcame numerous challenges. Initially a personal project to explore Zig and graphics programming, Ghostty unexpectedly gained significant traction. To balance family life and development, Hashimoto employed a private beta, yielding invaluable community feedback but also resulting in frustration from those excluded. Ghostty 1.0 distinguishes itself with its unique tech stack (Zig core and platform-specific GUIs) and impressive performance. Future plans include open-sourcing the core library, libghostty, to further expand Ghostty's impact.

(mitchellh.com)

Development

Caravan: A Flexible Transport-Based Logging System for JavaScript/TypeScript

2024-12-28

Caravan is a flexible, transport-based logging system for JavaScript/TypeScript applications. It supports multiple transports (console, file, Datadog, BetterStack, etc.), log level filtering, context binding through forked loggers, and data redaction. Developers can easily log basic messages, metadata, and context-aware information, improving debugging and monitoring. Its TypeScript-first design enhances developer experience.

(github.com)

Development logging system

SBCL Compiler Optimization: Speeding Up Compilation of (lambda () nil)

2024-12-28

The SBCL compiler received a significant optimization that dramatically improves the compilation speed of empty functions like `(lambda () nil)`. Previously, compilation generated many redundant functions. This optimization identifies and handles these special cases, directly returning a predefined empty function, thus avoiding unnecessary computation and significantly increasing compilation speed. This improvement is especially effective when dealing with large amounts of code containing empty functions, reducing compilation time and boosting developer productivity.

(github.com)

Development compiler optimization lambda function

HTML/ZIP/PNG Polyglot Files: A Clever Format Fusion

2024-12-28

This article details a clever method for creating HTML/ZIP/PNG polyglot files. By cleverly utilizing the flexible structure of the ZIP format and the fault tolerance of HTML, along with the characteristics of PNG files, web pages and their resources are packaged into a self-extracting PNG file. The article explains in detail how to handle character encoding, data reading, and cross-format compatibility issues, ultimately achieving an efficient and compact web archiving scheme. This demonstrates programmer ingenuity and a deep understanding of data formats.

(gildas-lormeau.github.io)

Development polyglot files

Demystifying Common Microcontroller Debug Protocols

2024-12-27

This talk delves into common microcontroller debugging protocols like JTAG and SWD. Starting from the physical signals, it explains how these protocols work, covering common mechanisms for managing embedded processors and interacting with various microcontrollers. The presentation explores the meaning of debugging embedded software, building a list of requirements for a comfortable debugging environment, and referencing existing custom debug approaches. Examples range from FPGA cores to tiny 8-bit microcontrollers. Common abstractions like ARM's ADI and RISC-V DMI are also covered, bridging the gap between protocols and core control. Finally, it explains common tasks like flash programming, watchpoints, and single-stepping.

(media.ccc.de)

Development Microcontroller Debugging

Kando: The Efficiency Tool That Redefines Productivity

2024-12-27

Kando is an open-source, free efficiency tool available for Windows, macOS, and Linux. It uses gesture recognition to let you select tools and actions in milliseconds, even navigating deeply nested menus with ease. Kando makes your entire screen a clickable target; no more precise aiming at tiny buttons! The latest release boasts a fantastic new icon, with details of the design process available on Ko-fi. Try it today!

(kando.menu)

Development efficiency tool gesture recognition

Category: Development