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How fast the days are getting longer (2023) Published: 2025-03-19 | Origin: Hacker News The passage discusses the transition from winter to spring in the northern hemisphere, highlighting a colleague's experience in Stavanger, Norway, where the length of daylight dramatically changes after the vernal equinox. The author reflects on the speed at which days grow longer during this season and created an interactive graph to illustrate these changes based on latitude. Key insights include that days are exactly 12 hours long on equinoxes and that the length of daylight increases most rapidly near the equinoxes, except near the Arctic Circle |
Does unsafe undermine Rust's guarantees? Published: 2025-03-19 | Origin: /r/programming The content discusses the concept of "unsafe" in the Rust programming language and addresses concerns about whether its use undermines Rust's safety goals. The straightforward answer is "no," and the text emphasizes the distinction between programming languages and their implementations. It uses the example of the Brainfuck programming language, which consists of only eight operations, to illustrate how the features and properties of a language differ from those of its implementation. While a language's semantics may not allow certain functionalities, interpreters or compilers can |
RailsConf 2025 tickets are now on sale! Published: 2025-03-19 | Origin: /r/ruby Failed to fetch content - HTTP Error - Failed to open TCP connection to :80 (Connection refused - connect(2) for nil port 80) |
No Longer My Favorite Git Commit Published: 2025-03-19 | Origin: /r/programming David Thompson's blog post "My favourite Git commit," written six years ago, highlighted a detailed and whimsical commit message from a co-worker that many, including the author, found enjoyable and memorable. While revisiting the post, the author realized they couldn't justify why it was an effective example of good software engineering, despite its charm. The commit message in question described a complex debugging process for a seemingly simple whitespace error, including six paragraphs and five code snippets. This meticulous account contrasted with how most developers would |
Why I'm No Longer Talking to Architects About Microservices Published: 2025-03-19 | Origin: /r/programming The author expresses frustration with discussions about microservices in architecture review meetings, noting they often lead to unproductive debates due to the lack of a formal definition. The ambiguity surrounding the term causes confusion, resembling the "blind men and the elephant" scenario where everyone describes different aspects but fails to align on a common understanding. As a solution, the author suggests banning the term "microservices" in favor of focusing on practical challenges like feature deployment, system coupling, and scalability. The overarching point is that micro |
Job Descriptions Want You to Fail: The Tech Industry’s Dirty Little Secret Published: 2025-03-19 | Origin: /r/programming Mr. Plan ₿ Publication is a platform designed for both novice and seasoned writers to share their articles and enhance their online presence. It emphasizes the importance of strong writing and community support. In a related member-only post, writer Terrance Craddock discusses the absurdity of job descriptions, highlighting a recent request for a junior developer skilled in an impractical combination of technologies like React Native and COBOL. He critiques the tech industry's trends in recruitment, noting that such listings often reflect unrealistic expectations rather than |
Build PIE executables in Go: I got nerd-sniped Published: 2025-03-19 | Origin: /r/programming The article discusses the process of hardening Go services by enabling Position Independent Executables (PIE). PIE allows executables to be loaded at any address in memory, which complicates attacks that target specific functions, such as exploiting buffer overflows to execute specific code like `system()`. While PIE has been a standard practice in operating systems for many years with minimal downsides, it is not enabled by default in Go, creating a need to opt-in. The author emphasizes the importance of enabling PIE, |
Why Use Strong Parameters in Rails Published: 2025-03-19 | Origin: /r/ruby In 2012, GitHub experienced a security breach due to a Mass Assignment vulnerability, where a user exploited the system to gain administrator access to the Ruby on Rails project. This vulnerability arises when an application unintentionally assigns multiple values to object properties from user input. For instance, if user data is submitted without proper filtering, unauthorized properties (like 'admin' access) could be unintentionally updated, creating significant security risks. To combat this issue, Rails developers have adopted the strong parameters API, |
Software Development Has Too Much Software Published: 2025-03-19 | Origin: /r/programming Shaffan Mustafa reflects on his career in software development in his blog, noting a growing belief that the field may be overly saturated with software. Initially drawn to development to understand technology better and contribute to open-source projects, he transitioned into a professional role. However, he became aware of the increasing complexity and tooling in corporate environments, often prioritizing company interests over user needs. For instance, he questions the frequent demand for heavy frameworks like React in job descriptions, suggesting that simpler solutions could suffice for many |
Crew-9 Returns to Earth Published: 2025-03-19 | Origin: Hacker News The Dragon spacecraft, on its journey to the International Space Station (ISS), performs a series of maneuvers to position itself closer to the station. After executing final docking maneuvers, the vestibule is pressurized, and the hatch opens for crew ingress. The Falcon 9 rocket first lifts Dragon into orbit, where the stages separate, and Dragon activates its systems. It then executes orbit-raising maneuvers to align with the ISS, establishes communication, and autonomously approaches and docks with |
Ruby, Ractors, and Lock-Free Data Structures Published: 2025-03-19 | Origin: /r/ruby The story discusses concurrent data structures in Ruby, emphasizing the potential for true parallelism using global mutable state—something not currently supported by Ruby's built-in features. While familiarity with Ruby, Rust, and C is beneficial, it is not required. Code examples are available in a GitHub repository, and users should have a relatively recent version of Ruby (preferably the master branch) along with Rust and C compilers to run the examples. |
Make Ubuntu packages 90% faster by rebuilding them Published: 2025-03-18 | Origin: Hacker News The content discusses the performance optimization of the jq tool used for processing large GeoJSON files, specifically a 500MB file containing the Alameda County Assessor's parcel map. The author finds that a current query running on this file takes about 5 seconds, which they see as suboptimal. Upon compiling the jq source code without flags from its original Launchpad source, a slight improvement (2-4%) in speed is achieved compared to the Ubuntu binary. To further enhance performance, the author rebuilds |
Starting Systems Programming, Pt 1: Programmers Write Programs Published: 2025-03-18 | Origin: /r/programming Failed to fetch content - HTTP Error - unknown compression method |
Using TextLineMorph in Squeak for Single-Line Text Input in Graphical Interfaces Published: 2025-03-18 | Origin: /r/programming The Weekly Squeak features a video by Dr. Nicola Mingotti that demonstrates how to create a TextLineMorph in Squeak Smalltalk, focusing on the functionality for accepting single line textual data in graphical interfaces. The content encourages readers to watch the video for a clear understanding and invites them to subscribe for updates. |
Oxidizing Ubuntu: adopting Rust utilities by default Published: 2025-03-18 | Origin: Hacker News The Ubuntu project is planning to replace many traditional GNU utilities with Rust-based implementations, including those from the uutils project. Canonical's VP of engineering, Jon Seager, has introduced a command-line tool called oxidizr to help users enable or disable these Rust utilities for testing before a potential switch for Ubuntu 25.10, scheduled for October 2025. Community feedback so far has been generally positive but cautious regarding this significant change. Reflecting on Ubuntu's 20th anniversary in 202 |
TruffleRuby 24.2.0 Release Published: 2025-03-18 | Origin: /r/ruby TruffleRuby is a high-performance version of the Ruby programming language that aims for full compatibility with the standard Ruby implementation (MRI). It operates in two standalone modes: native and JVM, compatible with both Oracle GraalVM and Community Edition. For comprehensive details, including available qualifiers and release assets, refer to the documentation and the official website at http://www.graalvm.org/ruby/. The team values and carefully considers all user feedback. |
Don't Be Afraid of Types Published: 2025-03-18 | Origin: Hacker News The author, a Software Developer based in Melbourne, Australia, discusses a common reluctance observed in coding environments to create new types within codebases, specifically drawing from experiences in Java and Go projects. They note that developers often rely on numerous local variables or large numbers of function arguments instead of defining new types, possibly due to a fear of disrupting existing structures or designs. The author reflects on their early hesitation to introduce new classes, feeling it might complicate the project for others. However, they argue that |
One Number Repeated Forever: RNG in NSMB Published: 2025-03-18 | Origin: /r/programming On May 8, 2020, the author apologizes for the delay in posting and indicates that they have several future entries in progress for their blog, which focuses on custom multimedia content. The current post serves as an introduction to a two-part series about the Green Toad House minigame in New Super Mario Bros., specifically discussing the random number generator (RNG) used in the game. The author shares their findings on NSMB's RNG, identifying it as a variant of a linear |
NASA Whoosh Rocket Published: 2025-03-18 | Origin: Hacker News Flying model rockets offers students a safe and cost-effective way to learn about forces in motion, specifically weight, thrust, lift, and drag. Among different types of model rockets, the whoosh rocket is a variation developed by Roger Storm and Mark Skor, using a two-liter soda bottle as its frame. Unlike standard water rockets, which use pressurized water for propulsion, whoosh rockets utilize a lighter combustible alcohol-air mixture. This results in a lower thrust generation and a flight pattern resembling ballistic, usually |
Show HN: I made a tool to port tweets to Bluesky mantaining their original date Published: 2025-03-18 | Origin: Hacker News The content promotes a service called BlueMigrate, which allows users to import their tweets to Bluesky while retaining the original dates. It provides a link for easy access to the service. Additionally, it mentions an opportunity to increase profile visibility by being featured on their homepage for $9.99 per week. |