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Software engineers should be a little bit cynical Published: 2025-12-28 | Origin: Hacker News The author discusses the perception that they are a cynic for suggesting that engineers should prioritize making their managers happy and recognize that large tech companies control project assignments. Alex Wennerberg's post critiques this stance, arguing that it reduces engineers to mere tools in organizational politics and neglects their role as professionals solving meaningful problems. The author acknowledges that while following managerial directives can help one navigate bureaucracy, it may not lead to producing high-quality work. Despite the cynicism, the author expresses a genuine enjoyment of working |
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MongoBleed vulnerability explained simply Published: 2025-12-28 | Origin: /r/programming MongoBleed, designated as CVE-2025-14847, is a severe vulnerability found in MongoDB that affects nearly all versions since 2017. This vulnerability exists within the zlib1 message compression path, allowing attackers to read uninitialized heap memory. The flaw, introduced in 2017, can be exploited easily, requiring only connectivity to the database and no authentication. MongoDB uses a proprietary TCP wire protocol and BSON format for messages, utilizing a command called OP_MSG, which |
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Parsing Advances Published: 2025-12-28 | Origin: /r/programming The author is developing a toy parser during their Christmas break, influenced by the Resilient LL Parsing Tutorial. They prefer this approach as it allows for creating a syntax tree and diagnostics rather than stopping at the first parsing error. However, a significant challenge is the risk of infinite loops or recursion, especially when the parser fails to consume tokens. They illustrate this problem with an example involving function argument parsing, emphasizing the danger of a non-consuming expression causing endless loops. To address this, they employ two techniques |
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Unix "find" expressions compiled to bytecode Published: 2025-12-28 | Origin: /r/programming The author is exploring the `find` utility in Unix, which navigates file system hierarchies using a specialized expression language with unary and binary operators. To enhance performance, the author developed a bytecode compiling technique that prepares operations beforehand and reduces workload for each file. Contrary to the author's method, most existing implementations of `find` utilize tree-walk interpreters. The article outlines how the author's compiler functions, providing an example and discussing potential improvements. The syntax requires at least one path, default |
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Can I throw a C++ exception from a structured exception? Published: 2025-12-28 | Origin: /r/programming A customer inquired about throwing a C++ exception from a structured exception without using the /EHa compiler switch, which allows for catching both structured and C++ exceptions but impacts optimization and increases code size. They planned to install an unhandled exception filter to convert structured exceptions into C++ exceptions, bypassing the drawbacks of /EHa. However, they encountered issues where the C++ exception was only caught when a `printf` function was present. The reason is that the compiler assumes `printf` |
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Why Object of Arrays (SoA pattern) beat interleaved arrays: a JavaScript performance rabbit hole Published: 2025-12-28 | Origin: /r/programming Of course! Please provide the content you would like me to summarize. |
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When NOT to use Pydantic Published: 2025-12-28 | Origin: /r/programming The author discusses the performance implications of using Pydantic's BaseModel, highlighting that while it enhances developer experience, it comes with a performance overhead of 10-50 microseconds per model, which can exceed 100 microseconds with complex validation. The article categorizes scenarios for using Pydantic into three zones: a "Safe Zone" where it’s appropriate, a "Grey Zone" where caution is advised, and a "Danger Zone" where alternatives should be considered. If performance issues arise |
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Shoryuken Has a New Maintainer, and v7.0.0 Is Almost There Published: 2025-12-28 | Origin: /r/ruby Shoryuken, a Ruby SQS library, has a new maintainer after a decade under Pablo Cantero. The upcoming release, v7.0.0.rc1, modernizes the codebase and features improvements for Rails 8.1 and beyond, along with reduced dependencies and infrastructure updates. Users on older Ruby/Rails versions should stick to Shoryuken 6.x. The new maintainer plans to develop a Sidekiq-style dashboard for real-time queue monitoring, followed by performance |
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Kafka uses OS page buffer cache for optimisations instead of process caching Published: 2025-12-28 | Origin: /r/programming In a recent article, Shubham Raizada reflects on the original Kafka white paper from 2010, highlighting the key differences between Kafka and other messaging solutions of the time, particularly in terms of throughput versus complexity. Unlike IBM WebSphere MQ, which offered complex transactional support, Kafka prioritized performance by avoiding application-level message caching and relying instead on the operating system's file system page cache. This design choice reduces garbage collection overhead and keeps the cache warm during broker restarts. Additionally, Kafka improves data |
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Calendar Published: 2025-12-28 | Origin: Hacker News This content promotes a printable one-page calendar for the year 2026, suggesting users adjust their print settings for optimal results. It encourages users to fold and carry the calendar for easy note-taking and planning while also promoting kindness. The calendar is created by Neatnik. |
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Dialtone – AOL 3.0 Server Published: 2025-12-28 | Origin: Hacker News Of course! Please provide the content you'd like me to summarize. |
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Fathers’ choices may be packaged and passed down in sperm RNA Published: 2025-12-28 | Origin: Hacker News Research indicates that a father's lifestyle—specifically his diet, exercise, and stress levels—can be encoded in the RNA of his sperm and epigenetically influence his offspring's development. Traditionally, it was believed that sperm primarily delivered DNA to the egg, with no further contribution from the father. However, studies over the past two decades have shown that sperm may carry additional information that can impact the genomic activity of the embryo. This emerging understanding may alter traditional views of heredity, suggesting that paternal |
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Replacing JavaScript with Just HTML Published: 2025-12-28 | Origin: Hacker News In the article by Aaron T. Grogg, published on December 27, 2025, the author highlights the longstanding role of JavaScript (JS) as a crucial tool for web development, particularly in enhancing user experiences beyond what HTML and CSS can offer. However, as HTML and CSS evolve, Grogg argues for a shift towards reducing JS usage for tasks that can now be handled by native HTML or CSS. This reduction can lead to lighter web pages, faster load times, and allow JS |
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Resolving Names Once and for All Published: 2025-12-27 | Origin: /r/programming This post is part of a series focused on implementing a programming language in Rust, specifically addressing the topic of name resolution. After the process of desugaring, the program is left with an abstract syntax tree (AST) represented as `Ast<String>`, which is not yet suitable for type inference. Name resolution will transform this into `Ast<Var>`, preparing it for type checking by clarifying what the names in the program represent. The importance of naming in programming is emphasized, as names help |
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What I Learned Building a Storage Engine That Outperforms RocksDB Published: 2025-12-27 | Origin: /r/programming Alex Gaetano Padula reflects on the development of TidesDB, an embeddable key-value storage engine in C, which has evolved through multiple revisions to its current version, 7.0. His journey involved extensive experimentation and learning about storage engines, LSM-trees, and system failures. Rather than imitating existing technologies, he aims to understand storage systems from the ground up, focusing on optimization for modern hardware. The development process emphasizes obsessive curiosity, resulting in innovations like primarily lock-free |
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How we lost communication to entertainment Published: 2025-12-27 | Origin: Hacker News In a recent blog post, Ploum discussed the controversy surrounding Pixelfed's practices, particularly its decision to deliberately drop messages, which he argues undermines trust in the Fediverse communication network. He reflects on the differing perspectives that emerged from his post, noting a divide between two groups: those who view ActivityPub as a communication protocol focused on message integrity (often older users who prefer traditional communication methods) and those, like Pixelfed creator Dansup, who see it as a content consumption protocol |
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Rainbow Six Siege hacked as players get billions of credits and random bans Published: 2025-12-27 | Origin: Hacker News Rainbow Six Siege is currently experiencing severe issues due to a possible large-scale hack or exploit, despite Ubisoft referring to it as a server incident. Players on various platforms (PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S) are facing service outages, including problems with authentication, in-game store access, and matchmaking. Reports indicate that some accounts are receiving an abnormal influx of in-game currency, rare items, and random bans. The community is advising players to stay offline as |
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The production bug that made me care about undefined behavior Published: 2025-12-27 | Origin: /r/programming The article recounts the author's experience maintaining a large C++ codebase for an online payment system processing billions of euros annually. Despite acknowledging limited expertise in C++, the author reflects on a significant bug report involving an HTTP endpoint that should return either a success or error status, but ended up showing both fields as true—a scenario that shouldn't be possible due to the code's design. The author dives into the code, which is structured in a single function with clearly defined setting points for each response field. The |
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Gpg.fail Published: 2025-12-27 | Origin: Hacker News The author forgot the site’s source code at home while leaving, leading to the need to rewrite everything. They apologize for the inconvenience and assure that a better version of the site will be ready by tomorrow, as they are currently making updates. The message also points to "crackticker" as a source of blame. |
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Of Boot Vectors and Double Glitches: Bypassing RP2350's Secure Boot Published: 2025-12-27 | Origin: Hacker News In August 2024, Raspberry Pi launched the RP2350 microcontroller (MCU) and initiated the RP2350 Hacking Challenge, encouraging individuals to break its secure boot implementation. The challenge concluded in January 2025, revealing five notable attacks on the chip. The upcoming talk will provide an in-depth look at the RP2350's security architecture and discuss specific attacks, particularly focusing on how fault injection can bypass secure boot and how double glitches can exploit sensitive one-time programmable memory. The |