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Ditch your (Mut)Ex, you deserve better Published: 2025-11-11 | Origin: /r/programming The content discusses the challenges and importance of parallel computing in modern computing environments with multiple CPU cores. As traditional single-core performance improvements diminish, leveraging parallel processing becomes crucial. However, managing shared state across threads remains complex, and commonly used synchronization tools like mutexes and semaphores have not significantly advanced. The text introduces a practical example of a bank account system to illustrate synchronization issues faced when handling multiple concurrent operations, such as transferring money between accounts. The author provides example pseudo-code and emphasizes the need for |
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A modern 35mm film scanner for home Published: 2025-11-11 | Origin: Hacker News Knokke offers a modern 35 mm film scanner capable of digitizing an entire roll in minutes, capturing every frame at 4064 DPI with 48-bit color. It features high-quality custom optics and a state-of-the-art sensor for excellent performance at competitive pricing. The workflow is streamlined through its Korova software, compatible with Linux, macOS, and Windows, allowing users to customize scan settings for each frame and skip to specific frames for faster access. Key features include: - Backside |
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The 5 Test Doubles Published: 2025-11-11 | Origin: /r/ruby Test-Driven Development (TDD) accelerates code delivery, minimizes errors, and provides quick feedback throughout the development process. A key component of TDD is the test double, which allows developers to test code with dependencies effectively. This content outlines the differences between five types of test doubles. 1. **Dummy**: A placeholder object or value required to satisfy a method’s parameters but not utilized during the test itself. Using dummies aids in meeting method signatures without focusing on their behavior during tests. |
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I Fell in Love with Erlang Published: 2025-11-11 | Origin: /r/programming The author reflects on their journey into programming that began at age eight when they first attempted to hack Commodore-64 game intro screens. Initially overwhelmed by BASIC programming concepts, notably the equation "X equals X plus one," they dismissed the subject as nonsensical. Over the years, they engaged in gaming and tinkering until university introduced them to "The C Programming Language" book by Kernighan and Ritchie. Although they struggled to comprehend the material, they leaned into experimentation, leading to a |
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You Win Some, You Lose Some: on Papercraft and more Published: 2025-11-11 | Origin: /r/ruby The author, a freelancer, has recently been juggling multiple projects and struggling with work-life balance. Despite feeling overwhelmed by personal and professional challenges, they made progress, particularly with Papercraft, which has been updated to version 3.2.0, adding Tilt integration for Ruby template engines. The author prepared for a conference talk on Papercraft at Paris.rb, despite having little experience with public speaking. They aimed to focus on practical applications of functional programming in Ruby rather than theoretical discussions. However |
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What really happened with the CIA and The Paris Review? Published: 2025-11-11 | Origin: Hacker News Peter Matthiessen was a co-founder of The Paris Review and had an intriguing connection to the CIA as an undercover operative during the magazine's inception. His role was partially revealed in a 1977 New York Times article discussing the CIA's influence on various publications and organizations, which mentioned Matthiessen in brief but stated there was no evidence he was used to shape the magazine. Although he left the agency in 1953, the specifics of his work remained undisclosed, leading to ongoing speculation about |
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Announcing .NET 10 Published: 2025-11-11 | Origin: /r/programming .NET 10 has been released, marking a significant upgrade to the popular IDE. This version includes numerous performance, security, and functional enhancements throughout the .NET ecosystem, allowing for a unified platform that supports AI integration in applications. .NET 10 and updates for Visual Studio 2026 and the C# Dev Kit are now available for download. The release is being showcased at .NET Conf 2025, where attendees can explore the new features. The development of .NET 10 involved collaboration within |
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Pikaday: A friendly guide to front-end date pickers Published: 2025-11-11 | Origin: Hacker News The guide emphasizes the challenges of front-end date pickers, highlighting that complex UI can lead to user errors and abandoned forms. It suggests simpler alternatives to calendar widgets for date selection, advocating for the use of native input types, which are supported by modern browsers and require minimal implementation effort. Native date, time, and datetime-local inputs are recommended as they simplify user interaction and reduce the need for JavaScript, which can introduce performance issues. However, the guide acknowledges that even native date pickers have accessibility |
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A new Google model is nearly perfect on automated handwriting recognition Published: 2025-11-11 | Origin: Hacker News Google has introduced a web app called AI Studio, allowing users to experiment with prompts and models. Recently, users have noticed a feature that presents two results for selection, suggesting A/B testing for a potential new model, possibly Gemini-3. Users have reported outstanding capabilities, such as generating functioning operating systems, 3D design software, and emulators from single prompts. One user tested the app for transcribing handwritten texts and was impressed by the near-perfect accuracy and unexpected expert-level reasoning demonstrated by the |
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Day 15: Gradients and Gradient Descent Published: 2025-11-11 | Origin: /r/programming The content explains the fundamentals of how AI systems learn using gradient descent, drawing an analogy to learning to ride a bike through trial and error. It illustrates that AI models, like those for predicting house prices, improve by making small adjustments based on "gradients," which guide the model towards optimal performance by indicating how to change parameters for increased accuracy. While gradients point toward the steepest ascent, AI seeks to minimize errors, so adjustments are made in the opposite direction of the gradient, effectively "rolling down |
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Indexing, Partitioning, Sharding - it is all about reducing the search space Published: 2025-11-11 | Origin: /r/programming The text discusses the importance of optimizing data queries in databases, particularly with large datasets that may consist of millions or even trillions of rows/documents. It emphasizes the concept of search space, which refers to the amount of data that needs to be scanned to fulfill a query. To reduce the search space, it suggests several strategies, including changing the database schema. In a specific example involving SQL (Postgres), the author notes a common scenario where only two fields, "id" and "name," |
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Hokusai Pocket - Portable Ruby GUIs (MRuby) Published: 2025-11-11 | Origin: /r/ruby The content discusses a project focused on developing portable applications and games using a tool called Hokusai. It emphasizes the importance of user feedback and invites contributions, as the project is still a work in progress. Key features include: - The use of Barista for bootstrapping the project. - A warning against building with mrbgems. - Instructions for running apps as binaries and cross-compiling for various platforms (currently a work in progress). - An example app is provided, with instructions for building |
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In Praise of dhh Published: 2025-11-11 | Origin: /r/ruby The content is a reflective essay that explores the author's admiration for David Heinemeier Hansson (dhh), the creator of Ruby on Rails, and the impact this had on the author's life and career. The author shares personal anecdotes about their journey with Ruby, beginning in university in 2007, when they met Hampton Catlin, who introduced them to the Ruby community. This connection not only influenced the author's professional path within Ruby on Rails but also facilitated meaningful friendships during their transition into adulthood. The |
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Rails Performance: 5 Critical Bottlenecks You're Missing Published: 2025-11-11 | Origin: /r/ruby Performance issues in Rails applications frequently stem from five common culprits, which can usually be diagnosed and resolved with a practical checklist. Key changes can enhance response times by 5-10x, addressing the most significant bottlenecks with varying levels of effort required for fixes. The infamous N+1 queries are highlighted as a major performance killer, often resulting in excessive database queries and substantial delays. For instance, a homepage loading 50 posts might incur 51 database queries with N+1, slowing response |
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Short Ruby Newsletter - edition 156 Published: 2025-11-11 | Origin: /r/ruby The content highlights several updates and announcements related to the Ruby programming community as of November 10, 2025. Key points include: 1. **Launches**: - Russ Olsen announced the release of the second edition of "Eloquent Ruby." - Kirill Shevchenko is working on a new project called PostnHost. 2. **Events**: - SFRuby conference is scheduled for next week. - Vienna.Rb has organized a "Ruby Christmas |
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Listen to Database Changes Through the Postgres WAL Published: 2025-11-11 | Origin: Hacker News The content discusses the limitations of using Postgres' `NOTIFY/pg_notify` for tracking database changes in real-time, particularly in high-throughput environments. While `pg_notify` can be effective for small, less active tables, it can create a bottleneck in larger tables due to the single notification queue, causing a significant reduction in transaction throughput. The author suggests an alternative approach using the Postgres Write-Ahead Log (WAL), which records every change in the database and allows for improved |
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Box of bugs (exploded): Perils of cross-platform development Published: 2025-11-11 | Origin: /r/programming In September, the 86Box team discussed their v5.0 release, coinciding with the 30th anniversary of Windows 95. They hinted at an important discovery, which they detailed in a separate article. 86Box is a precise emulator for IBM PCs and compatibles. In their previous work, they addressed potential bugs by referencing technical documentation of the emulated components, and noted that the project was in a debug build configuration. The main focus of the current discussion is a warning from the |
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What is Iceberg Versioning and How It Improves Data Reliability Published: 2025-11-11 | Origin: /r/programming The content discusses Apache Iceberg's built-in table versioning feature, which enhances data reliability for AI projects. By creating immutable snapshots of data with each update, Iceberg allows for consistent access to table information even during high write operations. This versioning method supports ACID-compliant commits, enabling easy rollbacks and time travel through historical data states. Iceberg maintains a single metadata file that documents the schema, partition layout, snapshot logs, and file manifests, thereby providing an auditable and query |
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AI documentation you can talk to, for every repo Published: 2025-11-11 | Origin: Hacker News The content provides a list of various tools, libraries, and platforms aimed at enhancing programming, development, and machine learning capabilities. Key highlights include: 1. **Model Context Protocol (MCP)** for integrating LLM applications with external data. 2. A web research and report writing assistant. 3. Utilities for Llama models and machine learning frameworks like đŸ¤— Transformers, supporting Pytorch, TensorFlow, and JAX. 4. A JavaScript utility library focused on performance and modularity, and |
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The 'Toy Story' You Remember Published: 2025-11-11 | Origin: Hacker News The latest edition of the Animation Obsessive newsletter discusses the significance of Pixar's "Toy Story," which marked its 30th anniversary. It highlights the transition in animation technology, focusing on how "Toy Story" was initially created using computers but relied on traditional 35 mm film for theatrical screening due to the limitations of digital technology at the time. The piece explains that while Pixar had embraced digital animation, it had to merge it with established film distribution methods. As technology evolved, Pixar eventually moved to |