Published: 2024-12-14 | Origin: Hacker News

The content discusses a multimodal routing project in Rust, which features a fast RAPTOR implementation optimized for memory-constrained environments. The primary aim of this project is to enhance OpenTripPlanner in underserved areas. It utilizes memory mapping for timetables to facilitate broad coverage with minimal hosting costs and includes support for GTFS-RT. While it will not support custom per-request walking/cycling costing model adjustments due to RAPTOR's pre-computation requirements, it plans to offer predefined models for various travel

Published: 2024-12-13 | Origin: Hacker News

Luon is a high-level programming language that draws inspiration from Oberon+ and Lua, targeting the LuaJIT VM. It integrates features from these languages while being statically typed. Luon supports declaring "external" procedures that can be implemented in Lua, promoting library reuse. The language avoids pointers, using reference semantics for structured data types, and includes ARRAY, HASHMAP, and immutable STRING types. Luon addresses specific limitations found in Lua and aims to provide a robust programming environment. A compiler

Published: 2024-12-13 | Origin: Hacker News

Meta is sharing its latest research and resources from its Fundamental AI Research (FAIR) division, focusing on advancements in machine intelligence. This release includes new models, code, and datasets aimed at improving agent capabilities, robustness, safety, and learning efficiency. Highlighted projects include an open-source video watermarking model called Meta Video Seal and a foundation model for guiding virtual agents' behavior. Meta emphasizes its commitment to open and reproducible science, encouraging the research community to utilize these resources to foster innovation in AI

Published: 2024-12-13 | Origin: /r/programming

A subscription to LWN allows you to stay updated on the Linux and free-software community, with a free trial available for potential subscribers. Traditionally, compilers operate in a linear pipeline consisting of parsing, type-checking, optimization, and code generation. However, modern programming languages are shifting away from this model to support incremental compilation and low-latency responses, especially for integrated development environments (IDEs). Rust, in particular, has made significant strides in improving compile times over the past

Published: 2024-12-13 | Origin: /r/programming

The blog discusses performance issues encountered with C++ exception unwinding, particularly in systems with multiple cores, where contention could significantly degrade performance. To address this, a group explored both language changes and less invasive solutions. A key improvement came from Florian Weimer's modification to glibc, which introduced a lock-free mechanism for accessing unwind tables, resulting in much better scalability of simple C++ programs. With this update, performance tests demonstrated significant improvements, although some slowdowns were observed at high thread counts due

Published: 2024-12-13 | Origin: /r/programming

The content outlines a range of payment solutions and financial services provided by a company, likely Stripe, including: - **Payment Options:** Online and in-person payments, as well as customer financing and virtual/physical cards. - **Fraud Prevention:** Tools to enhance security and prevent fraudulent transactions. - **Optimization and Integration:** Services for acceptance optimizations and payments for platforms, alongside accounting and sales tax automation. - **Financial Management:** Features like online invoices, custom reports, data synchronization, and access to

Published: 2024-12-13 | Origin: /r/programming

The author reflects on terminal interactions, specifically the combination of the operating system, shell, terminal emulator, and the various programs run within the terminal. While the first three components are relatively standardized and predictable, the behavior of the programs can vary widely without any real standards. The author aims to compile a list of consistent behaviors observed in terminal programs based on 20 years of experience. This list will serve as guidelines that help users anticipate program behavior, even though exceptions exist. While the focus is on behaviors that

Published: 2024-12-13 | Origin: /r/programming

The provided content is a fragment of a PDF file, indicated by the initial `%PDF-1.5` line. The text appears to be largely encoded binary data rather than readable content. This type of data is commonly found in PDFs where the actual textual information and formatting details are compressed or encoded for storage, typically not meant for direct interpretation in a human-readable format. The summary is: it is a section of a PDF file containing encoded data, which does not convey any meaningful information in its current

Published: 2024-12-13 | Origin: /r/programming

The content discusses the latest updates in Rainsum v1.2.0, which has incorporated enhancements from Frank J. T. Wojcik's SMHasher3, a framework for assessing non-cryptographic hash functions. The updated codebase includes two hash functions: Rainbow and Rainstorm, both developed by Cris at DOSAYGO and available under the Apache-2.0 license. Rainbow is a straightforward and efficient hash function that produces 64, 128, or 256-bit outputs

Published: 2024-12-13 | Origin: Hacker News

Researchers at the Tokyo-based startup Sakana AI have developed a technique known as "universal transformer memory," which enables language models to use memory more efficiently. This advancement helps enterprises reduce the costs associated with building applications on large language models (LLMs) and Transformer-based models. The technique utilizes neural networks to optimize the context window, or working memory, of the models by keeping important information and discarding redundancy. This optimization is crucial because the effectiveness of Transformer models is significantly influenced by the content of their

Published: 2024-12-13 | Origin: /r/programming

John Nunley shares an update on his recent lack of activity in the Rust community due to personal challenges, increased work responsibilities, and a waning enthusiasm for open source. He reveals that he has been focused on a significant personal project: developing a Rust compiler called Dozer, using pure C programming—without C++, flex, yacc, or Makefiles. Nunley emphasizes the importance of bootstrapping in compiler construction, explaining that a compiler needs a means of converting its own code into machine code.

Published: 2024-12-13 | Origin: /r/ruby

The author reflects on a request for live GUI updates in Glimmer DSL for LibUI at #RubyConf2024, drawing from their experience with a kids' programming language called DCR. They highlight an earlier discussion with Noel Rappin about how productivity in software development derives more from effective processes and good design rather than small features like live updates or advanced IDEs. Many Ruby developers successfully use simple editors, which illustrates that advanced features aren't essential for productivity. The author initially considered implementing live GUI updates

Published: 2024-12-13 | Origin: Hacker News

A basalt tablet with a mysterious inscription has been discovered near Lake Bashplemi in Georgia's Dmanisi region. The tablet, measuring 24.1 x 20.1 cm and crafted from local basalt, features 60 characters — 39 of which are unique — arranged in seven registers, prompting extensive debate among researchers regarding its meaning and purpose. The craftsmanship suggests a skilled creation process, likely involving a conical drill and rounded tools. Scholars speculate that the writing might record military spoils,

Published: 2024-12-13 | Origin: Hacker News

A new study has successfully imaged altermagnetism, a novel form of magnetism that could revolutionize magnetic memory devices by increasing operational speeds by up to a thousand times. Researchers from the University of Nottingham demonstrated that altermagnetism, characterized by antiparallel alignment of magnetic building blocks with a rotated structure, can be controlled in microscopic devices. The findings, published in Nature, highlight the potential of altermagnets to enhance speed and efficiency in microelectronic components while reducing reliance on

Published: 2024-12-13 | Origin: /r/programming

"Clean Code" by Robert C. Martin is a highly influential programming book that has helped a generation of developers enhance their coding practices. Despite its longstanding impact, questions arise regarding whether some of its advice remains valid or if there are better alternatives available today. The author acknowledges that some recommendations may be contentious. The book is praised for popularizing the concept of "Clean Code" and fostering awareness around code quality, readability, and maintainability, fundamentally improving the programming landscape. It offers practical guidance, particularly

Published: 2024-12-13 | Origin: /r/programming

Quarkdown is an advanced Markdown-based typesetting system that transforms projects into print-ready books or interactive presentations. It extends Markdown's capabilities with a Turing-complete framework, allowing users to incorporate functions, layout builders, and dynamic content generation. Developed as an enhancement of CommonMark and GFM, Quarkdown features an extensive standard library and supports custom functions and variables. With live preview and fast compilation, it provides a robust environment for creating complex documents. Users can set document types directly within the

Published: 2024-12-13 | Origin: Hacker News

The author discusses the challenge of teaching Ph.D. students how to write effectively, particularly focusing on clarity and precision. To address this, they have developed shell scripts designed to identify three specific writing issues—particularly concerning the use of the passive voice and "weasel words." These scripts are integrated into the document build system for LaTeX papers, encouraging students to consciously consider their writing choices instead of merely defaulting to problematic constructs. The ultimate goal is for students to recognize their individual writing weaknesses and utilize

Published: 2024-12-13 | Origin: Hacker News

In the early 1990s, Russian artists Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid commissioned a market research firm to discover what Americans desire most in art. Over 11 days, researchers surveyed 1,001 U.S. citizens on preferences regarding color, shapes, figures, and settings. Using this data, the artists created a series of paintings called "People's Choice," which they replicated in several countries, including Russia, China, France, and Kenya. However, despite engaging over 11

Published: 2024-12-13 | Origin: Hacker News

A global transformer supply crisis is causing significant delays in energy projects, particularly in renewables. At Silicon Ranch, a solar developer in Georgia, Chief Technology Officer Nick de Vries likens transformers to vital infrastructure for solar energy, as they adjust voltage for grid compatibility. Currently, the wait time for new transformers has increased from 50 weeks in 2021 to nearly two years, with specialized large power transformers taking up to four years. Prices have surged by 60 to 80 percent since 202

Published: 2024-12-13 | Origin: Hacker News

The message promotes a web scraping solution aimed at developers from leading companies, highlighting its benefits for enhancing products and supporting business growth. Key features include transforming websites into structured datasets suitable for retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) applications, automating the collection of high-quality datasets for fine-tuning language models, and creating comprehensive knowledge bases from various web sources. The solution allows users to track AI news, extract and structure technical documentation, and scrape authentication-protected resources. It can transform web content into L