Published: 2025-01-29 | Origin: /r/ruby

The post discusses the implications of Ruby's Global Virtual Lock (GVL) on Rails applications and their performance, particularly in relation to concurrent programming. It highlights the common belief that Rails apps are mainly IO-bound, implying that the GVL's impact is minimal. However, the author disagrees, arguing that many Rails applications are not purely IO-bound and that the GVL necessitates using processes (forking) to leverage server cores effectively. While some advocate for removing the GVL, the author cont

Published: 2025-01-29 | Origin: /r/programming

The content discusses the mindset and approach towards coding, emphasizing the importance of enjoying the journey rather than fixating solely on the end goals, such as financial success. The author, Gheorghe Ungureanu, suggests that many aspiring coders fail because they focus too much on rewards and outcomes, often sacrificing joy and other pleasures in life. Instead, he advocates for a passion-driven approach, encouraging individuals to find activities that bring them pleasure, likening the pursuit of coding to an addiction that can lead

Published: 2025-01-29 | Origin: Hacker News

Get a 2-month free trial with an annual subscription for $49 (down from $59.88), which includes access to eight daily articles curated by senior editors. After the trial, the subscription costs $75 per month. Subscribers enjoy complete digital access to quality Financial Times journalism, with expert analysis. The offer includes a 20% discount for those paying annually. Terms and conditions apply, and over a million readers currently subscribe to the Financial Times.

Published: 2025-01-29 | Origin: Hacker News

The conversation centers on concerns about managing web crawlers and ensuring that legitimate institutions like archive.org are not blocked while still protecting content from unwanted scraping. Users express frustration over the difficulty of maintaining an updated robots.txt file and discuss alternatives such as requiring logins to access content. There are inquiries about a "bot fight mode," its newer version, and how user-agents can be misrepresented by bad actors. Recommendations include using services like Cloudflare for bot management, enabling caching to save costs, and utilizing

Published: 2025-01-29 | Origin: /r/programming

Chris Lattner, a key figure behind several foundational programming platforms such as LLVM, Clang, Swift, and MLIR, is now developing a new programming language called Mojo. Mojo is designed to enable Python programmers to write significantly faster code. Contrary to common misconceptions, Mojo is not a variant of Python; it's an entirely new language akin to Swift or Rust, featuring a distinct compiler. Mojo employs a traditional lexer and parser, with its front end focusing on type checking and semantic analysis. A

Published: 2025-01-29 | Origin: Hacker News

A study from the New York Public Library, which surveyed 1,974 users, indicates that libraries have a significantly positive impact on individuals and communities, particularly in lower-income areas. Utilizing the PERMA model of positive psychology, the research highlights how library visits contribute to users' well-being and personal growth. Key findings include that 92% of respondents felt calm after visiting, 74% felt better equipped to handle life's challenges, and 90% reported a greater love for learning. Additionally,

Published: 2025-01-29 | Origin: Hacker News

The content discusses the distinction between two approaches to writing: in fiction and programming. Author Stephen King exemplifies a 'discovery' style in writing, where he begins without an outline and develops ideas through the writing process. Similarly, in programming, "discovery coding" is introduced as a method where programmers understand and solve problems by writing code without a prior plan, engaging with the code to discover insights and solutions. This contrasts with "outliner" programmers who prefer detailed plans before coding. The text

Published: 2025-01-28 | Origin: Hacker News

The content introduces SLAP and FLOP, two new speculative execution attacks targeting Apple CPUs. SLAP exploits the Load Address Predictor (LAP) found in Apple’s M2/A15 series, which optimizes memory retrieval by predicting addresses. If the LAP guesses incorrectly, it allows the CPU to execute operations on unauthorized data, potentially leaking sensitive information through attacks carried out via the Safari browser. FLOP targets the Load Value Predictor (LVP) in the M3/A17 generation and newer

Published: 2025-01-28 | Origin: Hacker News

In 2013, the author was inspired by GitHub's octocat to create a mascot and commissioned a designer for $200. This led to the realization that many tasks costing around $200—like professional headshots, transcription, translation, or article writing—are transactional and require specialized skills. With advancements in AI technology, these tasks can now often be performed efficiently by AI tools. For instance, instead of hiring someone for transcription after research interviews, AI services can handle this task quickly. While

Published: 2025-01-28 | Origin: Hacker News

The author discusses the challenges of managing Type 1 diabetes (T1D) for their 9-year-old son, whose pancreas functions on manual mode, lacking natural regulation of insulin and glucagon. While they benefit from advanced technologies like Continuous Glucose Monitors (CGMs) and Closed-loop Insulin Pumps, these come with issues such as frequent alarms for low blood sugar, which can be disruptive, especially during activities like lunch, recess, or sports. The son needs to develop a sense of

Published: 2025-01-28 | Origin: /r/programming

The text discusses the transition from type checking to a compiler process called "Lowering," which converts a typed Abstract Syntax Tree (AST) into an intermediate representation (IR). This marks a shift from frontend concerns—where the AST accommodates user-friendliness and error diagnostics—to backend optimization, where the IR serves the compiler's needs, focusing on aspects like memory layout and calling conventions. In this phase, the compiler assumes successful type checking and any errors encountered indicate internal issues requiring fixes, leading to a mentality

Published: 2025-01-28 | Origin: Hacker News

Maxima is a computer algebra system, and its browser frontend was developed by Marius Gerbershagen using technologies such as Embeddable Common Lisp, emscripten, gnuplot, and MathJax. The source code for the project is available for access.

Published: 2025-01-28 | Origin: Hacker News

The Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and the Universidad de La Laguna (ULL) have confirmed the discovery of a new super-Earth, designated HD 20794 d, orbiting within the habitable zone of the nearby Sun-like star HD 20794, located about 20 light-years away. This discovery, following over two decades of observations, is significant for future studies of Earth-like planetary atmospheres and the potential for life beyond Earth. HD 20794 d is

Published: 2025-01-28 | Origin: /r/ruby

In an article by Paweł Dąbrowski dated January 28, 2025, the author explores the creation of popular Ruby methods, focusing on the #blank? and #present? methods within the Ruby on Rails framework. These methods are widespread in Rails applications due to their flexibility across various object types, although they aren't part of the Ruby standard library, which some developers find inconvenient for pure Ruby coding. Dąbrowski delves into the source code of Rails and especially

Published: 2025-01-28 | Origin: /r/programming

The author expresses a fondness for the classic game DOOM, which remains enjoyable even after 31 years, and notes its availability on modern platforms due to open-source accessibility. They maintain several DOOM-related packages for Fedora Linux, which undergoes a mass rebuild before each new release. Ahead of Fedora Linux 42's release, the author encountered issues during the rebuild process, specifically with a package called chocolate-doom. Upon checking the build logs, they identified a compilation error related to the use of

Published: 2025-01-28 | Origin: /r/programming

The author reflects on the evolution of programming skills from the late 1990s to today, highlighting a shift from deep understanding to reliance on instant resources like Stack Overflow. A recent experience with a junior developer struggling to fix a nearly functional AI-generated React component illustrates this issue. The author argues that modern junior developers are not lazy but are caught in an educational system that prioritizes the quantity of knowledge over the quality of skill. This leads to challenges such as increased debugging times for simple issues. The piece

Published: 2025-01-28 | Origin: /r/ruby

In a keynote delivered at the EuRuKo conference in September 2024, the speaker reflected on their 25 years of software development experience, with 20 years focused on Ruby. They noted their involvement in open source projects and their role as a principal engineer at Hubstaff. Importantly, the speaker also identified as a Ukrainian serving in the Armed Forces, emphasizing their commitment to protect their homeland rather than a desire for combat. The talk explored parallels between software development and the speaker's experiences as a

Published: 2025-01-28 | Origin: /r/programming

The Bare Metal Language (BML) is a domain-specific programming language designed to be a high-performance and reliable alternative to assembly language for developing embedded systems. Unlike assembly language, which is complex and prone to errors, BML allows developers to write code that is more expressive and easier to maintain while still achieving optimal performance with minimal runtime overhead. Version 1.5 of BML, finalized on December 15, 2023, is considered production-ready and feature-complete, catering to various embedded

Published: 2025-01-28 | Origin: /r/ruby

The article discusses the implementation of Remote Procedure Calls (RPC) using Apache Kafka, a technology typically focused on event logging with high throughput rather than low latency. RPC creates the illusion of executing functions locally when they are executed remotely. Despite the unconventional nature of using Kafka for RPC, the authors present a proof of concept that demonstrated millisecond response times in testing. This exploration arose from the need for synchronous communication within event-driven architectures and serves as an alternative to adding more specialized tools to technology stacks. The implementation

Published: 2025-01-28 | Origin: /r/programming

The content discusses the need for a scalable system to automate the replacement of images in Canva designs, particularly when a third-party media library expires. This is important for maintaining a high-quality library and enhancing user experience, but the current manual process is time-consuming. The solution involves using reverse image search to find and replace similar images based on a hierarchy of similarity factors, starting with the image subject (e.g., type of object) and extending to aspects like color, subject positioning, background, and emotional expression