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DirectX Adopting SPIR-V as the Interchange Format of the Future

Published: 2024-09-19 | Origin: /r/programming

The Direct3D and HLSL teams announced a significant advancement in GPU programmability with the upcoming release of Shader Model 7, which will enable DirectX 12 to accept shaders compiled to SPIR-V™. The HLSL team is dedicated to open development and is collaborating with The Khronos® Group and the LLVM Project during this multi-year transition to promote transparency. Their goal is to make HLSL the premier language for compiling graphics and compute shaders across various devices and GPU APIs.

How to reason about exceptions

Published: 2024-09-19 | Origin: /r/programming

The author discusses the reasoning behind error handling, specifically focusing on the use of exceptions. While acknowledging the existence of multiple error handling schemes, they express a preference for exceptions and aim to provide insights into how to effectively reason about codebases that utilize them. The content emphasizes the need for a basic understanding of exceptions and outlines four key semantics of error handling: 1. **Detection**: Identifying erroneous behavior and reporting it, usually through an error object. 2. **Propagation**: Passing the error

GitHub Notification Emails Hijacked to Send Malware

Published: 2024-09-19 | Origin: Hacker News

The author, an open source developer, shares their experience of receiving malicious emails pretending to be from GitHub, particularly one that claimed there was a security vulnerability in their repository. They explain how these phishing emails work, emphasizing that attackers can control much of the email's content, including the wording and links, making it difficult for recipients to recognize the deceit. The email claimed to provide important security information but was actually a trap to trick the developer into clicking a harmful link. The author warns others about the

Java 23 has released

Published: 2024-09-19 | Origin: /r/programming

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Zb: An Early-Stage Build System

Published: 2024-09-19 | Origin: Hacker News

The author has decided to fully develop "zb," their user-friendly reproducible build tool, despite previously stating it wouldn't be production-ready. A significant milestone has been achieved as zb no longer relies on Nix, having developed a new build backend that incorporates content-addressed derivations and follows the "Intensional Model" from The Purely Functional Software Deployment Model. Although zb is not yet ready for production use, the author encourages users to experiment with it, provide feedback on GitHub, and consult the

Ruby Weekly Issue 720: September 19, 2024

Published: 2024-09-19 | Origin: /r/ruby

In the September 19, 2024 edition of Ruby Weekly, the primary highlights include: 1. **DragonRuby Game Engine**: This Ruby-based 2D game engine supports multiple platforms including Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, and consoles. It's currently available for free for 36 hours, making it an attractive option for developers looking to create games. 2. **AI Integration in Rails**: reinteractive offers expertise in integrating AI technologies like OpenAI and AWS Bedrock into Rails

Glass Antenna Turns windows into 5G Base Stations

Published: 2024-09-19 | Origin: Hacker News

Japanese companies are developing innovative transparent glass antennas that allow windows to function as 5G cellular base stations. This approach aims to provide enhanced cell coverage without adding unsightly equipment to public spaces. With the rollout of 5G requiring more base stations due to its higher frequency spectrum, the need for a solution that minimizes visual impact is essential. JTower, in collaboration with AGC and NTT Docomo, recently installed the world’s first transparent glass antenna in Tokyo's Shinjuku district. This

Building a Developer Platform in 2025

Published: 2024-09-19 | Origin: /r/programming

Jonathan Saring shares insights from his four-year experience working with numerous platform teams at leading organizations, focusing on the complexities of modern software development. He presents a guide that encapsulates key capabilities, solutions, and tools necessary for success in this area and invites readers to share their own experiences in the comments. Saring emphasizes the importance of Internal Developer Platforms (IDPs), which have become essential for managing the complexities of development teams, distributed systems, and microservices. IDPs streamline processes, standardize tools

“Gilded Rose” refactoring kata in Ruby — as if it is 2024

Published: 2024-09-19 | Origin: /r/ruby

The author reflects on taking a "stories-first" approach to refactoring a complex piece of business code due to a lack of time for in-depth writing. They discovered the well-known "Gilded Rose" refactoring kata—a task involving updating an existing update method without modifying the Item class. The kata's initial Ruby implementation is overly complex, comprising a lengthy method filled with nested if statements. While many community solutions segment logic into multiple classes with highly descriptive method names, the author proposes a different approach

Stop Designing Your Web Application for Millions of Users When You Don't Even Have 100

Published: 2024-09-19 | Origin: /r/programming

Darren Horrocks discusses the common misstep of over-engineering web applications for scalability before achieving a substantial user base. He emphasizes that while it's easy to envision large-scale success and plan for it early on, doing so can hinder progress. Instead, he advocates for focusing on the immediate needs of the initial users and gathering real data from them. In the early stages, time is best spent on building features and enhancing user experience rather than perfecting infrastructure that isn’t yet necessary. Horrocks concludes that

CSS Dark Mode: A Comprehensive Guide - Makemychance

Published: 2024-09-19 | Origin: /r/programming

Dark mode has gained immense popularity across digital platforms, offering a color scheme with dark backgrounds and light text, as opposed to the traditional light mode that features a white background. Its rise in favor is largely attributed to its ability to reduce eye strain for users who spend extended periods in front of screens, particularly in low-light environments. Additionally, dark mode can improve battery life on OLED screens, as black pixels require less power. Many users also find dark themes aesthetically pleasing, enhancing the visual appeal of content.

Advanced Python Type Hints That Will Improve Your Code Significantly

Published: 2024-09-19 | Origin: /r/programming

The article by Yang Zhou highlights the evolution and significance of type hints in Python, specifically focusing on Python 3.5's introduction of this feature. Python, traditionally a dynamically typed language, has enhanced its capabilities for type safety through these hints, which have become more comprehensive up to Python 3.13. The author aims to summarize and explain nine advanced type hinting techniques that go beyond basic usage, illustrating their importance with an example involving TypeVar, a feature that allows the definition of type variables

Digital signatures and how to avoid them

Published: 2024-09-19 | Origin: Hacker News

A digital signature is a mathematical method used to verify the authenticity of digital messages or documents, assuring recipients that a message comes from a known sender. The basic process involves a sender, Alice, signing a message with her private key; the recipient, Bob, can then verify the signature using Alice's public key. This straightforward concept has led to the broad adoption of digital signatures for various applications such as validating software updates and authenticating SSL connections. However, cryptographers have a more complex view of digital signatures

US health system ranks last compared with peer nations, report finds – US news

Published: 2024-09-19 | Origin: Hacker News

A recent report by the Commonwealth Fund reveals that the United States ranks last among 10 peer nations in healthcare performance, despite Americans spending nearly twice as much on healthcare as other countries. The US system struggles with issues of health equity, access to care, and overall health outcomes. Dr. Joseph Betancourt, president of the Commonwealth Fund, highlights the human impact of these failures, noting that many patients face financial barriers to medications and care. While healthcare costs are a primary concern for voters, neither presidential

Nintendo Files Suit for Infringement of Patent Rights Against Pocketpair, Inc

Published: 2024-09-19 | Origin: Hacker News

On September 18, 2024, Nintendo Co., Ltd. and The Pokémon Company filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Pocketpair, Inc. in the Tokyo District Court. The lawsuit claims that Pocketpair's game, Palworld, infringes on several patent rights and seeks both an injunction to stop the infringement and compensation for damages.

Debugging Behind the Iron Curtain (2010)

Published: 2024-09-18 | Origin: Hacker News

The content details the experiences of Sergei, a veteran of the early computing industry in the Soviet Union, as shared by his mentee. Sergei worked on software for an SM-1800 microcomputer used at a railroad station near Sverdlovsk in the 1980s. The system faced mysterious crashes that occurred overnight, which traditional testing failed to replicate. Determined to identify the cause, Sergei analyzed the crash history and discovered a pattern related to the processing of live cattle cargo.

Ruby-SAML pwned by XML signature wrapping attacks

Published: 2024-09-18 | Origin: Hacker News

CVE-2024-45409, published on September 10, 2024, identifies a vulnerability in the Ruby implementation of SAML, which enables XML signature wrapping attacks. This issue allows attackers to log in as any arbitrary user within the affected system, impacting a wide range of platforms, including GitLab and the Ruby ecosystem. The vulnerability stems from the complexities associated with XML signatures, which were introduced in the early 2000s as an alternative to JSON Web Tokens (JWTs).

The Post-JAMstack Era: Just Use Rails.

Published: 2024-09-18 | Origin: /r/ruby

Jon Sully discusses the concept and challenges of maintaining “static sites” or “marketing websites,” which serve as a company's digital presence and are crucial for SEO. He notes that many organizations, like his own, typically use JAMstack technology for these sites but suggests that the hype surrounding JAMstack has diminished as of August 2023. He reflects on the frequent need to rebuild such sites—his team has transitioned through several technologies like Gridsome, Eleventy, and NextJS over the past few

Comic Mono

Published: 2024-09-18 | Origin: Hacker News

The content describes a legible monospace font, a variant of Shannon Miwa’s Comic Shanns (version 1), created by a software developer using a Python script called generate.py. The font can be easily included in web pages via a provided CDN from jsDelivr. Additionally, it is available on npm, although the font files there are not optimized. For a better option, a fontsource package is recommended. The font is licensed under the MIT License.

Stop using SERIAL in Postgres

Published: 2024-09-18 | Origin: /r/programming

The content advises against using serial columns in PostgreSQL and recommends switching to identity columns instead. PostgreSQL introduced identity columns in version 10 (2017), which offer several advantages over serial columns. Both serial and identity columns generate sequences, but the management of these sequences differs significantly. For example, when permissions are not correctly set for a user on a serial column's sequence, they can encounter errors during data insertion or updates. To fix this issue, the necessary permissions on the sequence need to be