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Testing the Z80 Chip with a 1970s Beauty Published: 2024-11-11 | Origin: Hacker News The article, originally published by Micro Technology Services, Inc. (MTSI), discusses the historical significance of the Fairchild Sentry 610 test system at Mostek in the 1980s. Mostek was a leading DRAM producer, and many Z80 microprocessors, including Zilog-branded ones, were tested using this system. The Sentry 610 was notably versatile, testing various chips including the Fairchild F-8 CPU and Magnavox T.V. tuner chips. |
emiT - a Time Travelling Programming language. Published: 2024-11-11 | Origin: /r/programming The content describes "emiT," a time-traveling programming language that allows users to manipulate variables across parallel timelines. Users can send variables back in time to change past outcomes, creating new timelines and potential paradoxes. The language is a hobby project, primarily developed in a single afternoon, and the creator invites feedback and contributions from users. The documentation includes a comprehensive list of features, examples of code, and syntax highlighting resources. Key features include "time warping," which lets variables alter earlier points |
8 Steps in Writing Analytical SQL Queries Published: 2024-11-11 | Origin: /r/programming Christopher Winslett discusses the challenges of transitioning from simple to complex SQL queries, emphasizing the risk of returning incorrect data due to miscalculations. He highlights a common pitfall involving inflated values in aggregate calculations resulting from joining tables improperly. Winslett uses an example to demonstrate how joining invoices to teams after team members can lead to duplicate counts in sums. To build a complex query effectively, he suggests following a systematic approach: start with a clear description of the intended outcome, be prepared for adjustments during data exploration |
Optimizing a WebGPU Matmul Kernel for 1 TFLOP Published: 2024-11-11 | Origin: Hacker News The author works at Nomic, where they and their colleagues tackle the challenges of creating large TSNE-like visualizations in the browser, specifically handling tens of millions of data points efficiently. They note discussions among colleagues about scaling solutions like Deepscatter and the benefits of WebGPU and TypeScript. In an effort to learn more about these technologies, the author developed Surfgrad, a WebGPU-enabled autograd library for tensor operations in the browser that achieves over 1 TFLOPS arithmetic intensity in |
Short Ruby Newsletter - edition 113 Published: 2024-11-11 | Origin: /r/ruby The newsletter by Lucian Ghinda on November 11, 2024, highlights various updates and launches in the Ruby development community. Key points include: - Codeium, an AI coding assistant, is introduced as a secure tool for development teams, reportedly helping Fortune 50 companies generate about 50% of their accepted code. - Ruby Cademy has launched presales for its 1st Edition cards, and Rails Simple Auth was introduced for Rails 8 authentication. - Brighton Ruby shared that |
Are AI Assistants Making Us Worse Programmers? Published: 2024-11-11 | Origin: /r/programming The rise of AI in programming, exemplified by tools like Copilot and Cursor, has become integral to modern coding practices, making it nearly impossible for programmers to avoid using AI assistants. With over a decade of programming experience, the author reflects on whether these tools are making programmers less skilled. Drawing an analogy to Ayrton Senna, a legendary racing driver, the author compares past and present approaches to performance, highlighting a debate on whether the automation in both racing and programming detracts from the essential skills |
TL;DR of my best software architecture reads of the week | Architecture Nugget Published: 2024-11-11 | Origin: /r/programming Architecture Nugget provides insights into software and system architecture, focusing this week on several key topics. It examines scaling GraphQL subscriptions using an event-driven approach in Go, highlighting a challenge with memory consumption due to excessive goroutines and how a new architecture with controlled concurrency and memory pooling improved efficiency. The discussion also covers the Liskov Substitution Principle (LSP) for cleaner mobile architecture, and situations where microservices may not be optimal. Additionally, it addresses misconceptions around Event-Driven Architecture, presents |
When to Use Cosmos DB? Going deep with Azure's distributed document database. Published: 2024-11-11 | Origin: /r/programming The article discusses when to use Azure Cosmos DB, highlighting its complexity and the need for understanding its functionality, cost implications, and trade-offs. It suggests using Cosmos DB when one needs a cloud-specific solution with automatic scalability, akin to when one would use DynamoDB on AWS. Cosmos DB, a high-availability distributed database that evolved from DocumentDB, supports multiple models and APIs, making it versatile yet potentially confusing. At its core, it operates on a document-based storage layer with features like tunable |
Voyager 1 Breaks Its Silence with NASA via Radio Transmitter Not Used Since 1981 Published: 2024-11-11 | Origin: Hacker News Recently, NASA's Voyager 1, the farthest spacecraft from Earth, briefly lost communication before reconnecting using an inactive backup radio transmitter from 1981. Launched in 1977 alongside Voyager 2, both probes have been exploring the outer planets and sending vital scientific data back to Earth for 47 years. In mid-October, Voyager 1 experienced a communication issue after a command to turn on a heater activated its fault protection system, which autonomously shuts down nonessential functions to conserve |
Rocky Mountain Ruby 2024: DragonRuby Game Toolkit Lessons Learned (16 minute presentation, followed by some code exploration and QnA) Published: 2024-11-11 | Origin: /r/ruby Of course! Please provide the content you'd like me to summarize. |
Use blank? and present? in Rails Published: 2024-11-11 | Origin: /r/ruby In Ruby on Rails, particularly through Active Support, the methods `blank?` and `present?` are provided to check if a value contains meaningful data or is empty. These methods simplify and consolidate multiple checks (like `nil?` and `empty?`) into straightforward calls, enhancing code readability. They work uniformly across various object types, such as strings, arrays, and hashes, including cases where strings contain only whitespace. However, there are situations where one might opt not to use them. |
Week 45 - Hotwire Live Reload, Alpine.js as an alternative, and more! Published: 2024-11-11 | Origin: /r/ruby In this issue of Hotwire Weekly, several articles provide insights into enhancing Rails applications with modern JavaScript frameworks and tools: 1. **Alpine.js as a Stimulus Alternative** - Felipe Vogel examines Alpine.js as a viable option for adding JavaScript to server-rendered pages, emphasizing its ability to work with separate JavaScript files and manage content security policies. 2. **Setting Up View Components in Rails** - Ken Greeff offers a detailed guide on implementing ViewComponents in Rails, focusing on |
Understanding LLMs from Scratch Using Middle School Math Published: 2024-11-11 | Origin: /r/programming The article by Rohit Patel on Towards Data Science explains how Large Language Models (LLMs) work, starting from basic arithmetic concepts like addition and multiplication. It aims to provide a straightforward, self-contained understanding of modern LLMs and the Transformer architecture without the extensive jargon typically associated with machine learning. The author plans to guide readers through constructing a simple Generative AI, emphasizing a numerical approach to data input and output. The article stresses that neural networks process only numbers and discusses how to interpret these outputs |
Visual Basic 6 rebuilt in C# - complete with form designer and IDE, runs directly in browser (WASM) Published: 2024-11-11 | Origin: /r/programming Sure! Please provide the content you'd like me to summarize. |
Virtual Windows 3.11 Computer Published: 2024-11-11 | Origin: Hacker News The homepage welcomes visitors and showcases various online projects by the creator, Pieter Mouthaan. Highlights include a Minecraft survival server (mc.pieter.com:25565) with a community named LEVELS TOWN, an IRC chat server (irc.pieter.com:6667), and an Anonymous FTP server (ftp.pieter.com) for file downloads. The site aims to host hacky projects and internet experiments, and it has been recently moved to its own VPS for enhanced capabilities. The creator reflects on starting |
Show HN: Krita RGBA Tech – Bringing Realistic Metal to Life in Open-Source Art Published: 2024-11-11 | Origin: Hacker News The content informs users that feedback is valued and encourages them to refer to the documentation for available qualifiers. It introduces a free set of brushes for Krita users, which includes various tools like 32 brushes, 13 textures, 3 patterns, a color palette, and brush tips, along with a PDF guide for installation and inspiration. The brushes and resources can be downloaded from Ko-Fi and GitHub. The license type is CC-BY-SA, and special thanks are given to Memileo for certain |
Welcome to the Antarctic Fire Department Published: 2024-11-11 | Origin: Hacker News The Antarctic Fire Department (AFD) provides essential fire and rescue support services for the United States Antarctic Program at key locations like McMurdo Station and the Amundsen-Scott Station, operating in one of the harshest environments on Earth. Based on Ross Island, the AFD prides itself on its diverse and resilient personnel who are trained to handle extreme conditions south of 60° latitude. Working in Antarctica presents both challenges and rewards, as firefighters gain vital skills that protect them and help preserve the |
Cline vsCode extension Published: 2024-11-11 | Origin: /r/programming The content introduces Cline, an AI-powered coding assistant designed for integrated development environments (IDEs). Cline leverages Claude 3.5 Sonnet's capabilities to assist with complex software development by creating and editing files, executing terminal commands, and using the browser, all with user permission. It ensures a safe, interactive experience by requiring approval for changes, contrasting with traditional sandboxed AI scripts. Users can access Cline via a shortcut to open the extension in a tab, providing a clear view |
What's unique about the Mill build tool Published: 2024-11-11 | Origin: /r/programming Mill is a JVM build tool designed for Java, Scala, and Kotlin, offering significant advantages for large monorepo codebases, similar to Bazel. Users have reported build speeds that are 2-10 times faster than competitors, thanks to Mill's unique "direct-style" design, which enhances usability and extensibility. Build tools like Mill are essential for managing complex codebases, as they automate tasks such as compiling, dependency management, and packaging, which becomes cumbersome with simple scripts as projects grow |
Way too many ways to wait on a child process with a timeout Published: 2024-11-10 | Origin: /r/programming The article discusses the need for launching programs in a terminal using a retry loop due to potential failures, particularly in distributed systems that may rely on unreliable remote services. It highlights the common practice of retrying operations and introduces a tool being developed called "ueb" (micro exponential backoff). This tool will attempt to execute a command up to 10 times, with an initial wait of 128 milliseconds that doubles with each attempt, allowing the subprocess more time to succeed. The article notes that for monitoring retries |