Fun article exploring the test suite of the venerable Make:
miniblog.
Meta means Alt in Emacs, but meta means ctrl/cmd in Pharo. It's endianess all over again!
Monads provide explicit sequencing. A pure language with monads would be a great for Ethereum (though smart contracts would still be scary)
Cog, the excellent bytecode VM used by Smalltalk impls, has moved to GitHub! https://forum.world.st/Moving-the-Cog-subversion-repository-to-githup-at-2016-6-16-7am-UTC-td4901056.html (langs not on GH may become a minority)
Toward Understanding Compiler Bugs in GCC and LLVM https://chengniansun.bitbucket.org/papers/issta16.pdf (interesting findings: C++ is hard, unit tests are worth it)
The “C is Efficient” Language Fallacy https://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2006/11/02/the-c-is-efficient-language-fa/ (it's often the most efficient lang devs know, but not the fastest outright)
Maintainers matter: https://kmkeen.com/maintainers-matter/ (excellent defence of the Linux distro model and why app stores are not a panacea)
Interestingly, Rust will be adding a C-style untagged union datatype:
what3words: https://what3words.com/ and Urbit both explore mapping numbers to pronounceable words/sounds. Is this a new trend? Why now?
Superb blog post on implementing multi methods in Racket: https://lexi-lambda.github.io/blog/2016/02/18/simple-safe-multimethods-in-racket/ (has an interesting design with novel safety features)
Race conditions on Ethereum contracts can lead to double withdrawals: https://vessenes.com/more-ethereum-attacks-race-to-empty-is-the-real-deal/ (scary! Smart contracts are very hard)
Why data storage will cease being cheap: https://blog.dshr.org/2014/05/talk-at-seagate.html (h/w has stopped improving exponentially!)
I don't understand the claim that static typing reduces unit tests. I can't think of any unit test I've written that would disappear.
Lenses rather remind me of setf (generalised setters in lisp) but for immutable data types. Nifty.
Racket docs are superb. The explanation of lenses is really accessible: https://docs.racket-lang.org/lens/lens-intro.html (some great examples and rationale)
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