Regularly surprised by the subtleties of FP maths. TIL there are FP environments and it can even throw exceptions! https://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/2016-February/094916.html
miniblog.
AST matchers and Clang refactoring tools https://eli.thegreenplace.net/2014/07/29/ast-matchers-and-clang-refactoring-tools (introduces clang-query and the excellent AST matching API)
There are Only Four Billion Floats–So Test Them All! https://randomascii.wordpress.com/2014/01/27/theres-only-four-billion-floatsso-test-them-all/ (exhaustive testing can prove absence of bugs!)
Current status: writing Rust macros. It's dragged C-style macros most of the way to lisp. There's a learning curve, but it's a boon.
Atom has a thriving ecosystem, but I'm surprised it ships with minimalist git support. Adding and committing a file requires more packages!
Smalltalkers are increasingly exploring git and GitHub: https://gemstonesoup.wordpress.com/2012/09/18/practical-git-for-smalltalk-stic-2012/ (gives a good overview of different Smalltalk VCS options)
Why do Windows functions begin with a pointless MOV EDI, EDI instruction? https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20110921-00/?p=9583 (it's a speedy 2 byte NOP for patching!)
.@rustlang allows number literals to be written as e.g. 1_000_000 to group digits. I wish more languages did this!
Why Stack Overflow Doesn’t Care About Ad Blockers https://blog.stackoverflow.com/2016/02/why-stack-overflow-doesnt-care-about-ad-blockers (refreshing perspective)
Does LLVM keep its API unstable deliberately? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11081286 (it certainly helps with a weak copyleft licence)
I'm a fan of boolean function names ending with ?, but I saw some Scheme today (define (filter ? xs) ...). Totally confused me at first!
Excellent candid description of the experience of creating a programming language: https://breuleux.net/blog/my-own-language.html
Awesome Emacs package of the day: adjust-parens https://elpa.gnu.org/packages/adjust-parens.html It lets you simply use TAB and S-TAB to change paren nesting!
The Surprising Subtleties of Zeroing a Register https://randomascii.wordpress.com/2012/12/29/the-surprising-subtleties-of-zeroing-a-register/ (modern superscalar CPUs are like JITs, happy paths are not obvious)
Another great post on Guile optimisation, this time discussing different lambda optimisations: https://wingolog.org/archives/2016/02/08/a-lambda-is-not-necessarily-a-closure
How many parens are too much? Is relying on ordering 'less lispy' somehow? Could lisps use even fewer parens? [2/2]
The author of O-expressions argues that Clojure style lets are a compromise, using position rather than parens for structure. [1/2]
Webkit's FTL JIT is moving away from LLVM in favour of a custom SSA backend: https://trac.webkit.org/wiki/FTLJIT
Google exploring Qualcomm chips for its data centres: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-03/google-said-to-endorse-qualcomm-s-fledgling-server-chip-efforts-ik6ud7qg (great to see diversity in the architecture market)
The Story of Squeak, A Practical Smalltalk Written in Itself https://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/wolfgang.kreutzer/cosc205/squeak.html (builds a self hosting impl then translates to C)
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