Web Review, Week 2023-17
Let’s go for my web review for the week 2023-17.
Red Alert: ICANN and Verisign Proposal Would Allow Any Government In The World To Seize Domain Names – FreeSpeech.com
Tags: tech, dns, politics
Concerning moves on the ICANN side… already in the agreements around .com and now trying to make its way into .net.
NitroKey disappoints me
Tags: tech, smartphone, android
Yep, disappointing indeed… I got a phone with a third party ROM and had to debug the A-GPS in there (don’t ask), it’s indeed reaching to this website as well. There’s enough to criticize without crying wolf for nothing.
https://blog.brixit.nl/nitrokey-dissapoints-me/
GitHub Copilot Emits GPL. Codeium Does Not. | Codeium
Tags: tech, ai, copilot, foss, ethics, law
Are we surprised? Not at all… this is an ethical problem, this is a legal risk. The alternatives will hopefully know better.
https://codeium.com/blog/copilot-trains-on-gpl-codeium-does-not
[2304.09655] How Secure is Code Generated by ChatGPT?
Tags: tech, ai, gpt, security
Interesting experiment even though it’s still early days for this kind of research and we’d need more such evaluations. They found that it produces mostly insecure code. This is not really surprising in the end, this manipulates language but has not execution model. It can be fixed only by coupling to some outside system.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.09655
Announcing Babylon.js 6.0. Our mission is to build one of the most… | by Babylon.js | Apr, 2023 | Medium
Tags: tech, web, 3d
This is really a huge update. Brings in lots of features which were clearly missing.
https://babylonjs.medium.com/announcing-babylon-js-6-0-dcb5f1662e3a
The weird world of Windows file paths | Fileside
Tags: tech, windows, filesystem
Definitely complicated to identify and resolve paths on this platform. I had to deal with it from time to time and this can definitely turn into a pain in the neck.
https://www.fileside.app/blog/2023-03-17_windows-file-paths/
Are pull requests bad because they originate from open-source development?
Tags: tech, foss, git, codereview, mob-programming, criticism
Since I’ve seen this argument floating around more than once, it’s nice to have a properly done rebuttal of it. This is nicely done, listing the own bias of the author, still in the end that shows the logical flaw of the argument.
Best practices for writing code comments - Stack Overflow Blog
Tags: tech, programming, comments
Good article on when to use comments or not. Also gives a few tips on how to write them properly.
https://stackoverflow.blog/2021/12/23/best-practices-for-writing-code-comments/
Results summary: 2023 Annual C++ Developer Survey “Lite” : Standard C++
Tags: tech, c++
Interesting results. This gives a couple of insights in terms or adoption, perception of problems by people on C++ projects and tooling. It’s definitely worth skimming through.
https://isocpp.org//blog/2023/04/results-summary-2023-annual-cpp-developer-survey-lite
50 Shades of Rust Or emerging Rust GUIs in a WASM world
Tags: tech, rust, gui
This is currently a real zoo. I knew about a few of them but not that many. I guess it will slowly converge toward a few major options.
https://monadical.com/posts/shades-of-rust-gui-library-list.html#Pet-Sematary
Nine ways to shoot yourself in the foot with PostgreSQL
Tags: tech, databases, postgresql, performance
Nice set of tips, I knew a few but not all of them. The discussion around CTEs is interesting.
https://philbooth.me/blog/nine-ways-to-shoot-yourself-in-the-foot-with-postgresql
Measuring the Impact of False Sharing
Tags: tech, multithreading, performance
Nice exploration of false sharing on performances in several hardware scenarii. A couple of surprises along the way.
https://alic.dev/blog/false-sharing.html
Leverage the richness of HTTP status codes
Tags: tech, http, web, api
There are many more useful codes than are generally used. We shouldn’t shy away from using them when it makes sense, it also means the client side must be ready for them. Very often client code makes wrong assumptions on the possible codes.
https://blog.frankel.ch/leverage-richness-http-status-codes/
Characterizing Tech Debt
Tags: tech, technical-debt, craftsmanship
Nice short post listing the main positions (and linking to corresponding articles) on the debate around technical debt. Worth mulling over all those.
https://justinblank.com/notebooks/characterizingtechdebt.html
Distractions Cause Bad Code | nicholas@web
Tags: tech, notifications, remote-working, focus
So much this, managing notifications and making sure not to get disturbed when we need to focus is essential in our line of work.
https://ntietz.com/blog/distractions-cause-bad-code/
What complex systems can teach us about building software
Tags: tech, architecture, complexity, product-management, project-management
Interesting train of thoughts. Indeed we should keep in mind that large scale software is almost always a complex adaptative system, even more so if we don’t forget the people developing it and not just focusing on the code. This can give us guidelines on how to organize the development.
Also does a good recap about what a complex system is and how it behaves. Definitely worth a read at least for this.
https://sookocheff.com/post/systems/what-complex-systems-can-teach-us-about-building-software/
Navigating the Transition from Individual Contributor to Tech Lead | by grant | Apr, 2023 | Medium
Tags: tech, tech-lead
If regularly see people propelled tech leads without really knowing what it means. This short post is a good summary of the skills one needs to build to fit the role.
Key practice: Aligned, autonomous cross-disciplinary teams. | by Jason Yip | Apr, 2023 | Medium
Tags: tech, product-management
What the title say. This is especially important for product development. This is not emphasized enough in the article I think but the “aligned autonomy” section is a crucial part of this. I very often see in teams either alignment or autonomy, it’s rarer to see teams with both.
https://jchyip.medium.com/key-practice-aligned-autonomous-cross-disciplinary-teams-d73c1cddc352
Rescuing a project in progress
Tags: project-management
Very good advice: stop, status, selection, focus, finish, next. If it feels like “stop starting and start finishing”, it’s probably no surprise.
https://world.hey.com/jason/rescuing-a-project-in-progress-d31883f7
Some mistakes I made as a new manager | benkuhn.net
Tags: tech, management
Nice post full of good advises for new (or not so new) managers.
https://www.benkuhn.net/newmgr/
Why the Brain’s Connections to the Body Are Crisscrossed | Quanta Magazine
Tags: neuroscience, geometry, science
We still don’t really know (actually it’s super hard to have a definitive reason on this topic). This article presents more of a theory based on geometry… and this is interesting, we often don’t think about this kind of things.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-the-brains-connections-to-the-body-are-crisscrossed-20230419/
Researchers Taught Parrots to Video Call Other Parrots
Tags: tech, science, surprising
OK definitely surprising research. Some of the results are interesting. Clearly it shows a high level of socializing with those birds.
https://news.northeastern.edu/2023/04/21/parrots-talking-video-calls/
Bye for now!