Web Review, Week 2023-23
Let’s go for my web review for the week 2023-23.
Our Right To Challenge Junk Patents Is Under Threat | Electronic Frontier Foundation
Tags: tech, patents, law
This is bound to make the US patent system even worse than it already is…
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/our-right-challenge-junk-patents-under-threat
Vision Pro
Tags: tech, apple, ux, ar, vr, xr
Probably the best analysis of the new Apple device I’ve seen so far. Focuses more on the design of the user experience and compares with the strategy behind other similar devices. There are likely a lesson or two to be drawn from it.
https://notes.andymatuschak.org/Vision%20Pro
Developers are lazy, thus Flatpak
Tags: tech, linux, packaging, flatpak
A good reminder that Flatpak is no silver bullet. It’s a bit of a rant at times still it has some good points in particular the security implications are not always properly conveyed to the users. Some thinking might be required regarding what’s lost compared to “traditional” packaging approaches.
https://blog.brixit.nl/developers-are-lazy-thus-flatpak/
ugrep - A faster, user-friendly and compatible grep replacement.
Tags: tech, tools, command-line
There’s a new grep alternative in town. Looks really fast and has an interesting interactive mode. Definitely something to check out.
https://github.com/Genivia/ugrep
Debugging Outside Your Comfort Zone: Diving Beneath a Trusted Abstraction
Tags: tech, complexity, architecture, config, debugging, automation
Very interesting case full of lessons. Of course, increasing the complexity of the system overall can lead to such hard to find issues. It’s also a tale into how seemingly innocuous settings can interact in unexpected ways. I also like the lessons learn pointing to the fact that you can and should debug even the systems you use through abstractions, diving into the code is almost always a good thing (even if in this particular case it wasn’t strictly necessary in the end). And last but not least it shows the tension between mastery and automation… the more you automate the least you master the system, and at the same time this automation is necessary for building resilience in the system.
https://www.infoq.com/articles/debugging-beneath-trusted-abstraction/
graydon2 | The Rust I Wanted Had No Future
Tags: tech, rust, language, design, community
Interesting post, highlights why it’s better when languages are designed in a more community fashion (make sure to read until the conclusion). At least in term of popularity it seems to help.
https://graydon2.dreamwidth.org/307291.html
PEP 695 – Type Parameter Syntax | peps.python.org
Tags: tech, python, pyright, type-systems
This will hopefully solve most of the oddities in the generic types syntax of Python. Will be available with CPython 3.12 and will need support from type checkers of course.
https://peps.python.org/pep-0695/
The Many Problems with Celery | Log Blog Kebab
Tags: tech, python, celery
Celery is a popular solution for job queues in the Python world… it’s far from perfect though. This list of fixes to make it safer to use is welcome if you’re stuck with it.
https://steve.dignam.xyz/2023/05/20/many-problems-with-celery/
ReactPy
Tags: tech, python, frontend
OK, that looks like an interesting idea for the frontend bits if your stack is mainly Python based. Still very young though.
https://reactpy.dev/docs/index.html
GitHub - bloomberg/pystack: 🔍 🐍 Like pstack but for Python!
Tags: tech, python, debugging
Looks like a very powerful tool for debugging and analyzing processes involving a Python interpreter.
https://github.com/bloomberg/pystack
My Approach to Building Large Technical Projects – Mitchell Hashimoto
Tags: tech, project-management, architecture, tests
Nothing really new but well written. This highlights fairly well the importance of decomposing projects, having at least the broad strokes of the architecture laid down and how automated tests help drive the progress. It’s nice to see it all put together.
https://mitchellh.com/writing/building-large-technical-projects
Bye for now!