Web Review, Week 2024-07
Let’s go for my web review for the week 2024-07.
Non-code contributions are the secret to open source success · GitHub
Tags: tech, foss, community
Good reminder that contributions are not only about code. Documentation, support, release management and so on are very important as well and too often underrated.
https://github.com/readme/featured/open-source-non-code-contributions
Extending our Mastodon social media trial - BBC R&D
Tags: tech, bbc, social-media, fediverse
Looks like the BBC likes the fediverse experiment so far. Engagement is even better than on Twitter at times. Let’s hope they keep expanding.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/blog/2024-02-extending-our-mastodon-social-media-trial
European Court of Human Rights bans weakening of secure end-to-endencryption
Tags: tech, politics
Excellent news, let’s hope this thwarts the commission plans as expected.
Estimating the environmental impact of Generative-AI services using an LCA-based methodology
Tags: tech, ecology, energy, ai, machine-learning, gpt
Interesting paper evaluating a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) method to estimate the power consumption and environmental impact of generative AI services. This is illustrated on a single service, hopefully we’ll see more such assessments.
https://inria.hal.science/hal-04346102
Short history of all Windows UI frameworks and libraries
Tags: tech, windows, gui
Confused about which UI frameworks are used in Windows? Here is the list in chronological order.
https://irrlicht3d.org/index.php?t=1626
The Stupidity Manifesto
Tags: culture, empathy
Definitely this, it’s better when you don’t make people feel stupid.
https://insimpleterms.blog/the-stupidity-manifesto
RSS is still pretty great
Tags: tech, rss, blog
Good explanation of what RSS is, where its weaknesses and strengths are.
https://www.pcloadletter.dev/blog/rss/
Too dangerous for C++
Tags: tech, rust, c++, type-systems, multithreading
It’s hard to argue that the Rust type system isn’t superior to the C++ type system… it’s definitely nice how it actively prevents data races at compile time.
https://blog.dureuill.net/articles/too-dangerous-cpp/
The History of Python: Why Python’s Integer Division Floors
Tags: tech, python, mathematics, floats
Some reasons why Python and C behave differently on this matter. It’s a source of mistakes.
https://python-history.blogspot.com/2010/08/why-pythons-integer-division-floors.html
CUDA on AMD GPUs
Tags: tech, gpu, amd, nvidia, computation
Interesting project, could bring a boost in AMD GPUs usage for CUDA workloads.
https://github.com/vosen/ZLUDA
Not just NVIDIA: GPU programming that runs everywhere
Tags: tech, python, gpu, computation, webgpu
Interesting to see WebGPU bindings for Python.
https://pythonspeed.com/articles/gpu-without-cuda/
WebGPU Best Practices
Tags: tech, 3d, gpu, computation, webgpu
Looks like a nice list of resources to dive deeper with WebGPU
https://toji.dev/webgpu-best-practices/
Open-source data multitool | VisiData
Tags: tech, tools, data, python
Looks like a nice tool for quick data exploration straight from the command line.
Magika: AI powered fast and efficient file type identification | Google Open Source Blog
Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, tools, command-line
Interesting tool for file type detection. Seems very accurate too.
Why Bloat Is Still Software’s Biggest Vulnerability - IEEE Spectrum
Tags: tech, security, architecture, dependencies, supply-chain
Definitely this, the software bloat directly impacts the attack surface of what gets shipped. Even though this is far from a panacea in terms of security, it’s time for people to critically examine their dependencies also for other reasons.
https://spectrum.ieee.org/lean-software-development
Mastering Programming - by Kent Beck
Tags: tech, craftsmanship, programming
As always from Kent Beck, an excellent set of advices to improve you programming skills.
https://tidyfirst.substack.com/p/mastering-programming
Deciphering Glyph :: Let Me Tell You A Secret
Tags: tech, communication, management, team
This is a bit cartoonish I’d say but there’s some truth to it. I indeed regularly get onto consulting gigs where you find out that the people already had the solution to their problem. In those cases it’s very often because communication channels are broken somewhere (team don’t feel at liberty to share what they noticed, managers having a hard time to listen, etc.).
https://blog.glyph.im/2024/02/let-me-tell-you-a-secret.html
Tracking Engineering Time - Jacob Kaplan-Moss
Tags: tech, management, metrics, estimates
Interesting approach when managing at a distance. It tries hard to stay lightweight which is definitely welcome.
https://jacobian.org/2024/feb/7/tracking-engineering-time/
What Is in Your Organizational Closet? - esther derby associates, inc.
Tags: management, organization
Interesting idea… indeed organizations can carry legacy processes and ideas as well.
https://estherderby.com/what-is-in-your-organizational-closet/
Bye for now!