Web Review, Week 2024-12
Let’s go for my web review for the week 2024-12.
There is no cookie banner law
Tags: tech, gdpr, law, surveillance
It’s not the regulation which brings the banners, it’s the companies insisting on tracking us.
https://www.amazingcto.com/cookie-banners-are-not-needed/
Hackers Found a Way to Open Any of 3 Million Hotel Keycard Locks in Seconds
Tags: tech, security
This is bad. Unlocking many doors is just a couple of taps a way if you’re already a guest.
https://www.wired.com/story/saflok-hotel-lock-unsaflok-hack-technique/
Vision Pro is an over-engineered “devkit”
Tags: tech, apple, vr
Very thorough analysis of the Vision Pro value proposition. It shows quite well where it shines and where it should be improved.
https://hugo.blog/2024/03/11/vision-pro/
Microsoft reportedly runs GitHub’s AI Copilot at a loss • The Register
Tags: tech, gpt, copilot, economics
The price hike on the generative AI services will happen sooner or later. That much is clear.
https://www.theregister.com/2023/10/11/github_ai_copilot_microsoft/
The demise of coding is greatly exaggerated
Tags: tech, programming, ai, machine-learning, gpt, copilot
Definitely this. It might ultimately impact the abstraction levels accessible to us for coding… but the skills will still be needed. Natural language is too ambiguous for the task.
https://muratbuffalo.blogspot.com/2024/03/the-demise-of-coding-is-greatly.html?m=1
Core Guidelines are not Rules - Simplify C++!
Tags: tech, c++, complexity
When guidelines contradict each other. You need a proper way to communicate where a piece of code stands.
https://arne-mertz.de/2024/03/core-guidelines-are-not-rules/
The wrong way to speed up your code with Numba
Tags: tech, python, performance
As usual measure and don’t just assume when you want to optimize something. This is an interesting case in Python using Numba.
https://pythonspeed.com/articles/slow-numba/
How web bloat impacts users with slow devices
Tags: tech, web, frontend, performance
Indeed this. It’s not only about payload size, it’s also about CPU consumption. Our profession is still assuming too much that users will get faster CPU on a regular basis.
https://danluu.com/slow-device/
Obsolescence Paths: living with aging devices
Tags: tech, mobile, obsolescence
Interesting paper showing the main reasons why people ultimately change their phones. I find interesting that the opacity of storage management on mobile devices is such a factor.
https://hal.science/hal-04097867
A Few Words on Testing - by Thorsten Ball
Tags: tech, tests, tdd, quality
Indeed, don’t mindlessly add tests. I find interesting that the doubts raised in this piece are once again concluded using an old quote of Kent Beck. What he was proposing was fine and then over time people became clearly unreasonable.
https://registerspill.thorstenball.com/p/a-few-words-on-testing
Measuring Developer Productivity via Humans
Tags: tech, programming, productivity
Very interesting piece. The DORA metrics are a good thing but I always felt they’re kind of dry and missing something. On the other hand surveys which are more qualitative give also interesting results but come with their own biases. The idea pushed here for better qualitative surveys and to combine them with quantitative metrics like the DORA one is definitely a tempting way forward.
https://martinfowler.com/articles/measuring-developer-productivity-humans.html
Occasional paper: When Armor Met Lips — Crooked Timber
Tags: history, evolution
Very interesting theory on why the nautiloids started disappearing. A specie developed lips…
https://crookedtimber.org/2024/03/16/occasional-paper-when-armor-met-lips/
Bye for now!