Web Review, Week 2024-41
Let’s go for my web review for the week 2024-41.
Why I use KDE
Tags: tech, kde, foss, ux
Looks like we properly live by the “simple by default, powerful when needed” tagline. Now there are also challenges, this article gives a nice balanced view.
https://www.osnews.com/story/140538/why-i-use-kde/
It’s Not Easy Being Green: On the Energy Efficiency of Programming Languages
Tags: tech, programming, performance, energy
Nice paper which debunks the choice of the language as an important factor for energy efficiency. The previous papers had a too simple model, this one puts forth a more complete causal model. There are many factors at play regarding energy efficiency, the programming language itself is not really one of them.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.05460
Google’s new phones can’t stop phoning home
Tags: tech, google, android, surveillance
It’s really time to get as many people as possible out of those toxic ecosystems…
https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/08/water-thats-not-wet/#pixelated
It’s Time to Stop Taking Sam Altman at His Word - The Atlantic
Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, gpt, business, scam
Indeed, we should stop listening to such people who are basically pushing fantasies in order to raise more money.
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/10/sam-altman-mythmaking/680152/
The Static Site Paradox
Tags: tech, web, self-hosting, complexity
Excellent point, we made the web too complex for regular users. This is actually an issue in term of access and democracy for people to write content there.
https://kristoff.it/blog/static-site-paradox/
HTML for People
Tags: tech, web, html, self-hosting
There is hope! Nice intro for regular people who want to get into publishing a web site. Good way to bring some democracy back to the web.
A modest critique of Htmx
Tags: tech, web, frontend, htmx
I don’t think I would side with the conclusion. It’s a worthwhile article to get a better idea of the pain points around htmx.
https://chrisdone.com/posts/htmx-critique/
My Wayland Your Wayland Our Wayland
Tags: tech, linux, wayland, foss, governance
Yes, the governance of Open Source projects can be tricky. This is part of the job though, and properly embraced we all go further. An example from the Wayland space.
https://www.supergoodcode.com/My-Wayland-Your-Wayland-Our-Wayland/
Modern PATH environment variable
Tags: tech, unix, system
Indeed, we should likely revisit what we put in our PATH environment variable. Some of it is old cruft which is now unnecessary.
https://blog.izissise.net/posts/env-path/
Iterating through matched characters in modern C++: views::filter and coroutine
Tags: tech, c++, coroutine, performance
Several ways to deal with the task, which are the performance implications? Clearly coroutines aren’t the best tool for the job here.
Approaches to concurrent programming
Tags: tech, multithreading
This is a neat broad introduction about the problems you will encounter when multiple threads are involved and how to approach them.
https://underlap.org/approaches-to-concurrent-programming
Why You Shouldn’t Forget to Optimize the Data Layout
Tags: tech, cpu, performance, memory
Data layout is essential for performance reasons. It is too often overlooked. If you want real speed you need to help the memory subsystem.
https://cedardb.com/blog/optimizing_data_layouts/
Building Real-Time Global Illumination
Tags: tech, gpu, graphics, shader
Another good tutorial about global illumination. Make sure to read part 2 as well.
Transforming colors with matrices
Tags: tech, colors, shader
Neat little introduction on color manipulation using matrices. Mentions the things to pay attention to.
https://lisyarus.github.io/blog/posts/transforming-colors-with-matrices.html
The Data Visualisation Catalogue
Tags: tech, data-visualization
Nice catalogue of ideas for data visualisation tasks.
This Post Is Not About Python
Tags: tech, tech-lead, engineering, decision-making
Nice post, and indeed it’s not about Python if you read until the end. It shows that it’s important to be able to make informed choices and not just pick your tech stack based on knee-jerk reactions.
https://jerf.org/iri/post/2024/not_about_python/
Put business logic in the application, not the database
Tags: tech, databases, design, performance
I’m not sure I’m sold on this one. Interesting food for thought but I’ll have to mull it over for a while I think. I’m concerned about the performance implications of querying like this.
Understanding and effectively mitigating code review anxiety
Tags: tech, codereview, psychology, cognition, anxiety, research
Still very early days on this topic, clearly more studies are required. Still this one is interesting and indicates are clear link between code review anxiety and code review avoidance. If you’re often procrastinating or rubber stamping code reviews, a workshop to reduce biases and showing you can manage your anxiety could improve things greatly.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10664-024-10550-9
From software to reality?
Tags: tech, science
The latest Nobel prizes indeed say something about the presence of computer scientists in other fields. Do we risk to delve too much on theoretical model? For sure using computers helps a lot, we have to be careful about not loosing empirical validation in the process.
https://lemire.me/blog/2024/10/09/from-software-to-reality/
Bye for now!