Blogs

Let’s go for my web review for the week 2024-29.


The graying open source community needs fresh blood • The Register

Tags: tech, foss, community

This is indeed a problem. Somehow it became much harder to attract younger developers.

https://www.theregister.com/2024/07/15/opinion_open_source_attract_devs/


“Privacy-Preserving” Attribution: Mozilla Disappoints Us Yet Again

Tags: tech, browser, mozilla, privacy

You’d expect Mozilla to know better. This is disappointing, they’re no living up to their responsibility.

https://blog.privacyguides.org/2024/07/14/mozilla-disappoints-us-yet-again-2/


Commission sends preliminary findings to X for breach of DSA

Tags: tech, twitter, social-media, law

The European Commission starts showing it’s muscles. Twitter is an obvious one to pursue since it became the X cesspool.

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_24_3761


Goldman Sachs: AI Is Overhyped, Wildly Expensive, and Unreliable

Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, gpt, economics, ecology, criticism

I’m rarely on the side of a Goldman Sachs… Still this paper seems to be spot on. The equation between the costs (financial and ecological) and the value we get out of generative AI isn’t balanced at all. Also, since it is stuck on trying to improve mostly on model scale and amount of data it is doomed to plateau in its current form.

https://www.404media.co/goldman-sachs-ai-is-overhyped-wildly-expensive-and-unreliable/


Facebook Is the ‘Zombie Internet’

Tags: tech, ai, social-media, facebook

Or examples of the collapse of a shared reality. This has nothing to do with “social” media anymore. Very nice investigation in any case.

https://www.404media.co/email/24eb6cea-6fa6-4b98-a2d2-8c4ba33d6c04/


AT&T says criminals stole phone records of ‘nearly all’ customers in new data breach

Tags: tech, security, leak

Wow! This is a really bad data breach. Apparently related to the recent data theft on the Snowflake end.

https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/12/att-phone-records-stolen-data-breach/


git-pr: A new git collaboration service

Tags: tech, git, codereview, tools

Interesting approach to building a new code review system. I somehow doubt it’ll get traction unfortunately but it has nice ideas baked in.

https://pr.pico.sh/


gpu.cpp: portable GPU compute for C++ with WebGPU – Answer.AI

Tags: tech, c++, gpu, computation

Looks like an interesting library to build portable GPU compute workloads. Cleverly tries to leverage WebGPU.

https://www.answer.ai/posts/2024-07-11–gpu-cpp.html


C++ Design Patterns For Low-Latency Applications

Tags: tech, c++, performance, optimization, pattern

A paper listing patterns to reduce latency as much as possible. There are lesser known tricks in there.

https://hackaday.com/2024/07/13/c-design-patterns-for-low-latency-applications/


22 Common Filesystem Tasks in C++20

Tags: tech, c++

Nice little reference of what can be done with std::filesystem.

https://www.cppstories.com/2024/common-filesystem-cpp20/


C++ Must Become Safer

Tags: tech, c++, safety, memory

Definitely this. C++ isn’t going away anytime soon. Rewrites won’t be worth it in important cases, so improving the safety of the language matters.

https://www.alilleybrinker.com/blog/cpp-must-become-safer/


Django Migration Operations aka how to rename Models

Tags: tech, django, databases

Django doesn’t always generate the migration you’d expect. Read them before going to production. Also it’s fine to adjust them.

https://micro.webology.dev/2024/07/15/django-migration-operations.html


Gotchas with SQLite in Production

Tags: tech, backend, sqlite, databases

Where are the limitations of using SQLite in production for web applications? Here is a good list.

https://blog.pecar.me/sqlite-prod


SQLite Transactions

Tags: tech, databases, sqlite

Some improvements coming in SQLite transactions. Here are some early tests.

https://reorchestrate.com/posts/sqlite-transactions/


Tests you love to read, write and change

Tags: tech, tests

Three good advices on writing automated tests. This is necessary but not sufficient though.

https://jaywhy13.hashnode.dev/tests-you-love-to-read-write-and-change


Lessons learned in 35 years of making software – Jim Grey

Tags: tech, career

Quite a few good lessons in there. Again it’s more about social skills than technical skills.

https://dev.jimgrey.net/2024/07/03/lessons-learned-in-35-years-of-making-software/


Story Points are Pointless, Measure Queues

Tags: tech, project-management, product-management, estimates, agile

A bit long and a couple of mistakes when pointing out the flaws of story points. Still, it’s definitely a worthwhile read. Quite a lot of the criticism of story points is warranted and the proposed approach based on queue theory is welcome. This is stuff you can find in Kanban like approaches and mature XP.

https://www.brightball.com/articles/story-points-are-pointless-measure-queues


Managing Underperformers | Jack Danger

Tags: management

Nice advices to deal with underperforming teams or individuals. Making the distinction between refusal to align or failure to execute is particularly useful.

https://jackdanger.com/managing-underperformers/


All I Need to Know About Engineering Leadership I Learned From Leave No Trace - Jacob Kaplan-Moss

Tags: tech, leadership, engineering, ecology, funny

Funny experiment at drawing parallels between engineering leadership and how you should behave when hiking in nature. This works surprisingly well.

https://jacobian.org/2024/jul/12/lnt-for-engineering-leadership/


Progress can be slow

Tags: work, life, improving, coaching, habits

This one is more self-help than I’m usually comfortable with… somehow something rung true to me with it. It’s indeed a good reminder that changing habits takes a while. It’s an exercise in patience and there are good reasons for it.

https://jeanhsu.substack.com/p/progress-can-be-slow?isFreemail=true&post_id=146457673


German Navy still uses 8-inch floppy disks, working on emulating a replacement | Ars Technica

Tags: tech, hardware, storage, history

We keep finding floppies in use at surprising places. There’s clearly lot of inertia for technologies getting replaced.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/07/german-navy-still-uses-8-inch-floppy-disks-working-on-emulating-a-replacement/



Bye for now!