20 random bookmarks

2025-06-26

124.

The plan-execute pattern

mmapped.blog/posts/29-plan-execute.html

I feel uneasy about design patterns.
On the one hand, my university class on design patterns revived my interest in programming.
On the other hand, I find most patterns in the Gang of Four book to be irrelevant to my daily work;
they solve problems that a choice of programming language or paradigm creates.

My litmus test of a good design pattern is its cross-disciplinary applicability.
I’m more likely to accept an idea that pops up in fields beyond software engineering.
And the most convincing patterns are the ones that help me in everyday life.

This article describes a universal pattern that billions of people rely on daily, but software engineers rarely discuss—the plan-execute pattern.

2025-06-18

120.

zb beta released

www.zombiezen.com/blog/2025/06/zb-beta-release

zb is a tool for reproducibly building software, similar to Bazel.
(See the comparison page if you’re curious to know the differences.)
When a software build process is reproducible,
it will produce the exact same output
when given the same inputs.
Reproducibility is a desirable property for a software build process to have:
it simplifies debugging,
it enables build speed-ups,
and it is essential for digital supply chain security.
However, reproducibility is a difficult goal to achieve.

2025-06-16

118.

CSS Classes considered harmful

www.keithcirkel.co.uk/css-classes-considered-harmful

The solution to all of these problems

I humbly put forward that modern web development provides us all the utilities to move away from class names and implement something much more robust, with some fairly straightforward changes:

Attributes

Attributes allow us to parameterise a component using a key-value representation, very similar to Map<string, T>. Browsers come with a wealth of selector functions to parse the values of an attribute.

2025-06-12

116.

Always do Extra

www.bennorthrop.com/Essays/2021/always-do-extra.php

Extra is different than More. Extra is finishing those two screens, but then researching a new library for form validation that might reduce the boilerplate code. Or it's learning ways to protect against common security vulnerabilities from data entry. These little off-ramps from the main highway of Normal Work could be dead-ends and not have any practical value to the project. But they might also be important contributions. And that's the thing with Extra. While the tangible value to the project is uncertain (it could be nothing this time or it could be something), the value to you is real.

2025-04-04

104.

Pitfalls of Safe Rus

corrode.dev/blog/pitfalls-of-safe-rust

When people say Rust is a “safe language”, they often mean memory safety.
And while memory safety is a great start, it’s far from all it takes to build robust applications.
Memory safety is important but not sufficient for overall r…

2025-01-09

97.

if got, want: A Simple Way to Write Better Go Tests

mtlynch.io/if-got-want-improve-go-tests

2024-11-22

89.

New stuff in Emacs 30

www.mgmarlow.com/words/2024-07-28-emacs-30-news

Reading through the Emacs 30 NEWS file and picking
out the stuff I think is the most interesting.

2024-11-04

86.

Writing secure Go code

jarosz.dev/article/writing-secure-go-code

Security testing starts with understanding vulnerabilities. The CVE website lists known software flaws. The OWASP Top Ten highlights common weaknesses. With this knowledge, we can improve our Go development. This article shows how to put in place robust practices. They are to: fuzz inputs, verify dependencies, and use static analysis tools (SAST).

2024-10-21

84.

init.py files are optional. Here’s why you should still use them

dev.arie.bovenberg.net/blog/still-use-init-py

2024-09-02

70.

Parsing awk is tricky

www.raygard.net/awkdoc/pages/awk_parsing_is_tricky.html

A somewhat compact implementation of the awk programming language

2024-08-14

65.

A Flexible Minimalist Neovim for 2024

wickstrom.tech/2024-08-12-a-flexible-minimalist-neovim.html

2024-07-05

60.

JavaScript-Free Sidenotes in Hugo

danilafe.com/blog/sidenotes

2024-06-21

49.

On testing Go code using the standard library | Henrique Vicente

henvic.dev/posts/testing-go

Most programming language ecosystems provide assert functions in their testing libraries but not Go's. Go's standard testing package follows a more direct and to-the-point approach.

2024-06-19

44.

Aurora - Python Static Site Generator

aurora.jamesg.blog

Aurora: An extensible, Python-based static site generator.

2024-06-17

35.

OpenBSD, the computer appliance maker's secret weapon

hiandrewquinn.github.io/til-site/posts/openbsd-the-computer-appliance-maker-s-secret-weapon

Between our ESP32 prokaryotic organisms and our 24/7 Internet-enabled megafauna servers, there exists a vast and loosely-defined ecosystem of things the B2B world likes to call computer appliances. Picture a bespoke Pi 4 packaged up neatly with some Python scripts, a little fancy plastic embossing, and maybe a well-guarded id_ed25519.pub in case you end up in hot water during the (long - very long, stable cash flow for generations long) maintenance contract, and you’re in the ballpark.

2024-06-14

30.

litterbox - IRC logger

git.causal.agency/litterbox/about

2024-06-13

27.

Category Theory for Programmers: The Preface

bartoszmilewski.com/2014/10/28/category-theory-for-programmers-the-preface
19.

A simple, arena-backed, generic dynamic array for C

nullprogram.com/blog/2023/10/05

2024-06-12

13.

My experience crafting an interpreter with Rust

ceronman.com/2021/07/22/my-experience-crafting-an-interpreter-with-rust

Last year I finally decided to learn some Rust. The official book by Steve Klabnik and Carol Nichols is excellent, but even after reading it and working on some small code exercises, I felt that I …

2024-06-11

6.

Go evolves in the wrong direction

valyala.medium.com/go-evolves-in-the-wrong-direction-7dfda8a1a620

Go programming language is known to be easy to use. Thanks to its well-thought syntax, features and tooling, Go allows writing easy-to-read…

Hard disagree on this one, but still interesting.