20 random bookmarks

2025-09-04

133.

Beacon API

developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Beacon_API

The Beacon API is used to send an asynchronous and non-blocking request to a web server. The request does not expect a response. Unlike requests made using XMLHttpRequest or the Fetch API, the browser guarantees to initiate beacon requests before the page is unloaded and to run them to completion.

2025-08-21

129.

A Brief Guide to A Few Algebraic Structures

argumatronic.com/posts/2019-06-21-algebra-cheatsheet.html

I started writing this post because, for whatever reason, I keep forgetting what the difference is between a ring and a group, which is funny to me because I never forget the difference between a semiring and a semigroup – although other people do, because it’s quite easy to forget! So, I wanted a fast reference to the kinds of algebraic structures that I am most often dealing with in one way or another, usually because I’m writing Haskell (which has some reliance on terminology and structure from abstract algebra and category theory) or I’m trying to read a book about category theory and they keep talking about “groups.” Wikipedia, of course, defines all these structures, and that’s fine, but what I need in those times is more of a refresher than an in-depth explanation.

2025-07-03

126.

A Higgs-bugson in the Linux Kernel

blog.janestreet.com/a-higgs-bugson-in-the-linux-kernel

We recently ran across a strange higgs-bugson that manifested itself in a critical system that stores and distributes the firm’s trading activity data, called Gord. (A higgs-bugson is a bug that is reported in practice but difficult to reproduce, named for the Higgs boson, a particle which was theorized in the 1960s but only found in 2013.) In this post I’ll walk you through the process I took to debug it. I tried to write down relevant details as they came up, so see if you can guess what the bug is while reading along.

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.

2025-06-20

Reposted 122.

Cursed Knowledge | Immich

immich.app/cursed-knowledge

Things we wish we didn't know

2025-03-21

103.

Life Altering Postgresql Patterns

mccue.dev/pages/3-11-25-life-altering-postgresql-patterns

2025-01-09

97.

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

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

2025-01-07

96.

Write your own tiny programming system(s)!

d3s.mff.cuni.cz/teaching/nprg077

2024-12-17

90.

Using Nix to Try Tools

entropicthoughts.com/using-nix-to-try-tools

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.

2024-08-28

69.

There can't be only one

www.b-list.org/weblog/2024/aug/27/highlander-problem

There's a concept that I've heard called by a lot of different names, but my favorite name for it is …

2024-06-24

52.

Counting Immutable Beans: Reference Counting Optimized for Purely Functional Programming

arxiv.org/abs/1908.05647

Most functional languages rely on some garbage collection for automatic memory management. They usually eschew reference counting in favor of a tracing garbage collector, which has less bookkeeping overhead at runtime. On the other hand, having an exact reference count of each value can enable optimizations, such as destructive updates. We explore these optimization opportunities in the context of an eager, purely functional programming language. We propose a new mechanism for efficiently reclaiming memory used by nonshared values, reducing stress on the global memory allocator. We describe an approach for minimizing the number of reference counts updates using borrowed references and a heuristic for automatically inferring borrow annotations. We implemented all these techniques in a new compiler for an eager and purely functional programming language with support for multi-threading. Our preliminary experimental results demonstrate our approach is competitive and often outperforms state-of-the-art compilers.

2024-06-18

40.

Understanding SPF, DKIM, and DMARC: A Simple Guide

github.com/nicanorflavier/spf-dkim-dmarc-simplified

2024-06-14

33.

A useful shell prompt

blog.meain.io/2022/my-shell-prompt

Featureful zsh prompt.

29.

pounce - IRC bouncer

git.causal.agency/pounce/about

2024-06-13

26.

The magic of dependency resolution

ochagavia.nl/blog/the-magic-of-dependency-resolution
14.

Optimal SQLite settings for Django

gcollazo.com/optimal-sqlite-settings-for-django

There’s plenty of information out there on how to scale Django to handle numerous requests per second, but most of it…

2024-06-12

12.

I really like the RP2040

dgroshev.com/blog/rp2040

2024-06-11

9.

Exploring Gleam, a type-safe language on the BEAM!

christopher.engineering/en/blog/gleam-overview

From Erlang, to Elixir and now, GLEAM!?

8.

gamja: Simple IRC web client

sr.ht/~emersion/gamja