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.

123.

Box combinators

mmapped.blog/posts/41-box-combinators.html

In functional programming,
combinator libraries refer to a design style that emphasizes bottom-up program construction.
Such libraries define a few core data types
and provide constructors—functions that create initial objects—and combinators—functions that build larger objects from smaller pieces.

Combinators enable the programmer to use intuitive visual and spatial reasoning
that’s vastly more powerful than linear language processing.
As a result, solving problems with combinators feels like playing with lego pieces.

2025-05-23

110.

honk

humungus.tedunangst.com/r/honk

Take control of your honks and join the federation.
An ActivityPub server with minimal setup and support costs.
Spend more time using the software and less time operating it.

2025-05-15

109.

Speculation in JavaScriptCore

webkit.org/blog/10308/speculation-in-javascriptcore

This post is all about speculative compilation, or just speculation for short, in the context of the JavaScriptCore virtual machine.

2025-03-21

103.

Life Altering Postgresql Patterns

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

2024-12-17

91.

Advent of Code on the Nintendo DS

sailor.li/aocnds.html

Solving AoC on the DS with Rust.

90.

Using Nix to Try Tools

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

2024-10-10

81.

Gnome Files: A detailed UI examination | datagubbe.se

www.datagubbe.se/gnomefiles

2024-09-17

75.

Master hexagonal architecture in Rust

www.howtocodeit.com/articles/master-hexagonal-architecture-rust

Everything you need to write flexible, future-proof Rust applications using hexagonal architecture.

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

2024-08-28

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 …

2024-08-15

66.

Planning Weekly Workouts in 100 lines of Haskell

alt-romes.github.io/posts/2024-08-14-planning-a-workout-week-with-100-lines-of-haskell.html

A lightning post on logic programming in Haskell to construct a workout weekly schedule given the set of exercises, days and constraints.

2024-07-05

60.

JavaScript-Free Sidenotes in Hugo

danilafe.com/blog/sidenotes

2024-06-26

54.

You probably wrote half a monad by accident

gieseanw.wordpress.com/2024/06/25/you-probably-wrote-half-a-monad-by-accident

2024-06-24

51.

Deriving Dependently-Typed OOP from First Principles -- Extended Version with Additional Appendices

arxiv.org/abs/2403.06707

The expression problem describes how most types can easily be extended with new ways to produce the type or new ways to consume the type, but not both. When abstract syntax trees are defined as an algebraic data type, for example, they can easily be extended with new consumers, such as print or eval, but adding a new constructor requires the modification of all existing pattern matches. The expression problem is one way to elucidate the difference between functional or data-oriented programs (easily extendable by new consumers) and object-oriented programs (easily extendable by new producers). This difference between programs which are extensible by new producers or new consumers also exists for dependently typed programming, but with one core difference: Dependently-typed programming almost exclusively follows the functional programming model and not the object-oriented model, which leaves an interesting space in the programming language landscape unexplored. In this paper, we explore the field of dependently-typed object-oriented programming by deriving it from first principles using the principle of duality. That is, we do not extend an existing object-oriented formalism with dependent types in an ad-hoc fashion, but instead start from a familiar data-oriented language and derive its dual fragment by the systematic use of defunctionalization and refunctionalization. Our central contribution is a dependently typed calculus which contains two dual language fragments. We provide type- and semantics-preserving transformations between these two language fragments: defunctionalization and refunctionalization. We have implemented this language and these transformations and use this implementation to explain the various ways in which constructions in dependently typed programming can be explained as special instances of the phenomenon of duality.

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

33.

A useful shell prompt

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

Featureful zsh prompt.

2024-06-13

25.

Solving SAT via Positive Supercompilation

hirrolot.github.io/posts/sat-supercompilation.html
22.

API Tokens: A Tedious Survey

fly.io/blog/api-tokens-a-tedious-survey

Comparison between types of API tokens.

15.

OpenBSD extreme privacy setup

dataswamp.org/~solene/2024-06-08-openbsd-privacy-setup.html

In this article, you will learn how to install and configure OpenBSD to reduce its network activity over clearnet