20 random bookmarks

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.

2025-06-26

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.

2025-06-17

119.

Debugging tricks for IntelliJ

andreabergia.com/blog/2025/06/debugging-tricks-for-intellij

I have been using IntelliJ Idea at work for a decade or so by now, and it’s been a reliable companion. JetBrains IDEs have a bit of a reputation for being slow, but their feature set is incredible: powerful refactoring tools, a great VCS UI (though I like magit even more!), a huge number of supported frameworks, integration with just about any testing library for any language, code coverage tools, powerful debuggers, etc.

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.

2025-05-28

114.

SAT Live!

localhost:4000

2025-04-29

106.

No-engine gamedev using Odin + Raylib

zylinski.se/posts/no-engine-gamedev-using-odin-and-raylib

Games can be made in many different ways. Many games are made using big, general purpose game engines such as Unity and Godot. I enjoy using the Odin Programming Language combined with Raylib.
Odin is a C-like programming language and Raylib is library for drawing graphics, checking input and playing sounds. So it’s just a program that uses a simple library, no engine!
There are no objectively best ways to create games.

2025-04-24

105.

Instrumenting Axum projects

determinate.systems/posts/instrumenting-axum

2025-03-18

102.

CASCII - ASCII Diagram Builder

cascii.app

A well-equipped ASCII diagram builders freely available on the internet.
It stresses portability, simplicity, and immediateness.

2025-01-07

96.

Write your own tiny programming system(s)!

d3s.mff.cuni.cz/teaching/nprg077

2024-12-31

95.

Idiosyncra

exple.tive.org/blarg/2024/12/29/idiosyncra

Interesting setup for pet computers. Debian + sway + cage

2024-12-17

92.

Building GBA Games in Rust

shanesnover.com/2024/02/07/intro-to-rust-on-gba.html
91.

Advent of Code on the Nintendo DS

sailor.li/aocnds.html

Solving AoC on the DS with Rust.

2024-11-07

87.

Proposal for a Django project template

david.guillot.me/en/posts/tech/proposal-for-a-django-project-template

My take on what could be a project template for Django advanced usage, with modern tooling (for Python and UI dependencies, as well as configuration/environment management), but not too opinionated.

2024-09-19

77.

Blogging in Djot instead of Markdown

www.jonashietala.se/blog/2024/02/02/blogging_in_djot_instead_of_markdown

2024-09-16

74.

Wayland: i3 to Sway migration

anarc.at/software/desktop/wayland

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.

50.

Microfeatures I Love in Blogs and Personal Websites

danilafe.com/blog/blog_microfeatures

In this post, I talk about pleasant but seemingly minor features in personal sites

2024-06-13

24.

Category Theory in Context

math.jhu.edu/~eriehl/context.pdf

2024-06-12

12.

I really like the RP2040

dgroshev.com/blog/rp2040

2024-06-11

8.

gamja: Simple IRC web client

sr.ht/~emersion/gamja