2025-08-21
A Brief Guide to A Few Algebraic Structures
argumatronic.com/posts/2019-06-21-algebra-cheatsheet.htmlI 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.
2025-06-12
Always do Extra
www.bennorthrop.com/Essays/2021/always-do-extra.phpExtra 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
The Ingredients of a Productive Monorepo
blog.swgillespie.me/posts/monorepo-ingredients2025-01-07
Write your own tiny programming system(s)!
d3s.mff.cuni.cz/teaching/nprg0772024-12-31
Idiosyncra
exple.tive.org/blarg/2024/12/29/idiosyncraInteresting setup for pet computers. Debian + sway + cage
2024-12-17
Using Nix to Try Tools
entropicthoughts.com/using-nix-to-try-tools2024-11-07
Proposal for a Django project template
david.guillot.me/en/posts/tech/proposal-for-a-django-project-templateMy 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.
2024-09-16
Wayland: i3 to Sway migration
anarc.at/software/desktop/wayland2024-07-05
JavaScript-Free Sidenotes in Hugo
danilafe.com/blog/sidenotes2024-06-28
Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide
tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/index.html2024-06-24
Counting Immutable Beans: Reference Counting Optimized for Purely Functional Programming
arxiv.org/abs/1908.05647Most 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
Understanding a Python closure oddity
utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/python/UnderstandingClosureOddity2024-06-14
pounce - IRC bouncer
git.causal.agency/pounce/about2024-06-13
Category Theory for Programmers: The Preface
bartoszmilewski.com/2014/10/28/category-theory-for-programmers-the-prefaceCategory Theory in Context
math.jhu.edu/~eriehl/context.pdfAvoid Linux locking up in low memory situations using earlyoom
dataswamp.org/~solene/2022-09-28-earlyoom.htmlThis article presents the program earlyoom to prevent a Linux system to lock up in low memory situations.
Optimal SQLite settings for Django
gcollazo.com/optimal-sqlite-settings-for-djangoThere’s plenty of information out there on how to scale Django to handle numerous requests per second, but most of it…
2024-06-11
Self-serve dashboards
briefer.cloud/blog/posts/self-serve-bi-mythSales pitches are the only place where “self-serve dashboards" work. In the real world, it's a different story.
Why "business" people don't use metabase/power-bi.
Go evolves in the wrong direction
valyala.medium.com/go-evolves-in-the-wrong-direction-7dfda8a1a620Go 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.
2024-06-10
On Dependency Usage in Rust
landaire.net/on-dependency-usage-in-rustRust and Node aren't bad for encouraging dependency use -- your favorite language's tools just suck.