2022-12-25

So the "master" branch is not kosher anymore


The origins of the debate go so far back that they are lost in the mists of time, but a good starting point (which contains references to prior debate) is an Internet Draft from 2018 titled Terminology, Power, and Inclusive Language in Internet-Drafts and RFCs. Some especially woke communities like the Python community had already started applying some of the recommendations in this draft as early as 2019, but things really picked up steam in 2020, with the murder of George Floyd.

2022-12-18

On messages and message-passing

Over the decades, numerous software system architectures have emerged which require invocations across subsystems to be done via message-passing instead of programmatic interface method calls. Such architectures are so common that many programmers have come to regard message-passing as an end in and of itself, oblivious of the fact that it is nothing but a (poor) technical mechanism for accomplishing a certain architectural goal.

2022-12-11

Intertwine

The Intertwine Logo, by michael.gr

Abstract

A mechanism is described for automatically converting method invocations of any programmatic interface into a single-method normal form and converting back to invocations of the original interface, so that general-purpose operations can be performed on the normal form without explicit knowledge of the interface being invoked. Implementations are provided for C# and for Java.

2022-12-05

Jeff Atwood: Building Social Software for the Antisocial


This is only of interest to people who are into Stack Overflow.

Have you ever wondered why Stack Overflow is exactly the way it is? Here are some insights.

(Note: this presentation violates one of the cardinal rules of presentations, which is to avoid long texts, so here is a tip: ignore every screen that contains a long text, just listen to what Jeff Atwood is saying.)

Note: as I look at him, I can't help but think that all he is missing is the upward curved tie, i.e. he has to be the real-life person after whom Dilbert was fashioned.