A look at three relics of a not-quite-bygone era. In picture-listicle form. As technologists, we’re constantly gulping from the bleeding-edge firehose: new versions, new standards, new frameworks, new paradigms. This is largely a good thing. Most advances offer a tangible improvement over the status quo. Specialization (e.g. recent Bachelors Degrees in AI) speeds the advanceContinue reading “Technical Time Travel: On Vintage Programming Books”
Author Archives: gx
HOT DOG Linux: Live Image Based on Slackware Live
The design goals of HOT DOG Linux include: Graphical user interface based on retro computer systems including Windows 3.1 Hot Dog Stand, Amiga Workbench, Atari ST GEM, and Mac Classic and Aqua Custom lightweight Objective-C foundation Bitmapped graphics, low DPI displays No Unicode support by design HOT DOG Linux uses a custom lightweight Objective-C foundationContinue reading “HOT DOG Linux: Live Image Based on Slackware Live”
CSS-Tricks is joining DigitalOcean
CSS-Tricks, this very website you’re looking at, has been acquired by DigitalOcean! Read more…
Demand for ornamental plants is ravaging South Africa’s rare desert flora
Poachers in South Africa raid farmers’ lands for Conophytum, rare succulents coveted by ornamental plant collectors. Confiscated conos, such as these Conophytum comptonii, are kept in secure greenhouses rather than replanted in the wild. Read more…
System: Free, open, and living public resource that aims to explain how anything in the world is connected
Today, System comprises thousands of relationships between hundreds of topics, and counting. As the world becomes increasingly complex and interdependent, our vision is to statistically relate everything as one system. We believe that seeing the whole system will help us all make better decisions — at home, at work, and as a society. Read more…
Go 1.18 is released
Today the Go team is thrilled to release Go 1.18, which you can get by visiting the download page. Go 1.18 is a massive release that includes new features, performance improvements, and our biggest change ever to the language. It isn’t a stretch to say that the design for parts of Go 1.18 started overContinue reading “Go 1.18 is released”
Are Legendary Music Catalogues Really Worth the Money?
$550 million. That’s the reported amount of money the Boss himself, Bruce Springsteen, commanded when he sold his recorded work and songwriting rights — or, to put it simply, the rights to his entire body of music — in a blockbuster deal last year. The sale was the largest ever for a musician’s catalogue, andContinue reading “Are Legendary Music Catalogues Really Worth the Money?”
Type Polymorphic Functions In TypeScript
JavaScript allows functions to work flexibly when the arguments passed are of different types and/or at different positions: The useState Hook lets you pass an initial value or a function for lazy initialization, or you can skip it altogether and pass nothing to it. The query API from node-postgres accepts an optional callback function andContinue reading “Type Polymorphic Functions In TypeScript”
Strype, a frame-based editor
Frame-based editing combines the benefits of text-based editing and block-based editing. It offers similar avoidance of syntax errors and discoverability as block-based systems, while providing readability and flexibility of editing similar to text editors. Python-like programs are written by inserting frames, using a single key command, which represent a complete statement in the language. NoContinue reading “Strype, a frame-based editor”
New WebKit Features in Safari 15.4
With over 70 additions to WebKit, Safari 15.4 is packed with new web technologies, updates, and fixes. We’ve assembled a huge release as part of our commitment to web developers, and the people who use the web. This is the first big WebKit release of 2022, and we’re just getting started. Safari 15.4 is availableContinue reading “New WebKit Features in Safari 15.4”
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