Interesting thoughts from Hillel Wayne on how to get more from syntax highlighting.
Being context-aware is usually a good thing; the difficulty often arises when determining context: either it’s done automatically, with all the errors inherent in trying to guess that, or it’s a manual process, at which point it becomes something that you have to get in the habit of using (or not, as often ends up being the case). But I definitely think there’s something to the idea.
Interesting deep dive into popular modern applications’ performance from a perspective of offline-availability, ownership and longevity, with a proposal for a new (to me) model, Conflict-free Replicated Data Types (CRDT).
I remain unconvinced that something like the hyper-collaborative experience of Google Docs can be replicated under anything except an always-online paradigm; on the other hand, I have yet to see that experience used productively – it’s a good demo, but not very useful in my eyes.
I’m late to the game, but Netflix recently added a long overdue toggle to prevent those blaring previews.
This also prompted me to check for YouTube, and they have a similar toggle, although it’s for some reason only available on iOS [and iPad OS, presumably].
Intriguing flow described by Tantek Çelik. I think fully offline is a fantastic goal, but I always fear that the practical problems of syncing algorithms get in the way (some changes simply aren’t mergeable).
I for years have been trying to find something to replace WordPress, which has turned into a tool that offers far more functionality than I actually need for my lowly blog, at the expense of making publishing far too complex. Static site generators are interesting (even if they sometimes seem over-engineered), but I really want something I can post to from multiple locations.
I’m a few years younger than eevee, but I can relate to most of the struggles here, and it very much mirrors my experience, frustrations and all.
Interesting article by Payal Arora in Quartz about dispelling some of the techno-optimism applied to the developing world.
Although it starts out with the sentiment The shocking result from years of studying how the global poor engage with new applications is that they are like us
, I found some interesting revelations regarding ways of showing status and feeling special on Western social networks.
Super interesting, albeit completely unscientific, look at the history of programming languages, and the way different categories of programmers have switched from one to the other.
Some great advice from Cindy Sridharan on how to write code optimised for others to read, that greatest of Knuthian pursuits.
I generally like Existential Comics, but I particularly enjoy the Marx ones.
