Programming Leftovers
-
Well-maintained Software
Two months ago, I was a guest on the Maintainable podcast. The first question the host Robby Russell asks is “What are a few characteristics of well-maintained software?”. This is such a great question, and I thought I would expand a bit on my answer from the show.
That software is well-maintained only matters if you need to change it. If you never have to change it, it doesn’t matter how it is done, as long as it works. However, in pretty much all cases you do need to change it. For me, well-maintained means that it is easy to change. And for the software to be easy to change, it must first be easy to understand. These are the characteristics that most help me understand how a program works: [...]
-
Dependency Resolution Made Simplea
If packages specified the exact version of every one of their dependencies, there would be no dependency resolution problem. There would however be constant dependency integration problems.
You’re writing an application that depends on libraries A and B. Library A depends on Foo v1.0.2, library B depends on Foo v1.0.3. Now you have a dependency conflict1. The brute-force solution is to vendor one of A and B and adjust their dependencies. And you may have to do this recursively. Then you miss out on improvements, security fixes, etc.
-
A simple adversarial model for dual contouring
The position of the vertex is based on Hermite data at the intersections of the cell edges and the isosurface. At each intersection, we know the position – which is somewhere on the cell edge – and the normal of the isosurface. Using the position and normal, we solve a Quadratic Error Function to find the position of the vertex.
-
Best practices and an elephant
We all agree. Okay, yes, maybe we won’t agree on what exactly is worthwhile to learn – I’m sure I can find someone out there saying one must never try CSS – but I do think the majority of you would nod if I’d say one should learn more good things. Good, proven languages; best practices; great tools.
Lately, though, I’ve been wondering: what about the bad things? Haven’t I learned a lot too from doing the big no-nos, from engaging in bad practices, by doing the opposite of what I once thought was The Right Way?
-
Security key priority in growing global threat landscape
GitLab surveyed more than 5,000 IT leaders, CISOs, and developers in industries including financial services, automotive, healthcare, telecommunications, and technology on their successes, challenges, and main priorities for DevSecOps implementation, in its annual Global DevSecOps survey - Security Without Sacrifices.
The survey, commissioned by GitLab and conducted by Savanta, reveals that: [...]
-
Rython tips and tricks – Snippets
I like Rstudio for many reasons. Outside the personal, Rstudio allows you to write both R + Python = Rython in the same script. Apart from that, the editor’s level of complexity is well-balanced, not functionality-overkill like some, nor too simplistic like some others. In this post I share how to save time with snippets (easy in Rstudio). Snippets save time by reducing the amount of typing required, it’s the most convenient way to program copy-pasting into the machine’s memory.