Programming and Standards

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Sep 03, 2024

• Fred Herbert ☛ My Blog Engine is the Erlang Build Tool

  Basically, a static site is the best technology for me, but from time to time it’s nice to be able to update the layout, add some features (like syntax highlighting or an RSS feed) so it needs to be better than flat HTML files.

  Internally it runs with erlydtl, an Erlang implementation of Django Templates, which I really liked a decade and a half ago. It supports template inheritance, which is really neat to minimize files I have to edit. All I have is a bunch of files containing my posts, a few of these templates, and a little bit of Rebar3 config tying them together.

  There are some features that erlydtl doesn’t support but that I wanted anyway, notably syntax highlighting (without JavaScript), markdown support, and including subsections of HTML files (a weird corner case to support RSS feeds without powering them with a database).

  The feature I want to discuss here is “only rebuild what you strictly need to,” which I covered by using the Rebar3 compiler.

• Federal News Network ☛ Army set to require SBOMs for new software by early next year

  After nearly two years of gathering feedback from industry, Doug Bush, the Army’s top acquisition official, signed a memo that orders the service’s procurement community to begin incorporating software bills of materials (SBOMs) into most new contracts that involve software.

  The directive gives the Army 90 days to develop implementation guidance for SBOMs, including sample language for requiring them in contracts. Once that’s done, individual program offices will have another 90 days before they’ll have to add those requirements, including for subcontractors.

• As New Month Commences GNU/Linux Blasts Through 4.96%, a 0.44% Increase in a Few Weeks

  That's a bigger increase than we expected

• Perl / Raku

  • Rakulang ☛ Rakudo Weekly 2024.36 On TOP

    Tim Nelson has published a generic introduction to Table-Oriented Programming and an overview of the implementation status / plans in the Raku Programming Language. Cool to see old ideas getting a revival push in a modern programming language! (lobste.rs comments).

• Python

  • Simon Willison ☛ uvtrick

    Having created the temporary Python file it executes the program using a command something like this: [...]

  • Simon Willison ☛ Anatomy of a Textual User Interface

    The entire implementation is just 77 lines of code. It includes PEP 723 inline dependency information: [...]

  • Textualize Inc ☛ Anatomy of a Textual User Interface

    I recently wrote a TUI to chat to an AI agent in the terminal. I'm not the first to do this (shout out to Elia and Paita), but I may be the first to have it reply as if it were the AI from the Aliens movies?

  • Redowan Delowar ☛ Shades of testing HTTP requests in Python

    That’s quite a bit of work just to test a simple HTTP request. The mocking gets pretty hairy as the complexity of your HTTP calls increases. One way to cut down the mess is by using a library like respx2 that handles the patching for you.

• Standards/Consortia

  • Kevin Boone ☛ They don’t make ’em like that any more: the 3.5mm headphone jack socket

    Now, of course, I do own wireless headphones and earbuds – I think almost everybody does. I also own several of those irritating USB dongles, that provide a 3.5mm port for devices that don’t have one. But here’s the problem: I can’t use my Bluetooth earbuds while they’re charging. And I can’t easily charge my phone whilst it’s connected to the USB dongle. In a critical-care facility, it’s hard enough to find one free mains socket to connect a charger to, let alone two.

  • Ruben Schade ☛ SATA as a legacy connector

    SATA has been a dead-end in the data centre and workstations for a while in lieu of SAS-connected SSDs, hard drives, and LTO. Part of me expected that tech to eventually enter the home, but it seems the data centre is moving to direct PCIe, and gamers are using M.2/U.2 instead.

  • RIPE ☛ Mikhail Anisimov: Developing the DNS Under Pressure

    Being at the core of the Internet places the DNS under a lot of pressure. New forms of DNS abuse emerge each year, disputes over domain names persist, and all the while, the Internet just keeps getting bigger. Mikhail Anisimov from ICANN talks about the coordinated effort involved in meeting these challenges and shares his views on DNS in Central Asia.