Programming Leftovers

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Aug 12, 2025

• Rlang ☛ RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation) in R with ragnar workshop

  Join our workshop on RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation) in R with ragnar, which is a part of our workshops for Ukraine series! 

• Rlang ☛ A Personal Message from an Open Source Contributor

  Dear fellow developers and data scientists,
  If everyone reading this gave just the price of a coffee, I could focus fully on the open source work that serves our community. But not everyone can or will contribute, and that’s okay.

• Rlang ☛ Adding Shiny app’s parameters to the URL

  Shiny allows to use all of R to visualize information, no matter if it is a sophisticated statistical model or a simple plot.

• Jan Piet Mens ☛ Jan-Piet Mens :: Git credentials helper

  When I recently began using Opengist, I wanted to be able to clone gist repositories to the file system so as to update their files, commit them, and push them back. I purposely disabled SSH access to my Opengist server, leaving HTTPS as the method of choice, but how to automate credential submission?

• Cory Dransfeldt ☛ My preferred GitHub alternative

  Terrifying stuff!

  If you want a no-maintenance alternative, I'd highly recommend Codeberg. It's non-profit and community-led. If you go this route, donate to them (if you're in a position to do so). Running infrastructure is not free.

• Jim Nielsen ☛ Sit On Your Ass Web Development

  But I also think there’s a valuable lesson in Charlie’s insight. You don’t have to chase “the market” of every new framework or API, writing endless glue code for features that already exist or that will soon exist in browsers. Instead, you can make a few select, large bets on the web platform and then “sit on your ass” until the payoff comes later!

• Joel Chrono ☛ More small website changes

  I almost miss the post for today, so I wanted to at least write a listicle of some changes I've made this weekend

• Perl / Raku

  • Rakulang ☛ Rakudo Weekly 2025.32 Cyber Resilience

    Liz’s Corner Liz sets out the path Towards more accountability of Raku programs and sheds some light on the mysterious work she’s been doing with SBOM and its friends.

• Python

  • HowTo Geek ☛ Python Data Basics: How to Plow Through Data Quickly

    Python is a popular general-purpose language, but it's increasingly favored for statistics, data analysis, and data science. If you have a basic knowledge of statistics, how can you apply that to Python? Here's how to get started sifting through data with Python faster than you ever could by hand.

    Why Python for Data?

    While Python is popular for data analysis, you might wonder why you might want to use Python instead of a spreadsheet like Excel, LibreOffice Calc, or Google Sheets.

    The main reason to use Python is that you get a lot more options than what's included in most spreadsheets. Spreadsheets are primarily designed for business and financial calculations. You can perform more advanced calculations with Python, since you can tap into Python's large number of libraries.

• Java/Golang

  • Linuxiac ☛ How to Install Java on AlmaLinux 10: A Step-by-Step Guide

    AlmaLinux is a rock-solid, server-focused distribution from the enterprise Linux family—perfect for anyone who wants a stable, predictable platform they can count on. And while it’s built with servers in mind, it also works very well as a desktop system.

    Now, if you’re a Java developer or just need a reliable environment to run your Java applications and have chosen Alma 10 for a platform, the first question you’re probably asking is: How do I install Java on AlmaLinux? Well, you’re in the right place.

  • Anton Zhiyanov ☛ Building blocks for idiomatic Go pipelines

    I've created a Go package called chans that offers generic channel operations to make it easier to build concurrent pipelines. It aims to be flexible, unopinionated, and composable, without over-abstracting or taking control away from the developer.

    Here's a toy example: [...]