Programming Leftovers

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Jan 24, 2026

• Swift Programming Language ☛ Improving the usability of C libraries in Swift

  There are many interesting, useful, and fun C libraries in the software ecosystem. While one could go and rewrite these libraries in Swift, usually there is no need, because Swift provides direct interoperability with C. With a little setup, you can directly use existing C libraries from your Swift code.

  When you use a C library directly from Swift, it will look and feel similar to using it from C. That can be useful if you’re following sample code or a tutorial written in C, but it can also feel out of place. For example, here’s a small amount of code using a C API: [...]

• Max Bernstein ☛ A multi-entry CFG design conundrum

  The ZJIT compiler compiles Ruby bytecode (YARV) to machine code. It starts by transforming the stack machine bytecode into a high-level graph-based intermediate representation called HIR.

  We use a more or less typical1 control-flow graph (CFG) in HIR. We have a compilation unit, Function, which has multiple basic blocks, Block. Each block contains multiple instructions, Insn. HIR is always in SSA form, and we use the variant of SSA with block parameters instead of phi nodes.

• Cory Dransfeldt ☛ Pinning homebrew dependencies

  You learn something new every day. I've been using Homebrew for over a decade and, up until a few weeks ago, hadn't hit a case where I would not want to update something.

  What I recently encountered, however, is running my simple update alias: [...]

• Andrew Nesbitt ☛ Package Management is a Wicked Problem

  In 1973, Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber published “Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning”, introducing the concept of “wicked problems” in urban planning. These aren’t just hard problems. They’re problems where the act of trying to solve them changes what the problem is. Problems where you can’t test solutions in advance. Problems where every stakeholder has a different definition of success.

  Package management fits the definition. I’ve spent years working on package manager data and tooling, and the more I learn, the more the wicked problem framework explains why progress feels so difficult. Tens of millions of packages, hundreds of millions of versions, trillions of downloads. Small improvements at this layer affect every project built on top.

• Son Luong Ngoc ☛ Post-Agentic Code Forges

  Well, since I have spent countless hours in the last 2-3 years sketching a plan to replace GitHub and GitLab, I obviously have a take on the matter. So let’s dive in.

• [Old] Hugo Daniel ☛ Color picker

  Also, color pickers have been my testbed of some ideas and concepts, not necessarily directly related to the act of color picking per se. Color pickers also act kind of like my todo apps or hello world. Shreds of a multidisciplinary learning process loitering erratically for purpose. Calculated efforts with messed up cost-benefit evaluations.

• Linux Handbook ☛ Why Microsoft's proprietary prison GitHub ? Here's How I Push Git Repositories Straight to My GNU/Linux Server

  Git already gives you distributed version control, secure transport, hooks, branching, and collaboration. SSH fills in the rest with authentication, authorization, and auditing.

• Rlang ☛ futurize: Parallelize Common Functions via a “Magic” Touch 🪄

  I am incredibly excited to announce the release of the futurize package. This launch marks a major milestone in the decade-long journey of the Futureverse project.

• Rlang ☛ pharmaversesdtm 1.4.0 Release

  We are pleased to announce the release of {pharmaversesdtm} 1.4.0 🎉
  

• Perl / Raku

  • Perl ☛ Announcing the Perl Toolchain Summit 2026

    Announcing the Perl Toolchain Summit 2026!

    The organizers have been working behind the scenes since last September, and today I’m happy to announce that the 16th Perl Toolchain Summit will be held in Vienna, Austria, from Thursday April 23rd till Sunday April 26th, 2026.