August Links

Recent posts
Why the Circular Specification Problem and the Observer Effect Are Distinct
What Factors Explain the Nature of Software?
Some Reflections on Writing Unix Daemons
Faster Shell Startup With Shell Switching
Choosing What To Read
Debugging A Failing Hotkey
How Often Should We Sharpen Our Tools?
Four Kinds of Optimisation
Minor Advances in Knowledge Are Still a Worthwhile Goal
How Hard is it to Adapt a Memory Allocator to CHERI?

Blog archive
  • Implicit practice: a sight reading parable. How does deliberate practise relate to what we do for work? We often forget that work can, and often should, involve deliberate practise.
  • Using unwrap() in Rust is Okay. I broadly agree with this: unwrap() in Rust, used properly, makes code better. My (very) minor source of disagreement is that I’ve almost never seen expect help when debugging, but it always makes code messier.
  • How and why to do link-time symbol wrapping (or not?). More fun with linkers!
  • Whence Systems Research? Why should we think big, when should we think big, why do we often fail to think big? This article doesn’t exactly answer these questions – indeed, it bounces around them – but it does at least give some rather useful examples and pointers.
  • Weird monitor bugs people sent me in the last 5 years. I’ve seen some odd behaviour in monitors over the years but have never had enough data to conclude whether it’s them or me: more data definitely shows it can be the hardware, at least sometimes!
Newer 2022-08-30 08:00 Older
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