I shrugged, dismissively, when the Reason #programming language was announced as the new syntactic veneer atop OCaml. OCaml in C/C++/Java/JavaScript syntax—why?

But I, too, had been ensnared by that same comfortable vice grip of "apparent innovation". On many occasions, I had dreamt of new, modernised syntax for Fortran, C, Standard ML, Scheme, and the like. In my dreams, that so-called "new" syntax inexplicably resembles the "old" syntax of Hope/Miranda/Haskell/Agda.

#Programmers....

https://amenzwa.github.io/stem/PL/FortranModernisation/

DO NOT TEACH 'git add .' to new #programmers start working with #Git. This is so bad! Adding Subdirectories (including .) should not be accepted by the 'git add' command. I have seen so much shit over the years commited by junior devs not reviewing what they doing. It's not the fault of junior #developers but Gits and everyone who's teaching 'git add .' #programming

Yes, it is true!
It's Webinar Time!

... and we’re back with another ITSPmagazine Thought Leadership Webinar — because impactful conversations and meaningful perspective exchanges are what we’re all about.

After the success of our debut session “AI In Healthcare: Who Benefits, Who Pays, And Who’s At Risk?” (missed it? Watch it on demand https://www.crowdcast.io/c/ai-in-healthcare-who-benefits-who-pays-and-whos-at-risk-an-itspmagazine-thought-leadership-webinar-march-2025-3eeb9725b912) —we’re diving back in with a brand-new conversation focused on the heart of what drives our work: cybersecurity, technology, and society.

Secure Coding = Developer Power: How To Convince Your Boss To Invest In You An ITSPmagazine Webinar With Manicode Security April 16, 2025

We’re honored to welcome two brilliant minds joining Sean Martin, CISSP — yes, of course, he’s pretty sharp too — for this one:

Jim Manico, Founder and Secure Coding Educator at Manicode Security
Jimmy Mesta , Course Instructor for Manicode and CTO at RAD Security

Why does #securecoding still feel like an afterthought? This session tackles that question head-on—covering why most companies don’t invest in secure coding training, how developers can advocate for themselves, and how this skillset can seriously boost your career. We’ll even get into some live code reviews and automation demos you won’t want to miss.

Secure Coding = Developer Power: How To Convince Your Boss To Invest In You
LIVE: April 16, 2025
REGISTER HERE: https://www.crowdcast.io/c/secure-coding-equals-developer-power-how-to-convince-your-boss-to-invest-in-you-an-itspmagazine-webinar-with-manicode-security-ad147fba034a

Be sure to share this with your fellow #developers, coworkers, and anyone who cares about building safer software and smarter teams. This is your chance to invest in yourself—and help your company do the same.

LET'S go, we can do this!!!

#webinar, #securecoding, #developerlife, #cybersecurity, #infosec, #softwaresecurity, #devsecops, #itspmagazine #infosecurity #tech #technology #software #programmers

If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.

— Gerald Weinberg

“Beginning #programmers are often so eager to accomplish the first part of that definition—writing a #program to perform a certain #task—that they fail on the second part of the definition, meeting the stated #constraints.

I call a program like that, one that appears to produce correct results but breaks one or more of the stated rules, a #KobayashiMaru.” — #VAntonSpraul

#NoStarch <https://nostarch.com/thinklikeaprogrammer>

The code you write makes you a programmer. The code you delete makes you a good one. The code you don't have to write makes you a great one.

— Mario Fusco

The moment when you aren't sure if it's an article about #cybersecurity or #programmers sexting

"Remember that there is a distinction between a programming language and a graphical user interface. Don't confuse snazzy graphics (generated using someone else's libraries and tools) with good programming."

If you give someone a program, you will frustrate them for a day; if you teach them how to program, you will frustrate them for a lifetime.

— anonymous

I turned off #Apple #Intelligence because not only did it write things resembling "My grandfather fell out of one of those things and died when he was a baby," they made it so that if you press the space bar twice (which used to insert a period) now will insert that frequently used phrase or sentence ending instead. If you're typing and not reading what you're typing, chances are you're gonna say some very strange things.

I could probably go up on a rant on this, but when did people decide that #writing ought to be dumbed down to what everybody else is saying, rather than using your brain to come up with something eloquent to move your audience? Are we really that lazy?

Yeah, I see the root causes: Greedy corporations wanting to jump onto the next big thing, Gullible #programmers racing to #code the killer feature and bonuses rather than judging the worthiness of the feature. It's a little bit like radium and watch dials, which I brought back for one of my stories with a twist. Madam Curie died because science didn't understand something essential about radioactivity, yet, and who knows how many cases of lung cancer resulted from the glow in the dark watches.

The problem with #AI and ethics is training, the source. A good writer takes training, and that includes willing teachers, reading, experience writing, and feedback. A good AI requires the same thing, they call the feedback "curation." That's "educating" it what is crap and what is gold. Moreover, the training ought be done on the writing of the person using the AI, or by willing and well paid teachers, and I really don't get why Apple didn't take this tack and create something truly useful to that writer.

My best guess why not? The psychology of their perceived user: The need for instant gratification. If we train each AI the way we train each human student, where's the ability to cut out the labor and mass produce writers?

I want the personally trained #AI that can fill in the missing word that's at the tip of my tongue, that can reliably flag my recurring grammar errors, that can complete my sentences with the accuracy of my spouse of decades. As an SF writer or as an essayist, it should recognize my idiosyncratic vocabulary and not autocorrect it, to the point of accepting new words or phrases. It astounds me that AI contribution isn't color-coded in a ADA safe way during composition to show where the writer might want to verify the generated contributions. That all auto correct auto complete doesn't do this is a serious set back to the technology.

Okay, I ranted.

A big thank you to @vextaur for the discussion I sourced this from.

#TechTuesday
This #Lemmy post https://programming.dev/post/22672085 links to the recording of the talk I gave earlier in the year, about how #dotNet #dotNetMAUI and other #programmers #developers can get the most out of #Mastodon and the #Fediverse in general. Show to people you want to come here, or watch yourself if you feel like you could learn more about it.

CC @andypiper @evanprodromou@evanp.me @evanprodromou@socialwebfoundation.org @Gargron @mapache @alvinashcraft @alvinashcraft.com @jamesmontemagno

A lot of my followers are already #programmers, but for those who aren't, that might be interested in #learning to #program, here is a Github repo which lists a whole bunch of #free #resources for learning #programming, in multiple languages!
https://github.com/EbookFoundation/free-programming-books

It's better to wait for a productive programmer to become available than it is to wait for the first available programmer to become productive.

— Steve McConnell

Fellow #Programmers, #Coders (and possibly #Mathematicians) lend me your wisdom!

I’m learning from books and I “know” the best way to learn from them is to work through them. But what I don’t know is how I’m doing. I’m often frustrated at my pace, since I don’t know what normal is.

And I need to learn stuff, to land a job. (I’m old. I want to pivot into a remote job, ergo devops. Anyway, that’s enough about me.)

So here’s the question(s),

1. How long do you take to work through a new text / proof / new book on a new topic that you don't know?

2. How long did it take you (if you remember) when you were just starting out?
3. Were you doing this on your own?
4. Were there other people / things / places that aided you?

Please boost, to help a slow learner?! Thank you!

Prof. Dybvig's paper, "The Development of Chez Scheme" (2006), is a brief history of the #Chez Scheme compiler that he had been working on since 1985. Despite his quiet, understated tone, he manages to convey in this paper his heart-felt enthusiasm for, and decades-long dedication to, the Scheme language and its implementations. This is indeed an inspiration to all of us #geeks. Today, Chez Scheme is one of the fastest, most compact, and most advanced implementation of #R6RS.

https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=bee2a90e39bc709835ae184e286a20afb02a0792

Dybvig was, in turn, a student of another pillar of the Scheme community, Prof. Friedman. I first came across Dybvig's work, when I read the 1ed of his famous book, "The Scheme Programming Language" (1987), the 4ed of which was published in 2009 and it covers R6RS.

https://www.amazon.com/Scheme-Programming-Language-Kent-Dybvig/dp/013791864X

The book "Chez Scheme Version 10.0.0 User’s Guide" (2024), published by Cisco, covers the inner workings of Chez Scheme v10, which is a superset of R6RS.

https://cisco.github.io/ChezScheme/csug10.0/csug.pdf

Chez Scheme and the whole of Dybvig's work are the guide posts for all #Lisp and #Scheme #programmers.

The strange looks we give the one weirdo in the IT office who isn't going to the local furry convention when we're sharing pics of the fursuits we plan to wear...

Question for the #programmers on here, how would you quickly determine uniqueness of a value, given storage containing a billion current values?

What storage would you use? Are there special methods for this task? I’ve considered a bloom filter but false positives aren’t good for this application.

That's the thing about people who think they hate computers. What they really hate is lousy programmers.

— Larry Niven

The response you get when trying to explain to #python #programmers that there are other #programming languages.

The concepts and the vocabulary of #CategoryTheory could be applied to just about anything—even gardening—to make the descriptions clear, cogent, concise. So, the practitioners of #ComputerScience should apply this theory to their work. #Programmers, especially #FP aficionados, should learn to wield this theory, given that Cartesian Closed Category \(\equiv\) Simply Typed 𝜆-Calculus.