The Insider News

All this[^]:

My younger son could use some algebra practice. There are only so many problems in his book and making up new ones that have simple integer answers is harder and more time-consuming than you’d think. So, as with elementary math, I made up an HTML/JavaScript page that generates a new set of problems every time it’s (re)loaded. I print some out, have him do one or two, and go over them with him.

The Droid Guy[^]:

Google is officially closing down Buzz on July 17th, a considerable amount of time after it announced its future shutdown back in October 2011. Users of the social network, however, will still be able to read what they posted in the past, thanks to Google’s decision to move the data generated on Buzz to Google Drive.

MIT Technology Review[^]:

Xerox is screening tens of thousands of applicants for low-wage jobs in its call centers using software from a startup company called Evolv that automatically compares job seekers against a computer profile of the ideal candidate. According to these data, culled from studying job records of many similar workers, past experience working in call centers isn’t a good predictor of success. Instead, a person should be a “creative” type, though not too inquisitive.

Scott Hanselman[^]:

Some years ago I said that JavaScript is the Assembly Language of the Web. In fact, lots of people said it, because it's true. Later, some folks disagreed, saying that this is an inaccurate analogy. Of course, it is inaccurate because it's an analogy. That said, as analogies go, it's pretty good. Sure, assemblers are architecture and processor specific. Maybe "JavaScript is the Web's Bytecode" is better. At the very least, JavaScript is a totally reasonable compile target.

Nettuts+[^]:

Cargo-culting is sometimes defined as "the extreme adherence to the form instead of content." The form, in programming, being the syntax, paradigms, styles and patterns that we employ. The content being the abstract thing that you are seeking to represent through your code — the very substance of your program. A person with lacking understanding in an area is likely to copy the form of others without truly understanding, and thus their content — their program — can suffer.

Sergey Tihon's Blog[^]:

I have tried to find easiest ways to create a simple web server with F#. There are three most simple ways to do it. The goal is to create a simple web service that maps web request urls to the files in the site folder. If file with such name exists then return its content as html. Assume that all html files located in 'D:\mySite\'.

Mohammad Akram[^]:

Python is a great scripting language - it's available by default on Linux and Mac and so it's easy to quickly write a short script that runs on many systems. However, this isn't the case on Windows. You need to install Python or wrap your application to distribute it on Windows, so we need an alternative. Sometimes this is inconvenient, especially if you want to do something simple or deal directly with Windows. This is where PowerShell comes in.

mathbabe[^]:

There’s really exciting news in the world of number theory, my old field. I heard about it last month but it just hit the mainstream press. Namely, mathematician Yitang Zhang just proved is that there are infinitely many pairs of primes that differ by at most 70,000,000. His proof is available here and, unlike Mochizuki’s claim of a proof of the ABC Conjecture, this has already been understood and confirmed by the mathematical community.

llbit[^]:

It might seem like a strange idea to want to write a small crashing C program, but in one of the courses that I’ve been teaching labs this is one of the tasks! It’s actually a very educational thing to do.

smartbear.com[^]:

In George R.R. Martin’s masterful series, A Song of Ice and Fire (currently an HBO television show, Game of Thrones), many characters in the fantasy world of Westeros create goals, make plans, maneuver people and events toward the goal they want, and eventually realize their goal. It’s kind of like project management, but with more entrails.

GigaOm[^]:

Wikidata, a centralized structured data repository for facts and Wikimedia’s first big new project in the last 7 years, is now feeding the foundation’s main project, Wikipedia.... But the really interesting thing with Wikidata is that it’s not just for Wikipedia – although it’s worth remembering that its API is still under development, the database can be used by anyone as it is published under a Creative Commons 0 public domain dedication.

Shacknews.com[^]:

Independent developers cannot self-publish their own games on Xbox Live Arcade. Instead, they must get a publishing deal--either with Microsoft Game Studios or with a third-party partner. Games published on Xbox Live Indie Games are exempt from that policy, but that marketplace isn't necessary seen as viable. Limitations imposed by Microsoft have prevented a number of games from ever appearing on Xbox 360. And apparently, Xbox One won't change how Microsoft approaches indie games.

Ars Technica[^]:

Google is upgrading the digital certificates used to secure its Gmail, Calendar, and Web search services. Beginning on August 1, the company will start upgrading the RSA keys used to encrypt Web traffic and authenticate to 2048-bits, twice as many as are used now. The rollout affects the transport layer security (TLS) certificates that underpin HTTPS connections to Google properties. Sometimes involving the secure sockets layer (SSL) protocol, the technologies prevent attackers from reading the contents of traffic passing between end users and Google. They also provide a cryptographic assurance that servers claiming to be Google.com are in fact operated by Google.

JavaWorld[^]:

Left unchecked, certain developer personality types can sink your project -- or, worse, make themselves no fun to work with. In my long and storied career, I've personally encountered all 14 of these personality types. In fact, I have been several of these people to some degree or another; I've also knowingly hired them. You know who you are.

bryce.vc[^]:

I see the value of writing clearly and concisely becoming an increasingly important skill for digital workers. Partly for the reasons outlined above, but also because we’re moving into a massive wave of distributed work and self selected customers. This means our voice, and the voice of our companies, are often going to be discovered and engaged with via the copy of our services, the content of our social media channels and the clarity of our emails.

Encosia[^]:

Though it does serve a useful purpose in some compiled languages, I think switch is a clunky eyesore in most code. Its structure is prone to taking root and only growing larger and more cumbersome over time. If you’re coming to JavaScript from a background in procedural languages like C#, Java, or PHP, it’s natural to reach for the same tools, like switch, that you’re accustomed to using in those languages. However, JavaScript’s flexible object literal syntax and first-class functions offer alternatives to switch that I believe are cleaner, more extensible, and more maintainable.

F# for fun and profit[^]:

So we have a lot of these "one input -> Success/Failure output" functions -- how do we connect them together? What we want to do is connect the Success output of one to the input of the next, but somehow bypass the second function in case of a Failure output.... There is a great analogy for doing this -- something you are probably already familiar with. Railways! Railways have switches ("points" in the UK) for directing trains onto a different track. We can think of these "Success/Failure" functions as railway switches.