2023.07.24 - Effective > Productive

Title: 2023.07.24 – Effective > Productive

Problem Solving & Good Code & Ten Years of Go & WebGPU & HTTP & 阳气 & The Limits of Education

This Week’s Hot Topics

Effective > Productive https://world.hey.com/jason/effective-productive-acfa210d
So much talk about hacking productivity these days. There’s an endless stream of methodologies and tools promising to make you more productive. But more productive at what? Productivity is for machines, not for people. There’s nothing meaningful about packing a certain number of work units into a certain amount of time or squeezing more into less. Machines can work 24/7; humans can’t. When people focus on productivity, they end up focusing on being busy—filling every moment with something to do. And there’s always more to do!

Returning to First Principles: Disciplined Problem Solving https://spin.atomicobject.com/2023/07/23/first-principles-problem-solving/
Computers and software systems are complex, and there are countless ways things can go wrong. One way to realign ourselves with the fundamental factors that guide our decision‑making and the foundation of our understanding is to return to first principles when solving problems. I was recently reminded of the importance of applying a disciplined, no‑assumption‑left‑unquestioned, first‑principles approach while troubleshooting some client networking challenges. I wanted to share this reminder.

Good code is like a love letter to the next developer who will maintain it https://addyosmani.com/blog/good-code/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36807028
In the end, coding is an act of creation, not unlike writing a poem or painting a picture. The beauty of our creations, however, is not judged solely by the elegance of our algorithms or the efficiency of our code, but by the joy and ease with which others can build upon our work. As developers, our task is not just to solve today’s problems but also to ensure we do not become tomorrow’s problem. Good code, therefore, is not just a love letter—it is our lasting legacy to those who follow us. Related: The Art Of Looking Back: A Critical Reflection For Individual Contributors.

Ten Years of “Go: The Good, the Bad, and the Meh” https://blog.carlmjohnson.net/post/2023/ten-years-of-go-good-bad-meh/
Ten years ago, I wrote Go: The Good, the Bad, and the Meh. Back in 2013 it made the front page of Hacker News and sparked over 400 comments on /r/programming. I don’t have analytics from then, but I suspect it’s one of my most‑discussed pieces, and it was definitely one of my first experiences of getting a lot of feedback for my writing. (Then again, I have no proof that John Carmack read it, so maybe it won’t make my obituary.)

A developer’s guide to prompt engineering and LLMs https://github.blog/2023-07-17-prompt-engineering-guide-generative-ai-llms/
Prompt engineering is the art of communicating with a generative AI model. In this article we’ll cover how we approach prompt engineering at GitHub, and how you can use it to build your own LLM‑based application. Related:

• GitHub Copilot Chat beta now available for every organization
• Custom instructions for ChatGPT
• Moving AI governance forward
• Meta and Microsoft introduce the next generation of Llama
• LLaMA 2 isn’t “Open Source” – and why it doesn’t matter
• Google at ICML 2023
• Microsoft at ICML 2023: Discoveries and advancements in machine learning
• Developing reliable AI tools for healthcare
• AI and Micro‑directives
• The Never‑Ending Game: How AI Will Create a New Category of Games
• Generative AI Space and the Mental Imagery of Alien Minds
• 让玄学可靠：构建复杂 LLM 应用

Deep Reading

WebGPU: the cross‑platform graphics API of tomorrow https://developer.chrome.com/en/blog/webgpu-cross-platform/
For web developers, WebGPU is a web graphics API that provides unified, high‑performance access to GPUs by exposing modern hardware capabilities and allowing rendering and compute operations on a GPU, similar to Direct3D 12, Metal, and Vulkan.

HTTP has become the default, universal communication protocol https://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/tech/HTTPUniversalDefaultProtocol
In my view, the reason people see HTTP as the default communication protocol—and why so many things use it this way—is simple: it works well enough and it’s everywhere. Because web servers have become common, virtually every modern programming environment includes HTTP clients and simple servers in its standard libraries.

Useful functions for an HTTP server https://jollytoad.deno.dev/blog/http_fns
The Deno HTTP server takes a simple Request → Response handler function, so why not embrace this and compose your handler from smaller functions? I started building a few simple utilities for routing, and it eventually grew into a fairly sizable collection. Related: Fresh 1.3 – Simplified Route Components and More.

5 Inconvenient Truths about TypeScript https://oida.dev/5-truths-about-typescript/
I write books about TypeScript and run workshops and trainings online and in‑house. Every time I meet a new group of developers, there are some TypeScript facts they need to confront. Related: Is TypeScript good?

Bringing HDR video to Reels https://engineering.fb.com/2023/07/17/video-engineering/hdr-video-reels-meta/
Meta has made it possible for people to upload high‑dynamic‑range (HDR) videos from their phone’s camera roll to Reels on Facebook and Instagram. To show standard‑dynamic‑range (SDR) UI elements and overlays legibly on top of HDR video, we render them at a brightness level comparable to the video itself. We solved various technical challenges to ensure a smooth transition to HDR video across the diverse range of old and new devices that people use to interact with our services every day.

How React 18 Improves Application Performance https://vercel.com/blog/how-react-18-improves-application-performance
Learn how concurrent features like Transitions, Suspense, and React Server Components improve application performance.

Replit S

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Originally written by Ping Xia (平侠) and published in Chinese on Web技术周刊 (Web Tech Weekly). Translated and adapted for DriftSeas with permission.