2023.12.04 - Code is run more than read

Title: 2023.12.04 – Code Is Run More Than Read

Cost Reduction & More Laughter & Seamless Communication & Munger & Flu & Parents on the Stage

This Week’s Hot Topics

Code is run more than read https://olano.dev/2023-11-30-code-is-run-more-than-read/
Code is a means to an end. Software should have a purpose; it’s supposed to provide a service to some user. It doesn’t matter how well‑written or maintainable the code is, nor how sophisticated the technology it uses, if it doesn’t fulfill its purpose and provide a good experience to the user: user > maintainer > author. Or, since we won’t need to distinguish between developer roles anymore: user > dev. This is why, instead of guessing or asking what users need, it’s best to put the program in front of them early and often and to incorporate what we learn from their feedback.

From “cost reduction and more laughter” to genuine cost reduction and efficiency gains https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/FIOB_Oqefx1oez1iu7AGGg
The scariest thing is that big domestic firms treat people as interchangeable screws, as a “human mine” that’s exhausted by age 35, and mass layoffs through bottom‑rank elimination are not uncommon. If job security becomes an immediate concern, who can stay calm enough to work diligently? Mencius said: “When a ruler treats his ministers like his own limbs, the ministers regard the ruler as their innermost confidant; when a ruler treats his ministers like dogs and horses, the ministers regard the ruler as a fellow countryman; when a ruler treats his ministers like dirt, the ministers regard the ruler as an enemy.” This backward management style is where many companies truly need to improve efficiency. Also see: What Software Developers Can Learn From Big Infrastructure Projects.

You don’t need JavaScript for that https://www.htmhell.dev/adventcalendar/2023/2/
Please don’t feel antagonized by the title of this article. I don’t hate JavaScript—I love it. I write bucketloads of it every single day. But I also love CSS, and I even love JSX/HTML. The reason I love all three of these technologies is something called the rule of least power.

Stop building databases https://sqlsync.dev/posts/stop-building-databases/
So today, I’d like you to join me as we examine common application‑data patterns and how they relate to database features. Afterwards we’ll look at an alternative solution—a frontend‑optimized database stack that lets us focus on the application rather than micromanaging data. Welcome to the world of accidental database programming.

Seamless Communication https://ai.meta.com/research/seamless-communication/
A significant step toward removing language barriers through expressive, fast, and high‑quality AI translation. Related:

• Understanding Deep Learning
• God Help Us, Let’s Try to Understand AI Monosemanticity
• Noiselith: The Power of Stable Diffusion XL on Your Device, Offline
• unsloth: 5× Faster, 50 % Less Memory LLM Fine‑tuning
• AI and Trust
• Can GenAI 10× Developer Productivity?
• Tech Predictions for 2024 and Beyond
• Millions of New Materials Discovered with Deep Learning
• GPT‑4’s Potential in Shaping the Future of Radiology
• Zhang Peng talks with Xie Xin: Feishu 7.0—How to Redefine the Relationship Between People and Organizations in the AI Era?

Deep Reading

Web Components Eliminate JavaScript Framework Lock‑in https://jakelazaroff.com/words/web-components-eliminate-javascript-framework-lock-in/
We’ve seen a lot of great posts about web components lately. Many have focused on the burgeoning HTML‑based web‑components pattern, which eschews shadow DOM in favor of progressively enhancing existing markup. There’s also been discussion—including this post by yours truly—about fully replacing JavaScript frameworks with web components. Those aren’t the only options, though. You can also use web components alongside JavaScript frameworks. To that end, I want to talk about a key benefit that I haven’t seen mentioned as much: web components can dramatically loosen the coupling of JavaScript frameworks.

Psychology of Speed: A Guide to Perceived Performance https://calibreapp.com/blog/perceived-performance
Happiness score, experience score, or performance score—many have tried to distill people’s experience into a single number (which, in the performance case, has serious downsides). But is it even possible to boil down human perception to a single number? What’s the gap between measured and perceived performance, and which one should we use as our goal?

Crafting a Lightweight Markdown Editor https://www.ersin.nz/articles/markdown-editor-with-wails-react-tailwind
Are you tired of dealing with the complexities and massive builds associated with Electron for desktop applications? Do traditional frameworks like Qt, GTK, or Win32 make you want to cry? Today we are going to build a markdown editor using Wails, React, and Tailwind. Related: Marker: Convert PDF to Markdown Quickly with High Accuracy.

Prettier’s CLI: A Performance Deep Dive https://prettier.io/blog/2023/11/30/cli-deep-dive.html
Hey, I’m Fabio and I’ve been contracted by the Prettier team to speed up Prettier’s command‑line interface (CLI). In this post we’ll look at the optimizations I discovered, the process that led to finding them, some exciting numbers comparing the current CLI with the new one, and some guesses about what could be optimized next. Related: The Biome Formatter Wins the “Prettier Challenge”.

Examples of Great URL Design https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2023/examples-of-great-urls/
When I reflect on examples of great URL design I’ve encountered over the years—URLs that made me pause and think “Wow, that’s really neat!”—these are a few that come to mind.

10 Weird HTML Hacks That Shaped the Internet https://tedium.co/2023/11/24/weird-html-hacks-history/
Many of these code quirks shouldn’t work, but somehow they do. We’re highlighting 10 hacky website‑coding strategies—some big, some small.

The Power of Headless: E‑commerce Success with Next.js, Vercel, and Shopify https://vercel.com/blog/commerceui-headless-shopify-nextjs
How Commerce‑UI helps designer e‑commerce brands deliver a world‑class experience to their online users.

3D Glass Portal Card Effect with React Three Fiber and Gaussian Splatting https://tympanus.net/codrops/2023/11/29/3d-glass-portal-card-effect-with-react-three-fiber-and-gaussian-splatting/
Explore the creation of a 3D glass portal with React Three Fiber, with optimized rendering using Gaussian Splatting and integrating real‑world objects.

All of Netflix’s HDR Video Streaming Is Now Dynamically Optimized https://netflixtechblog.com/all-of-netflixs-hdr-video-streaming-is-now-dynamically-optimized-e9e0cb15f2ba
Thanks to the arrival of HDR‑VMAF, we were … (content truncated)

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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.