My 'Nerd Urban Dictionary' list of fancy words nerds use to prove how smart they are now has more than 200 entries!

I'll bet you're guilty of a few of them (I know I am)

andersonchris.medium.com/the-nerd-urban…

The original monads. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monadology

Unleashing the Power of End-User Programmable AI with Leibniz Automind & Universalis

I have had many investors ask me what I am building in my new venture.

When I answer that, based on the vision of Leibniz many centuries ago

Leibniz's program of a universal science (scientia…

I *love* 'Why Static Typing Came Back' by Richard Feldman. It resonates with everything I experienced the past couple of decades.

There's another historical trend that I think comes into play for the swings towards and then later away from dynamic languages:

youtube.com/watch?v=Tml94j…

The Onward! Essays 2024 submission deadline of April 25 is rapidly approaching.

If you have an essay relating to software, programming, or programming languages which has not yet been formally published please consider submitting it.

2024.splashcon.org/track/splash-2…

New blog post on 'Lean Scala'. odersky.github.io/blog/2024-04-1…

Cute. Anyone tried this? civet.dev

Orion Reed Crazy yes. Bad idea no.

Writing a paper always teaches you something. A successful paper additionally teaches other people something.

Hits hard

Natural keys are a lie taught in every database textbook

As you’re working day-to-day, every so often it’s nice to take a step back and improve things.

Some changes require having a strong understanding of how things are done and why, but can lead to huge benefits. Think: a chef finding a better way to brine poultry to preserve…

RIP the clever abstraction I spent months designing and implementing to replace 4 different operations. It reduced the code size but the API doc turned out larger than the total for those 4 ops. It is so hard to kill your darlings.

Michael Nielsen Ben Reinhardt Yes; I think in another conversation we talked about SV culture not really understanding why blog posts are not just better than academic papers. (Although, in some cases, they are.) It's not the format, it's not peer review, it's the tradition of seriousness and carefulness.

I did a talk last weekend at Causal Islands Conference LA. There's no recording, so I'll try and do a small tweet thread version instead with just fewer slides. I'd love to do a revised version of this talk again in the future if anyone has ideas...

1/n

Is academia an outdated and irredeemably broken system or is it a critical piece of modern civilization?

I want to make a subtle (gasp!) argument that it's both:

Academia is broken, but has unique gems at its core. The way to fix it is to focus on those and unbundle the rest.

'We live in Copenhagen and run Elm Studio as a family business, like a local bakery or book store.'
elm.studio/about.html

Stonebreaker is a legend in database technology.

Earlier this month, he announced DBOS, Inc, a new company that aims to revolutionize the way developers build cloud apps.

In my NEW blog post, I do a DEEP DIVE to explain everything you need to know!

golem.cloud/post/exploring…

'What makes Smalltalk different from other languages? Look for the distinction between a programming language and a programming system, and consider the difference in providing a system in which the user can feel individual mastery over complexity.'
—Adele Goldberg

One month left to submit a paper to Onward!. 'Onward! is more radical, more visionary and more open than other conferences to ideas that are well-argued but not yet proven.'
2024.splashcon.org/track/splash-2…

This idea - that evil is often about pulling oneself ever deeper inside people's OODA loops - is fascinating:

(Cf, um, Twitter. And corporations in general. Which is fascinating, given Vinge's libertarianism)