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A small standard library means an explosion in transitive dependencies. A more comprehensive standard library helps you minimize dependencies. Don't misunderstand me: in a real-world project, it is practically impossible to have zero dependencies. Armin Ronacher called for a vibe shift among programmers and I think that this actually exists already. Everyone I speak to on this topic has agreed that minimizing dependencies is ideal. Rust and JavaScript, with their incredibly minimal standard libraries, work against this ideal. Go, Python, Java, and C# in contrast have a decent standard library, which helps minimize the explosion of transitive dependencies. Examples I think the standard library should reasonably include: JSON, CSV, and Parquet support HTTP/2 support (which includes TLS, compression, random number generation, etc.) Support for asynchronous IO A logging abstraction A SQL client abstraction Key abstract data types (BTrees, hashmaps, sets, and growable arrays) Utilities for working with Unicode, time and timezones But I don't think it needs to include: Excel support PostgreSQL or Oracle clients Flatbuffers support Niche data structures Neither of these are intended to be complete lists, just examples. Walled gardens Minimal standard libraries force growing companies to build out their own internal collection of "standard libraries". As one example, Bloomberg did this with C++. And I've heard of companies doing this already with Rust. This allows larger companies to manage and minimize the explosion of transitive dependencies over time. All growing companies likely do something like this eventually. But again, smaller standard libraries incentivize companies to build this internal standard library earlier on. And the community benefits relatively little from these internal standard libraries. The community would benefit more if large organizations contributed back to an actual standard library. Smaller organizations do not have the capacity to build these internal standard libraries. Maybe the situation will lead to libraries like Boost for JavaScript and Rust programmers. That could be fine. Versioning A comprehensive standard library does not prevent the language developers from releasing new versions of the standard library. It is trivial to do this with naming like Go has done with the v2 pattern. math/rand/v2 is an example. Conclusion My concern about the standard library does not stop me from using Rust and JavaScript. Furthermore, they could choose to invest in the standard library at any time. We have already begun to see Bun and Deno to do exactly this. But it is clearly an area for improvement in Rust and JavaScript. And a mistake for other languages to avoid repeating. While zero dependencies is practically impossible, everyone I've spoken to agrees that minimizing dependencies is ideal. Rust and JavaScript work against this ideal. But they could change at any time. And Bun and Deno are already examples of this.https://t.co/qkSh6oW1Yd pic.twitter.com/mY1MNErZG7 — Phil Eaton (@eatonphil) January 25, 2025
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I started the NYC Systems Coffee Club in December of 2023. It's gone pretty well! I regularly get around 20 people each month. You bring a drink if you feel like it and you hang out with people for an hour or two. There is no agenda, there is no speaker, there is no structure. The only "structure" is that when the circle of people talking to each other seems gets too big, I break the circle up into two smaller circles so we can get more conversations going. People tend to talk in a little circle and then move around over time. It's basically no different than a happy hour except it is over a non-alcoholic drink and it's in the morning. All I have to do as the organizer is periodically tell people about the Google Form to fill out. I got people to sign up to the list by posting about this on Twitter and LinkedIn. And then once a month I send an email bcc-ing everyone on the list and ask them to respond for an invite. The first 20 people to respond get a calendar invite. I mention all of this because people ask how they can start a coffee club in their city. They ask how it works. But it's very simple! One of the least-effortful ways to bring together people in your city. If your city does not have indoor public spaces, you could use a food court, or a cafe, or a park during months where it is warm. For example, the Cobble Hill Computer Coffee Club is one that meets outdoors at a park. Good luck! :) How I run a coffee club, a short guide for others who might be interested in running one. It's very simple!https://t.co/UgRWDQOA3v pic.twitter.com/5wYrLW7u6D — Phil Eaton (@eatonphil) December 31, 2024
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A quick intro to interfacing common OLED displays to bare-metal microcontrollers.
If you are a pet owner, you know how important it is to keep furry companions fed and happy – even when life gets busy! With the Arduino Plug and Make Kit, you can now build a customizable, smart pet feeder that dispenses food on schedule and can be controlled remotely. It’s the perfect blend […] The post Build your own smart pet feeder with the Arduino Plug and Make Kit appeared first on Arduino Blog.
Disruptive technologies call for rethinking product design. We must question assumptions about underlying infrastructure and mental models while acknowledging neither change overnight. For example, self-driving cars don’t need steering wheels. Users direct AI-driven vehicles by giving them a destination address. Keyboards and microphones are better controls for this use case than steering wheels and pedals. But people expect cars to have steering wheels and pedals. Without them, they feel a loss of control – especially if they don’t fully trust the new technology. It’s not just control. The entire experience can – and perhaps must — change as a result. In a self-driving car, passengers needn’t all face forward. Freed from road duties, they can focus on work or leisure during the drive. As a result, designers can rethink the cabin experience from scratch. Such changes don’t happen overnight. People are used to having agency. They expect to actively sit behind the wheel with everyone facing forward. It’ll take time for people to cede control and relax. Moreover, current infrastructure is designed around these assumptions. For example, road signs point toward oncoming traffic because that’s where drivers can see them. Roads transited by robots don’t need signals at all. But it’s going to be a while before roads are used exclusively by AI-driven vehicles. Human drivers will share roads with them for some time, and humans need signs. The presence of robots might even call for new signaling. It’s a liminal situation that a) doesn’t yet accommodate the full potential of the new reality while b) trying to accommodate previous ways of being. The result is awkward “neither fish nor fowl” experiments. My favorite example is a late 19th Century product called Horsey Horseless. Patent diagram of Horsey Horseless (1899) via Wikimedia Yes, it’s a vehicle with a wooden horse head grafted on front. When I first saw this abomination (in a presentation by my friend Andrew Hinton,) I assumed it meant to appeal to early adopters who couldn’t let go of the idea of driving behind a horse. But there was a deeper logic here. At the time, cars shared roads with horse-drawn vehicles. Horsey Horseless was meant to keep motorcars from freaking out the horses. Whether it worked or not doesn’t matter. The important thing to note is people were grappling with the implications of the new technology on the product typology given the existing context. We’re in that situation now. Horsey Horseless is a metaphor for an approach to product evolution after the introduction of a disruptive new technology. To wit, designers seek to align the new technology with existing infrastructure and mental models by “grafting a horse.” Consider how many current products are “adding AI” by including a button that opens a chatbox alongside familiar UI. Here’s Gmail: Gmail’s Gemini AI panel. In this case, the email client UI is a sort of horse’s head that lets us use the new technology without disrupting our workflows. It’s a temporary hack. New products will appear that rethink use cases from the new technology’s unique capabilities. Why have a chat panel on an email client when AI can obviate the need for email altogether? Today, email is assumed infrastructure. Other products expect users to have an email address and a client app to access it. That might not always stand. Eventually, such awkward compromises will go away. But it takes time. We’re entering that liminal period now. It’s exciting – even if it produces weird chimeras for a while.
Many modern video games may put your character inside of a virtual 3D environment, but you aren’t seeing that in three dimensions — your TV’s screen is only a 2D display, after all. 3D displays/glasses and VR goggles make it feel more like you’re in the 3D world, but it isn’t quite the same as […] The post Displaying games on a 9x9x9 LED cube appeared first on Arduino Blog.
A year ago I tried to understand how much power ChatGPT was using and if I should be outraged by it. Today I try it again.
