Interesting links #1
During my day-to-day life I browse reddit often. I frequent a few subreddits, namely r/gamedev, r/programming, and r/cpp. When the days get colder I also start frequenting r/nosleep again. Yup, nothing beats the feeling of being watched when you're home alone at 3 pm. I click on a lot of links but more often than not I'm more interested in the comments people have than the link itself. The links and discussions that I have found (very) worthy of time are listed below with a little explanation why the link is special. Because I frequent mostly computer science subreddits it's mostly compsci related, but if you're lucky you might find a scary story or two in there every once in a while.
[Article] Keeping Secrets
Article about how the US government dealt (and deals) with academic cryptography research. The thing that got to me most is that I never realised cryptography is such a big deal. I mean, it surely is very important, but I didn't know there has ever been a discussion about whether or not academia should be allowed to research it. To me it's natural that such research is common, but that's obviously the result of the vision of the professors discussed in the article.
[Post] Jai - A primer
You may or may not have heard about it, but Jonathan Blow (you might know him from Braid or The Witness) is unhappy about the current state of programming languages and has decided to make his own (with blackjack and hookers, perhaps?). I've been watching presenations on his Youtube Channel and even if you don't agree with him, it's very interesting to hear him muse about programming issues. The reddit post I linked to includes a lot of interesting discussion in the comment section, and the actual link is a summary of the (has it been named? I don't know) unnamed programming language by Jonathan Blow, if you'd rather not plow through 3+ hours of presentations.
[Blog] Java 8's new date-time apis
A nice summary of what the new date-time api is like in Java 8. I was really delighted to see this because once I worked on a project where Java's date-time facilities were used quite often, and it was not fun to work with.
[Post] A language checklist
A language checklist that evaluates your new and shiny homegrown programming language. Maybe a good thing to read if you're thinking of making your own programming language too often, and you need a demotivator. (Don't be though! Just do it! Haters gonna hate anyway)
[Article] In-depth: Functional programming in C++
An article by the famed John Carmack about functional programming in C++. A really interesting read. It states and explains a few good reasons why we should definitely be seriously thinking about doing more functional stuff. Also, just like Jonathan Blow, it's nice to read his musings about programming.
[Post] std::string::c_str() and char*
Stop and think for a minute if you're using std::string::c_str() often: did you ever think about the lifetime of the char* that is returned? I had this discussion with a friend some time ago and we couldn't really figure it out without the help of the internet. Long story short: c_str() probably doesn't affect your code since I've never had a problem with it, but if you get random char* errors at some point it might be worth looking for it. Also, if your actually editing the char* returned by the function you should worry about the effects because... Well, be sure to read the SO question.
[Post] STL and/or Boost tutorials
I always accepted STL as it is and waded my way through it using http://www.cppreference.com, but apparently there are tutorials for the STL. Apparently the STL does more than just <vector>, <string> and <map>?
[Blog] How to choose a teaching language
Interesting thoughts on the complexity of languages and the consequences thereof in relation to teaching people programming.
[Blog] DIY hashmap
For those (me) who are interested in how a hashmap works - find out and click the link! Not thourough but serves as a very nice and quick introduction to hashmaps.
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