When I see new projects being announced that are implemented in C or C++ I have to admit that I quickly lose interest. I think C and C++ are poor language choices for system software in 2021. Please don’t write system software in C or C++.

When the state maintains data that is supposed to be public, it isn’t always that leaders from a bygone era understand what this implies. The process of dragging laggards into the present can be painful - and you may end up having to take it to court.

Is Github Copilot something to get your panties in a twist over? Well, no, not really. But what’s more interesting is what made you think it would be?

Whenever race car drivers serve up excuses for why they didn’t win they tend to blame their equipment, their team or both. It is never the fault of the race car driver that she or he fails to win. It’s the suspension. It’s the engine. It’s the wrong tyres. In many ways, race car drivers have that in common with a certain class of programmers who blame anyone but themselves for their hardships.

During a meeting today someone raised an interesting question about how we vet third party dependencies in software. This is not only a good question, but it pokes at something all programmers are guilty of at some point: including libraries without properly vetting them.

Earlier today I was trying to upgrade a piece of software on my somewhat ageing iMac at work. During the upgrade a message along the lines of “your version of OSX is no longer supported” flashed past.

I am not overly eager to run whatever is the latest version of OSX because with every upgrade there is the risk that I will lose a couple of days of productivity. And with every release it seems Apple makes life harder for software vendors. Things tend to stop working and the solutions to those things tend to be that I have to spend money on something I rather wouldn’t spend money on.

Perhaps there should be something along the lines of a “Dogme 95” for programming. Perhaps there is. I must admit that before writing this I didn’t check. And there is a reason for that (as you will see later).

You may be familiar with the “Dogme 95” manifesto written by Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg. To quote the Wikipedia article:

From a recent conversation about edge computing.

• What is this edge computing thing?
• Think of the cloud
• Yes?
• Now move that computer into your house
• Yes?
• Tadaa!
• Wait, so you mean….just …having a computer?
• Yes, but when this one doesn’t work you can’t know why and you can’t do anything about it. And if whatever company at the other end of the tether goes tits-up you have a an expensive brick.
• I hate new technologies
• Oh it isn’t new, but now people in bad suits get to use technical sounding jargon.
• Like “agile”?
• Like “agile”
• I see. Good talk.

Sorry about the botched formatting of the above text. I’m using a hacked up template that is a mess for this website. I’m in the process of making a template that is a little less horrible

In the early days of the web building a search engine was mostly about completeness and recall. To make sure you had the content and help users find it.

Now, 30 years later, we have the opposite problem. Search engines and content services have what you are looking for, but you won’t find it because it drowns in content you are not interested in.

A while back I was visiting the local university (NTNU) to pick up some surplus lab equipment. While there the dungeon keeper gave us a tour of the basement storage rooms. On a shelf in the basement I found something I recognized: the first GSM radio prototype.