The Return of Dynamic Typing: Is It Possible?
Or was static typing the right paradigm all along?Continue reading on Better Programming »
Read moreGraphic Design for Software Engineers and Architects
It’s no secret that engineers have a certain “style” for their graphic designs, including technical diagramsIf you work in software engineering or within technology, you might have seen a diagram that looks like this:You might be the author of such a diagram and see nothing wrong. It’s all there — the services, arrows,
Read moreThere Are No Shortcuts on the Path to Becoming a Successful Self-Taught Developer
#1 — Take your damn timePhoto by William Bout on UnsplashLet me start by making a few things clear:I am not actively working as a developer. I am currently a “Lead M365 Engineer” for a managed service provider, which is an inaccurate title for what I do every day. I typically define my daily work
Read moreThe Manager Trinity: The 3 Tenets of Successful Management
Insights from a decade as a Google manager on the key to success and how to be a force multiplier for your team and organizationOver 20 years (nine at Google) of leading software teams, I’ve gained insights into what it takes to be a successful manager. These shared insights and
Read moreNatural language processing and unnatural text
I recently evaluated two software applications designed to find PII (personally identifiable information) in free text using natural language processing. Both failed badly, passing over obvious examples of PII. By contrast, I also tried natural language processing software on a nonsensical poem, it the software did quite well. Doctor’s notes
Read moreThe New Navigation System in SwiftUI
Photo by Dan Chung on UnsplashFor a long time, developers have criticized SwiftUI’s navigation system. Due to the limitations of NavigationView, developers had to use various tricks and even black technology to achieve some basic functions (such as returning to the root view, adding any view to the stack, returning to
Read more10 Simple CSS and JavaScript Micro-interactions for Buttons
Learn ten simple ways to add micro-interactions to buttons on a web page that help inform users when they've successfully done something. Continue reading 10 Simple CSS and JavaScript Micro-interactions for Buttons on SitePoint.
Read moreHow rare is it to encounter a rare word?
I recently ran across a paper on typesetting rare Chinese characters. From the abstract: Written Chinese has tens of thousands of characters. But most available fonts contain only around 6 to 12 thousand common characters that can meet the needs of everyday users. However, in publications and information exchange in
Read moreHow an LLM might leak medical data
Machine learning models occasionally memorize training data. Under the right prompt, a model could return portions of the training data verbatim. If a large language model is trained on deidentified medical data, along with data that overlaps with the medical data, it could potentially leak details of a person’s medical
Read moreWhy testing isn’t just about writing unit tests
When testing is done properly it will reduce defects, and improve the design and quality of the overall codebase.If you mention testing to anyone with a basic understanding of software engineering, they’re likely to think about unit testing. This was certainly true of a podcast I was listening to the
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