Interesting Links for May 2024

Here are some interesting things I recently read on the internet:

• An Object-Oriented Language for the ’20s 🏛️
  Adam Nelson remixes the good ideas from various modern programming languages and proposes what an object-oriented language designed for the present-time should be.

• Ed Catmur’s Triliteral esolang 🏛️
  Arthur O’Dwyer describes Triliteral, an esoteric programming language invented by prolific C++ contributor Ed Catmur, which is inspired by how words are created in Semitic languages by weaving vowels through triconsonantal roots.

• The origin and virtues of semicolons in programming languages 🏛️
  Nicole Tietz-Sokolskaya wades through computer science history trying to find the when and why of the wide use of the humble semicolon in many programming languages.

• Is there a minimum viable language within imperative languages like C++ or Rust from which the rest of language can be built? 🏛️
  Some wise Redditors discuss the minimal viable programming language that can serve as a core language for bigger imperative languages like C++. Lisp and Assembly are mentioned many times.

• Type Checking as Evaluation 🏛️
  Dmitriy Kubyshkin explains are how type checking in statically typed programming languages is like evaluation of a secondary program in dynamically typed languages.

• Unexplanations: query optimization works because sql is declarative 🏛️
  Jamie Brandon explains the true reason why SQL queries are more amenable to optimizations compared to other programming languages.

• Representing an Abstract Syntax Tree in C++: Part 1 - Variants 🏛️
  Lesley Lai explores the different ways of representing Abstract Syntax Trees in C++.

• The Alternative Implementation Problem 🏛️
  Maxime Chevalier-Boisvert posits that most of the alternative implementations of programming languages are unsuccessful because they are incompatible with the vast amount of code written for the original implementations.

• Everything You Never Wanted To Know About Linker Script 🏛️
  In this comprehensive guide, Miguel Young tells us everything there is to know about the art and science of linking to create executables.

• Garbage Collection for Systems Programmers 🏛️
  Matt Kline argues that it is okay to use garbage collection with system programming languages because modern garbage collectors have amazing throughput.

• You Won’t Believe This One Weird CPU Instruction! 🏛️
  Vaibhav Sagar explored the history and use of the popcount CPU instruction.

• When pure function lie 🏛️
  Troy Hinckley puzzles over how it is possible for pure functions to return different values in Common Lisp.

• Why write unit tests? 🏛️
  Henrik Jernevad lists some good reasons to unit test your programs.

• Making Reasonable Use of Computer Resources 🏛️
  Vincent Foley argues that me must think about the performance of our software at the outset, not as an afterthought.

• Recreating Historical Data Viz in 2024 using D3.js 🏛️
  Danny Yang recreates W.E.B Du Bois’s famous historical data visualizations using D3.js.

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