Devs Together Strong·2yTen Myths Developer's Believe About Names
Naming things, especially anything representing a human, is one of the hardest challenges in computer science. This post lists ten myths developers often believe about names, such as the assumption that people have exactly one canonical full name or that names do not change. There are additional complexities beyond these myths, making the task even more difficult.
Lobsters·2yTuring kicked us out of Heaven
The post discusses the significance of the halting problem, an undecidable problem in computer science which states that no algorithm can determine if an arbitrary program with arbitrary input will halt. It explores the implications of this problem on mathematics and programming, illustrating that many long-standing mathematical problems could be solved and programming tasks simplified if the halting problem were solvable. However, due to its undecidability, such advancements remain impossible. Various real-world examples and explanations emphasize the profound impact of this theoretical limitation.
Hacker News·2yThe only computer science book worth reading twice?
The book 'Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs' by Hal Abelson and Jerry Sussman is considered a seminal work in computer science. It introduces fundamental programming concepts and explores a wide range of topics like higher-order computation, data structures, modularity, and language design using Scheme. The book emphasizes a stratified design approach, where each layer of abstraction builds on previous ones. It has influenced many and remains relevant 22 years after its first encounter by the author.
Community Picks·2yI built a RISC CPU in Excel
A user shares their experience of building a 16-bit RISC CPU in Excel, explaining the improvements made to enhance performance and reduce the system's size. The new architecture includes a minimal instruction set, a stack mechanism, and adopts Harvard architecture. The goal was to avoid using visual basic scripts and if statements to improve computation speed. The CPU now runs around 10 times faster and occupies only a fraction of the original footprint. The project files and documentation are available on GitHub.
