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noelwelsh.bsky.social @noelwelsh.bsky.social · 6h

Staging is the number one PL feature I'd like to see move from academia to industry. For example, configuration / dependency injection is vastly simplified with staging. There are limited forms in some current languages (e.g. comptime in Zig) but they aren't sufficiently expressive.

noelwelsh.bsky.social @noelwelsh.bsky.social · 6h

That's enough for me! Thanks.

noelwelsh.bsky.social @noelwelsh.bsky.social · 7h

What's the best file watcher in Scala? So far I've found:

- sbt. Not sure about using sbt as a library dependency.
- Play. Should be well tested, but maybe old?
- fs2. Documented to the usual fs2 standard (i.e. not at all) but should integrate with the CE codebase

Any thoughts?

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noelwelsh.bsky.social @noelwelsh.bsky.social · 7h

I don't think it has to be either / or. I feel one can hate Javascript and the database!

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noelwelsh.bsky.social @noelwelsh.bsky.social · 7h

I'm only 6 chapters into Katabasis, but so far it is a heck of a lot of fun. I think anyone who has been involved in academia will enjoy. How could you not enjoy a story whose premise is two graduate students' journey into hell to rescue their advisor?

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noelwelsh.bsky.social @noelwelsh.bsky.social · 7h

I'm imagine Spotify-for-books has the same problem as Spotify-for-music, namely that authors probably get a whole lot less cash. This post suggests so: www.elysian.press/p/no-one-buy...

But, I'm not sure publishing houses add a huge amount of value anymore. Self publishing seems very attractive.

No one buys books

Everything we learned about the publishing industry from Penguin vs. DOJ.

www.elysian.press

noelwelsh.bsky.social @noelwelsh.bsky.social · 7h

For the last year or two, most of the books I've "read" have been audiobooks. Spotify has a good selection, and it's easy to squeeze an hour or so of listening into the day, when doing chores, or exercise that doesn't involve too much movement. Not all books work this way, but it's good for many.

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Reposted

Felienne Hermans @felienne.bsky.social · 6d

The term "vibe coding" raises an important question: what exactly is coding? In my last newsletter I argue that coding is very narrowly defined, as just getting ideas already crystal clear in your brain into source code.

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Reposted

Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 7d

#WarRavagedPortland

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Francesco Serra @isomorphicdude.bsky.social · 8d

A reminder that Scalabridge London is back on from tomorrow! A truly great opportunity to get to know amazing people and work on interesting projects to master Scala and functional programming!

Sign up here if you want to join us: www.meetup.com/scalabridge-...

ScalaBridge Autumn 2025 Start!, Wed, Oct 8, 2025, 6:00 PM | Meetup

ScalaBridge London is back for Autumn 2025. Our first session is hosted by the lovely people at SiriusXM, a long time host of ours. A big change with the new term is the s

www.meetup.com

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noelwelsh.bsky.social @noelwelsh.bsky.social · 13d

A few years back some companies banned "politics at work". There is no useful definition of politics that excludes normal workplace activities, so this ban is simply a hammer that those with power can arbitrarily deploy against those without.

This is the same, but on a much wider scale.

Jess Calarco @jessicacalarco.com · 13d

The Compact says "Signatories commit... to transforming or abolishing institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas."

What does this mean for units teaching evolution, history, or climate change?
www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/u...

"Signatories commit themselves to revising governance structures as necessary to
create such an environment, including but not limited to transforming or abolishing institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas."

noelwelsh.bsky.social @noelwelsh.bsky.social · 13d

Presumably "conservative ideas" are not defined anywhere, so it just becomes a hammer with which to hit those who are out of favour.

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noelwelsh.bsky.social @noelwelsh.bsky.social · 14d

If you're the right kind of person you can definitely get an education without going the traditional route, and that is easier now than ever.

If your goal in life is writing CRUD apps you don't need a degree.

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noelwelsh.bsky.social @noelwelsh.bsky.social · 14d

I think some of it is chuddish reaction against institutions. Chuds are gonna chud.

However, there are legitimate cases for not going the university route if you're in the US ($$$s) and/or you see programming as purely a vocation.

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noelwelsh.bsky.social @noelwelsh.bsky.social · 19d

I'm calling the police right now!

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noelwelsh.bsky.social @noelwelsh.bsky.social · 20d

As a parent I feel it is only fair to make one for the kids these days, clarifying common misconceptions like "putting dirty dishes near the dishwasher is the same as putting them in the dishwasher" and "laundry is done by a magic fairy that enjoys fishing dirty underwear from your floordrobe" 😜

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Reposted

Gil Durán @gilduran.com · 21d

3/ Tech fascism in a nutshell: “Computers are so much more rule-based, controllable, fixable, and comprehensible than any human will ever be. As many political schools of thought do, these technolibertarians make a philosophy out of a personality defect.“ She wrote this in 2000!

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noelwelsh.bsky.social @noelwelsh.bsky.social · 20d

I feel this is very much in the spirit of @maggieappleton.com's "barefoot developer" (maggieappleton.com/home-cooked-...), though the details differ. Languages, of course, are software!

Home-Cooked Software and Barefoot Developers

The emerging golden age of home-cooked software, barefoot developers, and why the local-first community should help build it

maggieappleton.com

noelwelsh.bsky.social @noelwelsh.bsky.social · 20d

😍 Extremely cool: a DSL for knitting patterns: t0mpr1c3.github.io/knotty/index...

Implemented, of course, in Racket.

I love the idea of an OSS standard for knitting patterns. I also love the idea of little programming languages, produced without fuss to make life better for humans.

🧶

Knotty

t0mpr1c3.github.io

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noelwelsh.bsky.social @noelwelsh.bsky.social · 23d

@scalabridgelondon.bsky.social is back in October! Here's the projects we'll be working on:

www.scalabridgelondon.org/projects/

Sign up for your choice here:

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

(All the details and much more on our website www.scalabridgelondon.org)

Learn or improve at programming in a fun and supportive environment

www.scalabridgelondon.org

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noelwelsh.bsky.social @noelwelsh.bsky.social · 27d

We also have a few smaller new features, including improved bitmap support (also by Yaroslav) and better support for using the REPL on Java2D. Everything new (and old) is covered in our documentation (which has a nice new theme!)

noelwelsh.bsky.social @noelwelsh.bsky.social · 27d

Doodle 0.31.0 is out [1]! The most significant change is the addition of bitmap convolutions thanks to my outstanding GSoC student Yaroslav [2]. You can view examples in your browser [3]!

[1]: www.creativescala.org/doodle/
[2]: github.com/untainsyd
[3]: www.creativescala.org/doodle/pictu...

Doodle

docs

www.creativescala.org

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noelwelsh.bsky.social @noelwelsh.bsky.social · 29d

The universal that brings all parents together. Now get off my lawn!

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Natalia Cecire @ncecire.bsky.social · Sep 10

This is what was so maddening about the 2012 MOOC discourse. All those venture capital types hyped on the idea that the whole world would be getting taught by the Best Professor (there's only one) instead of understanding the variation in approaches for the opening to inquiry that it is

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noelwelsh.bsky.social @noelwelsh.bsky.social · Aug 26

Denmark does the same. I thought peach flavoured dates would be an interesting flavour but the reality was just disappointment

Elise Harrington @elusieum.bsky.social · Aug 26

Leave it to Norway to ruin something great (dates).

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