The Insider News

Communications of the ACM[^]:

In most programming classes, students write programs in a single language (e.g., Java, Python) and its standard library; they might use a well-documented third-party library for, say, graphics. Students fill in skeleton code templates provided by instructors or, at most, write a few chunks of code "from scratch." Specifications and interfaces are clearly defined, and assignments are graded using automated test suites to verify conformance to specs. What I just described is necessary for introducing beginners to basic programming and software engineering concepts. But it bears little resemblance to the sorts of programming that these students must later do in the real world.

.net magazine[^]:

Data visualisation - and in particular, web-based data visualisation - is having its moment. JavaScript libraries like D3.js, Raphaël, and Paper.js, building on modern browser support for Canvas and SVG, have made it easier than ever to produce complex visualisations that, until recently, were the province of computer scientists and a handful of specialist designers.

GitHub[^]:

Forth Warrior is a game of programming, stabbing and low cunning. Your Forth code controls the actions of a valiant adventurer as she plunges ever deeper into a mysterious dungeon. Gather precious gems, defeat slime creatures and watch your step! Your program must fit in 8 kilobytes and is scored based on how many cycles it takes to execute, how many actions are taken, how many gems are collected and how many slimes are defeated. Once you've made it through all the levels, try to optimize your code and hone your strategy to maximize your score!

fabiensanglard.net[^]:

Since I left my job at Amazon I have spent a lot of time reading great source code. Having exhausted the insanely good idSoftware pool, the next thing to read was one of the greatest game of all time : Duke Nukem 3D and the engine powering it named "Build". It turned out to be a difficult experience: The engine delivered great value and ranked high in terms of speed, stability and memory consumption but my enthousiasm met a source code controversial in terms of organization, best practices and comments/documentation. This reading session taught me a lot about code legacy and what helps a software live long.

Learn Git Branching[^]:

LearnGitBranching is a pseudo-git sandbox and interactive series of tutorials / challenges to accelerate the understanding of how git commit trees work. The ideal audience is a complete newcomer to git, but a wide range of experience levels should be able to benefit from these tutorials. It supports a fairly wide range of commands and dynamically visualizes the effects each change has on a commit tree visualization next to the command box...

Obviously a Major Malfunction[^]:

HDCP (the copyright protection mechanism in HDMI) is broken. I don't mean just a little bit broken, I mean thoroughly, comprehensively, irredeemably and very publicly broken. Broken in such a way that any possible recovery would mean layering it with so much additional new infrastructure as to render it entirely pointless. Broken. B-R-O-K-E-N. How can I put this? It doesn't work. So why, then, is it still being shoved down my throat?

Hack a Day[^]:

Windows RT, the version of Windows being loaded onto ARM-powered tablets and netbooks such as the new Microsoft Surface, has one drawback: there are tens of thousands of apps written for x86 hardware that simply won’t run on this new ARM-powered architecture. While this may present a problem for hospitals, banks, and other institutions needing a proper Wintel platform, we’re wondering how to get classic games such as Civ III and Age of Empires running on these new tablets.

NYTimes.com[^]:

Japan is renowned for its robots and bullet trains, and has some of the world’s fastest broadband networks. But it also remains firmly wedded to a pre-Internet technology — the fax machine — that in most other developed nations has joined answering machines, eight-tracks and cassette tapes in the dustbin of outmoded technologies.... Yuichiro Sugahara learned the hard way about his country’s deep attachment to the fax machine.... A decade ago, he tried to modernize his family-run company, which delivers traditional bento lunchboxes, by taking orders online. Sales quickly plummeted.

AllThingsD[^]:

By now you may have heard of NFC. It’s been the next big thing for the past five years. 

Okay, so maybe this tech hasn’t hit its stride yet. But there are several new mobile phones that claim “NFC” as a feature. So what does NFC mean, how does it work and will it finally catch on? These are questions that many consumers will have as they hear more and more about this technology — and here are some answers.

Mashable[^]:

The weaknesses in Craigslist are painfully obvious: The site is ugly, any listing you post almost guarantees spam to your inbox, the apartment listings are full of scams, the site was once a known destination for sex trafficking (albeit minimized now) and lastly, people have died from engaging in a Craigslist transaction. Yet, we continue to rely on Craigslist.... Are we content trudging along, searching classified listings like it's 1999? The answer lies not just in the strength of product design, but also the limitations native to every network.