Slices combine a mutable vector with a (seemingly) read-only view – a big mistake in #Go, leading to the foot-guns here & in the discussions 😓:
“Sliced By Go’s Slices”, Ohad Ravid (https://ohadravid.github.io/posts/2026-02-go-sliced/).
Via Lobsters: https://lobste.rs/s/o3cpxf/sliced_by_go_s_slices
Nice article, but the all-lowercase titling is so jarring:
“Six Thoughts On Generating C”, Andy Wingo (https://wingolog.org/archives/2026/02/09/six-thoughts-on-generating-c).
Via HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46945235
On Lobsters: https://lobste.rs/s/j8jnqq/six_thoughts_on_generating_c
#Programming #C #PLDI #Compilers #CodeGeneration #ProgramSynthesis
Another excellent post 👌🏽 from Russ Cox 👇🏽🫡:
“Floating-Point Printing And Parsing Can Be Simple And Fast” (https://research.swtch.com/fp).
On HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46685317
On Lobsters: https://lobste.rs/s/nbsclr/floating_point_printing_parsing_can_be
#Programming #Math #FloatingPoint #Numbers #PLDI #Parsing #Printing
Awesome!
“Eurydice: A Rust To C Compiler (Yes)”, Jonathan Protzenko (http://jonathan.protzenko.fr/2025/10/28/eurydice.html).
Via HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46178442
On Lobsters: https://lobste.rs/s/1kcrn4/eurydice_rust_c_compiler_yes
#Eurydice #Rust #C #Compilers #Transpilers #Programming #PLDI #Portability #Embedded
👌🏽:
“Generating C Code That People Actually Want To Use” [2019], Jonathan Protzenko (http://jonathan.protzenko.fr/2019/01/04/behind-the-scenes.html).
On HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19304400
On Lobsters: https://lobste.rs/s/4vfysy/generating_c_code_people_actually_want
#C #Compilers #Transpilers #Readability #Programming #PLDI #CodeGeneration #Verification
“Rust’s Ugly Syntax” [2023], Aleksey Kladov (https://matklad.github.io/2023/01/26/rusts-ugly-syntax.html).
On HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34541695 & https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41397679
On Lobsters: https://lobste.rs/s/tn9gho/rust_s_ugly_syntax
On Reddit: https://old.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/10mdlep/rusts_ugly_syntax/ & https://old.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/10rkaag/rusts_ugly_syntax/
“Opinion Piece: On Zig (And The Design Choices Within)”, ‘Blueberry Wren’ (https://blueberrywren.dev/blog/on-zig/).
Via HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45876990
On Lobsters: https://lobste.rs/s/uclead/opinion_piece_on_zig_design_choices
The article is too verbose & the discussions flame out, but some good references in both:
“Memory Safety For Skeptics”, ACM Queue (https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=3773095).
Via HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45879012
On Lobsters: https://lobste.rs/s/mytmnl/memory_safety_for_skeptics
the AoE timezone, a consequence of globalization, offers a way to triple Fridays the 13ths globally, and double them locally:
Introducing: Friday the 13th somewhere on Earth (parenthesized as: Friday (the 13th somewhere on Earth).
E.g. the #PLDI deadline is such a newly acquired Friday (in Europe).
Friday here, the 13th somewhere. Keep the weekday, offshore the date.
“The Best – But Not Good – Way To Limit String Length”, Adam Pritchard (https://adam-p.ca/blog/2025/04/string-length/).
On HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43850398
#Programming #PLDI #Strings #Length #Unicode #Characters #Bytes #Graphemes #UTF #CodePoints #I18N #Internationalization
🤯:
“Forth: The Programming Language That Writes Itself: The Web Page” [2023], Dave Gauer (https://ratfactor.com/forth/the_programming_language_that_writes_itself.html).
Via HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45639250
On Lobsters: https://lobste.rs/s/xgq91o/forth_programming_language_writes
#Forth #ChuckMoore #PLDI #ProgrammingLanguages #ComputerHistory #Genius
Not everyone will agree with the ratings (or the inclusions) here:
“Rating 26 Years Of Java Changes”, Neil Madden (https://neilmadden.blog/2025/09/12/rating-26-years-of-java-changes/).
Via HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45551450
#Java #JDK #Programming #PLDI #ProgrammingLanguages #Evolution
Ehh…
“Zig’s Lovely Syntax”, Aleksey Kladov (https://matklad.github.io/2025/08/09/zigs-lovely-syntax.html).
Via HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44855881
On Lobsters: https://lobste.rs/s/nxeqtq/zig_s_lovely_syntax
#Zig #Syntax #Grammar #Programming #ProgrammingLanguages #PLDI #Aesthetics
Nice:
“Which Parsing Approach?” [2020], Laurence Tratt (https://tratt.net/laurie/blog/2020/which_parsing_approach.html).
On HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35800189
On Lobsters: https://lobste.rs/s/9pcqys/which_parsing_approach
#Parsing #Programming #Compilers #Interpreters #Parser #PLDI
#Python is too dynamic for its own good?
“Python Performance Myths And Fairy Tales”, LWN (https://lwn.net/Articles/1031707/).
On HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44809387
On Lobsters: https://lobste.rs/s/6wjkre/python_performance_myths_fairy_tales
#CPython #Performance #Interpreter #PLDI #Programming #Myths #Speed #Optimization
The talk was very nice 👌🏽:
“The Big OOPs: Anatomy Of A Thirty-Five Year Mistake”, Casey Muratori (https://www.computerenhance.com/p/the-big-oops-anatomy-of-a-thirty).
On HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44612313 & https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44596554
On Lobsters: https://lobste.rs/s/rnnpqm/big_oops_anatomy_thirty_five_year_mistake
The Lobsters discussion 👆🏽 had this 👇🏽informative comment:
https://lobste.rs/s/xecakg/long_season_langdev#c_xopv6b
which leads to this very interesting book / technical-report by Slava Pestov on #generics in #Swift:
“Compiling Swift Generics” (https://download.swift.org/docs/assets/generics.pdf).
“The Long Season Of Langdev”, Michael Fogus (https://blog.fogus.me/langdev/long-season.html).
Via Lobsters: https://lobste.rs/s/xecakg/long_season_langdev
See Also:
“Chapter 6: Lexical Analysis”, from “lcc, A Retargetable Compiler For ANSI C”, by Christopher Fraser & David Hanson (https://drh.github.io/lcc/documents/06lexical-analysis.pdf).
#Books #Compilers #Lexers #Programming #PLDI #LexicalAnalysis #Tokenization #Excerpts
Great 👌🏽:
“Strategies For Very Fast Lexers”, Matteo / ‘xnacly’ (https://xnacly.me/posts/2025/fast-lexer-strategies/).
Via HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44560871
On Lobsters: https://lobste.rs/s/75zw2o/strategies_for_very_fast_lexers
#Compilers #Lexers #Tokenizers #LexicalAnalyzers #Speed #C #Programming #Efficiency #Optimization #PLDI
