As software developers, we invest a lot in our tools. Time, energy, and feelings. We recommend tools to others; we build on top; we belong to a community; we contribute; hence we're eventually becoming stakeholders. And there's no other tool more clamored or risky in our belt than the programming language. Well, gather around, kids, let me tell you two stories from my past with the software industry… The Dot-Com Bubble I joined the workforce in the aftermath of the dot-com boom and bust. It was quite a bad time to be a rookie in the software industry, especially in Romania, a country just rec ..read more

Today I was reminded how awesome Scala is for scripting, via Scala CLI. And it goes beyond having “batteries included”. Problem: I have a NextDNS account, as my DNS provider, for privacy and for blocking ads. My work computer has VPN software on it, that overrides the Wi-Fi’s DNS servers in order to access internal company resources. But I still want to configure NextDNS in my browser, and the problem is that my Chromium browser doesn’t fall back to the system DNS when I configure DNS-over-HTTPS. Solution: a Scala script that updates the NextDNS configuration with overrides for the internal re ..read more

A new year is upon us, and it's customary to make resolutions. The problem with new year resolutions is that we tend to forget them in about a week. So, how to make resolutions that stick? For example, I’d like to lose weight and be stronger. You may not have the same goals, but you probably have similar ones, and the same thought process applies. In summary: Focus on habits, not goals, consistency is key; Pick easy to achieve daily habits; Use “habit stacking”; Have clarity about what you’re doing by measurement; Control your environment; Look for the root cause of bad habits. Focus on hab ..read more

This is an update to my december adventure, in which I took it upon myself to learn the Rust programming langauge. First, I’ve participated in the Advent of Code for the first 10 days, solving problems in Scala, then translating them to Rust. Unfortunately, day 10 got too complicated. I solved part 2 via “ray casting,” an idea that I got early in my thinking, but detecting line intersections is easier said than done. What happened is that I had to detect patterns in the map’s corners, in order to do correct counting, and this happened by debugging on the large input file, which is very imprac ..read more

Go to shared link ..read more

Postcard by publisher Brück & Sohn in Meißen. This December I’m off to a great personal adventure in programming. Everyone can have their own fun December Adventure. You pick something you want to do, or maybe learn, and you do a little of it everyday, as long as it involves some coding. The idea is related to the Advent of Code (AoC), which can be a bit much for many. You can, instead, have your own adventure. I am participating in AoC this year, for now, as long as it is easy, mostly because it feels like good fun. And doing it as a group, with the Scala community on Discord, helps. Bu ..read more

Helix is a replacement for Vim, built from scratch, in Rust ?, with builtin LSP support, so it can work with Scala's Metals. Go to shared link ..read more

To get you in the mood for the Advent of Code ? Go to shared link ..read more

Scala’s coding style advised to use 2 spaces of indentation, but that was before Scala 3’s optional braces, which introduces significant indentation. It’s time for an upgrade of the coding style. Wisdom The Linux kernel uses indentation with 8 characters, the reasoning being readability and keeping cyclomatic complexity low. And I quote: Rationale: The whole idea behind indentation is to clearly define where a block of control starts and ends. Especially when you’ve been looking at your screen for 20 straight hours, you’ll find it a lot easier to see how the indentation works if you have lar ..read more

Go to shared link ..read more