Better bug catchers, autocomplete code, and Python for finance

An oral history of Bank Python

Cal Paterson discusses “Bank Python”—little-known proprietary forks of Python in use at many of the biggest investment banks.

+ Python for Finance, second edition, by Yves Hilpisch

The purpose of your code is...

...use cases. It sounds simple, but it’s often not. Your code should clearly reveal all its intentions—what your code does and how it supports business goals. Joe Bew explores how to translate use cases into code in this post.

Linux users generate more, better bug reports

An indie game developer made an interesting observation: Though only 5.8% of his game’s buyers were playing on Linux, they generated over 38% of the bug reports. And very few of those bugs were Linux-specific, so it wasn’t because the Linux platform was buggier. The developer bemoaned sketchy bug reports from other users, such as “It crashes for me after a few hours.” He added:

Do you know what a developer can do with such a report? Feel sorry at best. You can’t really fix any bug unless you can replicate it, see it with your own eyes, peek inside, and finally see that it’s fixed. [But] bug reports from Linux players [are] just something else. You get all the software/OS versions, all the logs, you get core dumps, and you get replication steps. Sometimes I got with the player over discord and we quickly iterated a few versions with progressive fixes to isolate the problem. You just don’t get that kind of engagement from anyone else.

Tech trends to watch

Mike Loukides explores recent developments in programming, quantum computing, AI, devices, security, and more.

Building an Emacs Lisp VM in Rust

Here’s a step-by-step look at building an Emacs Lisp interpreter in Rust, complete with a discussion of the trade-offs and lessons learned.

Fundamentals of Software Engineering in 3 weeks

Join expert Nate Schutta in this live online O’Reilly course to start your software engineering career off right, diving into key topics such as how to get better at reading and writing code, and how to collaborate as part of a team. You’ll also explore design patterns fundamentals, refactoring, and testing and automation. By the time you’re through, you’ll understand the skills that really matter as a software engineer—and know how to apply them.

Dec 7, 14 and 21, 2021

Writing a Linux-compatible kernel in Rust

Seiya Nuta takes a look at using Rust in an OS kernel.

Natural language-guided programming

Often a programmer looks for code examples using a search engine and then manually adapt those examples to their specific use. The authors of this paper suggest that a new breed of developer tools has the potential to largely automate this process, “adapt[ing] code autocompletion tools to take into account not only the developer’s already-written code but also the intent of the task the developer is trying to achieve formulated in plain natural language.”

New release: C# Cookbook

This cookbook is packed full of recipes to help you solve issues for C# programming tasks you’re likely to encounter. You’ll learn tried-and-true techniques to help you achieve greater productivity and improve the quality of your code. Even if you’re familiar with C# syntax, you’re likely to find several time-saving ideas here.

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