Coding tools news 2022

Here is a post where I post information on new and interesting coding tools on the comments.

960 Comments

  1. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Will C++ Become a Safe Language Like Rust and Others?
    https://www.infoq.com/news/2024/04/cpp-memory-safety-sutter/

    In a recent article, C++ expert and ISO C++ Committee Chair Herb Sutter expressed his views about what it takes to make C++ a safe language in the guise of Rust and other memory-safe languages (MSLs). His recipes include relying on tooling, as is the case with other MSLs, promoting safe language features, pushing unsafe features behind compiler flags, and more.

    Sutter’s starting point is the recognition of the importance of C++ becoming substantially safer by addressing the four main memory safety-related vulnerability categories. In fact, out of a total of twelve memory safety-related categories, accounting for about 70% of all CVEs, four of them root in out-of-bounds reads, out-of-bounds writes, null pointer dereference, and accessing freed memory.

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  2. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Video:
    I made the same game in Assembly, C and C++

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eeXj-ck9VA

    I made the same game in x86 assembly, C and C++ to see how they compare.

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  3. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Understand your Python code with this open source visualization tool
    VizTracer visualizes and traces Python code to provide greater insight into how the code works.
    https://opensource.com/article/20/11/python-code-viztracer

    VizTracer is a low-overhead logging/debugging/profiling tool that can trace and visualize your python code execution.

    Best Python Code Explainer Tool Online
    Understand your Python code easily with our best Python explainer tool online
    https://www.clouddefense.ai/tools/code-explainer/python

    A Code Explainer is an intuitive AI-powered tool that offers instant, clear explanations for Python code with a simple click. Tailored for both beginners who are navigating new codebases and experienced developers seeking swift clarifications, this tool simplifies the understanding of code functionality and logic in a user-friendly manner.

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  4. Tomi Engdahl says:

    What is the best free database?
    We’ll also highlight the ten best free database software to help you out.

    ClickUp.
    MySQL.
    Microsoft SQL Server.
    Airtable.
    MongoDB.
    PostgreSQL.
    Amazon RDS.
    RazorSQL.

    Database Software ClickUp
    Software
    Top 10 Free Database Software in 2024 (Features, Pricing)
    https://clickup.com/blog/free-database-software/

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  5. Tomi Engdahl says:

    GNU Portability Library’s Tool Rewritten In Python For 8~100x Better Performance
    https://www.phoronix.com/news/Gnutool-lib-Rewrite-Faster-Perf

    The GNU Portability Library for common portability code across platforms has seen a major rewrite to gnulib-tool, the program for importing modules from gnulib into their packages. This code rewrite of gnulib-tool is said to offer between eight and 100 times faster performance than the existing implementation.

    The original gnulib-tool program is a shell script implementation for importing of Gnulib modules into programs for enhancing code portability. Several GNU developers have been rewriting gnulib-tool in Python rather than the shell scripts in order to address criticism of the slow performance.

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  6. Tomi Engdahl says:

    https://gitlab.com/esr/autodafe
    This project collects resources for converting an autotools
    build recipe to a bare makefile that can be read and modified
    by humans.

    The “De-Autoconfiscation HOWTO” describes the conversion procedure.

    The deconfig tool walks the code tree of a project with an autotools
    build recipe looking for conditional-configuration symbols that can
    be removed because they gate C11 or POSIX facilities. It generates a
    diff that can be inspected and fed to patch(1) to remove the unneeded
    code.

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  7. Tomi Engdahl says:

    https://hackaday.com/2024/05/18/hack-your-own-adventure-story-with-yarn-spinner/

    We are big fans of programmed texts for education. You know, the kind where you answer a question and go to a new page based on your answer. But they can also be entertaining “choose your own adventure” stories. You might say, “You are standing in front of an oak door, two meters high, with an iron handle. Do you a) open it? b) knock on it? c) ignore it?” Then, based on your answer, you go to a different part of the story. These are tough to write, but you can get some help using Yarn Spinner and the Yarn scripting language.

    https://books.yarnspinner.dev/

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  8. Tomi Engdahl says:

    https://hackaday.com/2024/05/18/netbsd-bans-ai-generated-code-from-commits/

    A recent change was announced to the NetBSD commit guidelines which amends these to state that code which was generated by Large Language Models (LLMs) or similar technologies, such as ChatGPT, Microsoft’s Copilot or Meta’s Code Llama is presumed to be tainted code. This amendment was to the existing section about tainted code, which originally referred to any code that was not written directly by the person committing the code, and was due to licensing concerns. The obvious reason behind this is that otherwise code may be copied into the NetBSD codebase which may have been licensed under an incompatible (or proprietary) license.

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  9. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Winamp Source Code Will Be Opened Up, Company Says
    https://hackaday.com/2024/05/17/winamp-source-code-will-be-opened-up-company-says/

    Recently the company currently in charge of the Winamp media player – formerly Radionomy, now Llama Group – announced that it will be making the source code of the player ‘available to developers’. Although the peanut gallery immediately seemed to have jumped to the conclusion that this meant that the source would be made available to all on the announced 24 September 2024 date, reading between the lines of the press release gives a different impression.

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  10. Tomi Engdahl says:

    https://www.mock-server.com/#what-is-mockserver

    What is MockServer

    For any system you integrate with via HTTP or HTTPS MockServer can be used as:

    a mock configured to return specific responses for different requests
    a proxy recording and optionally modifying requests and responses
    both a proxy for some requests and a mock for other requests at the same time

    When MockServer receives a request it matches the request against active expectations that have been configured. Then, if no matches are found, it proxies the request if appropriate; otherwise a 404 is returned.

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  11. Tomi Engdahl says:

    https://hurl.dev/

    What’s Hurl?

    Hurl is a command line tool that runs HTTP requests defined in a simple plain text format.

    It can chain requests, capture values and evaluate queries on headers and body response. Hurl is very versatile: it can be used for both fetching data and testing HTTP sessions.

    Hurl makes it easy to work with HTML content, REST / SOAP / GraphQL APIs, or any other XML / JSON based APIs.

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  12. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Top 10 Robot Framework Alternatives

    5.1 Testsigma.
    5.2 UiPath Automation Platform.
    5.3 Microsoft Power Automate.
    5.4 Cerberus Testing.
    5.5 Tricentis Testim.
    5.6 Playwright.
    5.7 Cypress.
    5.8 TestComplete.

    https://testsigma.com/blog/robot-framework-alternatives/

    What is better than Robot Framework?
    Selenium, Cucumber, Cypress, TestNG, and Gauge are the most popular alternatives and competitors to Robot Framework. Powerful collaboration, review, and code management for open … Powerful collaboration, review, and code management for open …

    https://stackshare.io/robot-frame-work/alternatives

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  13. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Is Robot Framework still relevant?
    Robot Framework is widely used to automate software testing, allowing development teams to conduct effective, rapid, and repeatable tests.26 Jan 2024

    Robot framework: what it is, benefits, and options for RPA automations
    https://blog.botcity.dev/2024/01/26/robot-framework/

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  14. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Lähes 70 vuotta vanha kieli palasi kymmenen suosituimman listalle
    https://etn.fi/index.php/13-news/16249-laehes-70-vuotta-vanha-kieli-palasi-kymmenen-suosituimman-listalle

    Tiobe on julkaissut toukokuun listansa suosituimmista ohjelmointikielistä. Listan kärjessä lähes kaikki on ennallaan, mutta sijalta kymmenen löytyy todellinen yllättäjä. IBM:n vuonna 1957 esittelemä Fortran on noussut pitkän tauon jälkeen Tioben top10-listalle.

    Tämä on yllättänyt myös Tiobe-listan ylläpitäjät. Esimerkiksi haku “Fortran-ohjelmointi” sai yli 1000 osumaa Amazonissa, joka on kirjojen johtava yritys. Uudet hienot kielet, kuten Kotlin ja Rust, osuivat tuskin 300 kirjaan samalla hakukyselyllä.

    Pääsyy Fortranin ylösnousemukseen on numeerisen/matemaattisen laskennan kasvavasta merkityksestä. Vaikka tähän on kehitetty monia kilpailevia kieliä, Fortranilla on omat kiistattomat etunsa.

    Esimerkiksi suosituin kieli eli Python on hidas. MATLAB on erittäin helppokäyttöinen matemaattiseen laskemiseen, mutta se edellyttää kalliita lisenssimaksuja. C ja C++ ovat suosittuja ja nopeita, mutta niillä ei ole natiivia tukea matemaattiseen laskentaan.

    Kymmenien mahdollisten kielten joukossa Fortran näyttää olevan nopea, sillä on natiivi matemaattinen laskentatuki, kypsä ja ilmainen. Lisäksi kieli kehittyy edelleen. Alle puoli vuotta sitten julkaistiin uusi ISO Fortran 2023 -versio.

    https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/

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  15. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Cognita: An Open Source Framework for Building Modular RAG Applications
    https://www.marktechpost.com/2024/05/27/cognita-an-open-source-framework-for-building-modular-rag-applications/

    Managing and deploying Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) systems has recently become a significant challenge, especially when moving from experimental setups to production environments. While tools like Langchain and LlamaIndex offer convenient abstractions for initial development and prototyping, they often need to catch up regarding modularity, scalability, and extensibility required for production. As a result, organizations need help ensuring their RAG components are efficiently organized and production-ready.

    Current solutions for building RAG systems typically involve using Jupyter Notebooks for experimentation. However, these setups often need more structure and flexibility for a robust production environment.

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  16. Tomi Engdahl says:

    MIT Researchers Propose Cross-Layer Attention (CLA): A Modification to the Transformer Architecture that Reduces the Size of the Key-Value KV Cache by Sharing KV Activations Across Layers
    https://www.marktechpost.com/2024/05/25/mit-researchers-propose-cross-layer-attention-cla-a-modification-to-the-transformer-architecture-that-reduces-the-size-of-the-key-value-kv-cache-by-sharing-kv-activations-across-layers/

    The memory footprint of the key-value (KV) cache can be a bottleneck when serving large language models (LLMs), as it scales proportionally with both sequence length and batch size. This overhead limits batch sizes for long sequences and necessitates costly techniques like offloading when on-device memory is scarce. Furthermore, the ability to persistently store and retrieve KV caches over extended periods is desirable to avoid redundant computations. However, the size of the KV cache directly impacts the cost and feasibility of storing and retrieving these persistent caches. As LLM applications increasingly demand longer input sequences, the memory requirements of the KV cache have become a critical consideration in designing efficient transformer-based language models.

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  17. Tomi Engdahl says:

    How To Build a Real-Time App With GPT-4o Function Calling
    A tutorial showing you how to bring real-time data to LLMs through function calling, using OpenAI’s latest LLM GPT-4o.
    https://thenewstack.io/how-to-build-a-real-time-app-with-gpt-4o-function-calling/

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  18. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Why Is Python Consuming So Much Memory?
    Decomposition of an integer object in Python for memory consumption
    https://towardsdatascience.com/why-does-an-integer-need-28-bytes-in-python-e8adf91f821f

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  19. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Stop Running Tests With Your CI/CD Tool
    A look at six specific needs of a successful test-automation strategy and how relying on CI/CD tools can send you into the testing swamp of no return.
    https://thenewstack.io/stop-running-tests-with-your-ci-cd-tool/

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  20. Tomi Engdahl says:

    https://hackaday.com/2024/06/07/make-your-code-slower-with-multithreading/

    With the performance of modern CPU cores plateauing recently, the main performance gains are with multiple cores and multithreaded applications. Typically, a fast GPU is only so mind-bogglingly quick because thousands of cores operate in parallel on the same set of tasks. So, it would seem prudent for our applications to try to code in a multithreaded fashion to take advantage of this parallelism. Or so it would seem, but as [Marc Brooker] illustrates, it’s not as simple as one would assume, and it’s very easy to end up with far worse overall performance and no easy way to fix it.

    https://brooker.co.za/blog/2014/12/06/random.html

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  21. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Preview Markdown In The Terminal With Bash
    https://hackaday.com/2024/06/17/preview-markdown-in-the-terminal-with-bash/

    Markdown has become an extremely popular way to document source code and other projects, thanks in no small part to how well web-based services like GitHub render it. Just sprinkle a few extra characters into a regular text file, and all the sudden it looks like you know what you’re doing. Unfortunately, there are some places where markdown won’t actually render, and you’ll be stuck looking at those extra characters.

    But thanks to MarCLIdown, the terminal doesn’t have to be one of those places. Written by [NihaAlGhul], this simple tool takes a given markdown file and spits out a fairly impressive rendering — and you don’t even need to have one of those fancy new GPU-accelerated terminals. Most impressively, the whole thing is implemented as a single Bash script.

    https://codeberg.org/NihaAlGhul/MarCLIdown

    MarCLIdown is a minimalist bash program that prints a markdown file in a formatted text output in Linux terminal.

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  22. Tomi Engdahl says:

    If you’re a programmer, VS Code is still the best IDE by far
    BY
    ADAM CONWAY
    PUBLISHED 7 DAYS AGO
    VS Code may technically not be an IDE, but for all intents and purposes, it absolutely is.

    https://www.xda-developers.com/if-programmer-like-vs-code/

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  23. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Meet Grain: The High-Level Language Optimized for WebAssembly
    The co-creator of Grain explains how the language is designed from the outset for WebAssembly, without the usual complexities and baggage.
    https://thenewstack.io/meet-grain-the-high-level-language-optimized-for-webassembly/

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  24. Tomi Engdahl says:

    C++ language rises in Tiobe popularity index
    C++ takes second place in Tiobe index for June, despite White House warning, while C drops to third place. Go and Rust also rise.
    https://www.infoworld.com/article/3715520/c-plus-plus-language-rises-in-tiobe-popularity-index.html

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  25. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Apple’s Embedded Swift programming language supports ESP32-C6, Raspberry Pi RP2040, STM32F7, nRF52840 microcontrollers
    Apple has released a beta version of Embedded Swift that notably works with Espressif ESP32-C6 wireless RISC-V microcontroller, and the company also built a Matter sample based on ESP-IDF and ESP-Matter SDKs. Embedded Swift is not limited to the ESP32-C6 and supports other microcontrollers from STMicro, Raspberry Pi, Nordic Semi, etc…
    https://www.cnx-software.com/2024/06/13/embedded-swift-esp32-c6-raspberry-pi-rp2040-stm32f7-nrf52840-microcontrollers/

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  26. Tomi Engdahl says:

    JavaScript needs more money
    Considering how much we depend on open source, we should worry about the financial health of our most critical projects.
    https://www.infoworld.com/article/3715680/javascript-needs-more-money.html

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