On programming and poetry (not Python’s tool)

On making the Ruby Changes, and some consequences of this work Every year since 2013, on December 25, a new Ruby version is released. (Before that, the version schedule was much unpredictable.) Every year since 2018 (Ruby 2.6), I spend several weeks in December working on updating my Ruby Changes site to prepare an annotated changelog of the...

On a new approach to implement that long-envied feature. In Elixir1, there is a pipeline operator that allows rewriting this code: a(b(c(d))) into this: d |> c() |> b() |> a() which helps to write code in clearly visible “pipelines” corresponding to the order in which data processing is happening. The concept is so captivating that many languages...

What Ruby’s top-level methods actually are, who they belong to and how they are namespaced. A few days ago, a curious question was asked on /r/ruby, which can be boiled down to this: How are the methods of the Kernel module available in the top-level scope? The question was dedicated to rand method, but (as the author correctly suggests) it also...

A “stories-first” approach to refactor a small yet complicated piece of business code Recently, I didn’t have time or resource for serious writing. I had plans for several long articles for the summer that gone, but unfortunately not many have came of that. But last night I have stumbled upon famous (so it seems, though I have never seen it...

Silent changes in payment methods on big creator funding platforms raise some unpleasant questions. UPD Aug 13, 2024: The kind-of-official reply from BuyMeACoffee, and my response to it. UPD Aug 14, 2024: A support email to one of the users gives BuyMeACoffee’s reasons, and also they blocked me on X (Twitter). What happened Recently, many...