0049: hytradboi 2025, consulting, zest progress, labeled continue, bet against sql, zero-cost costs in debug, packed memory arrays, papers, books

I've been thinking a lot about this in preparation for the next I've been thinking a lot about this in preparation for the next HYTRADBOIHYTRADBOI.. My experience of online conferences has mostly been underwhelming. They typically borrow the form and structure of an in-person conference without considering whether those still make sense online, and whether the goals of an online conference should even be the same as an in-person conference.My experience of online conferences has mostly been underwhelming. They typically borrow the form and structure of an in-person conference without considering whether those still make sense online, and whether the goals of an online conference should even be the same as an in-person conference. The most important function of...The most important function of...

It's easy to think of being serious and having fun as opposite sides of a spectrum. The problem is that 'being serious' has many unrelated meanings, for example:It's easy to think of being serious and having fun as opposite sides of a spectrum. The problem is that 'being serious' has many unrelated meanings, for example: Serious as in somber or solemn. "This is a serious event, stop playing around."Serious as in somber or solemn. "This is a serious event, stop playing around." Serious as in actually trying to attain your goals, as opposed to just going through the motions. "This is a serious effort."Serious as in actually trying to attain your goals, as opposed to just going through the motions. "This is a serious effort." Only the first meaning is actually opposed to fun. Fun/playful vs...Only the first meaning is actually opposed to fun. Fun/playful vs...

(This is part of a series on the design of a language. See the list of posts here.) Many 'scripting' languages use a hashmap for their default associative data-structure (javascript objects, python dicts, etc). Hashtables have a lot of annoying properties: Vulnerable to hash flooding....

2025 Feb 28. Put it in your calendar. It's been three years since HYTRADBOI. Long enough that I've mostly forgotten how stressful it was to run a conference and it's starting to seem like a good idea again. talks The format will stay the same. 10 minute, pre-recorded, heavily-edited talks. Asynchronous chat. Join from a different time-zone, watch talks on your lunch break, answer questions...

zest progress I've started working on the runtime. Many of the features of zest are going to be implemented by the runtime rather than by the compiler, but the runtime is itself written in zest. I'm slowly unpicking the dependency graph of features to make that work, so the last month saw a lot of tiny changes: Added a != operator. I somehow forgot it earlier. Added support for strings and string...