The Overflow #182: Self-healing code

Welcome to ISSUE #182 of The Overflow! This newsletter is by developers, for developers, written and curated by the Stack Overflow team and Cassidy Williams. This week: how to make sure the tools you buy get used, when math got imagination, and why a string pointer error grew to two billion characters.

From the blog

What developers with ADHD want you to know stackoverflow.blog
For this followup post, we spoke with two Stack Overflow software engineers with ADHD about their experiences being diagnosed as adults, taking medication, and communicating about their ADHD at work.

Self-healing code is the future of software development stackoverflow.blog
Developers love automating solutions to their problems, and with the rise of generative AI, this concept is likely to be applied to the creation, maintenance, and the improvement of code at an entirely new level.

How to keep your new tool from gathering dust stackoverflow.blog
If you’re thinking about rolling out a new tool to your team, you should also be thinking about how to get colleagues and management on board, how to embed that tool in your everyday workflows, and how to assess whether it’s working as it should. Tech that solves human problems needs humans to participate in those solutions.

MosaicML: Deep learning models for sale, all shapes and sizes (Ep. 577) stackoverflow.blog
Ben and Ryan talk with Jonathan Frankle and Abhinav Venigalla of MosaicML, a startup trying to make deep learning and generative AI efficient and accessible for everyone.

Dev Tool Focus: gitStream (pull request labels and routing) promotion
Reviewing pull requests is not…fun. But it can be more efficient with the use of gitStream’s novel workflow automation that adds custom labels (ex. Estimated review time) and even assigns code experts (better than CODEOWNERS). Try gitStream today for free!

Interesting questions

Has there ever been a C compiler where using ++i was faster than i++? retrocomputing.stackexchange.com
It’s the whole reason ++C was created.

How did the shift from constructed mathematical objects to modern mathematics occur? hsm.stackexchange.com
When mathematicians switched from “impossible to solve” to “the solution is impossibility.”

Is there a general theory of intelligence and design that would allow us to detect the presence of design in an object based solely on its properties? philosophy.stackexchange.com
Consider the microchip: Without knowing the purposes of a chip, it’s difficult to investigate its structure.

False proofs that look correct cs.stackexchange.com
Perilous proof pitfalls present ponderous programming puzzles.

Links from around the web

Tech debt metaphor maximalism apenwarr.ca
Tech debt is a metaphor for financial debt, and this essay extends that metaphor out to its logical extreme.

What’s new in CSS – WWDC23 developer.apple.com
Check out the new layout and typography features in CSS!

The case of the two billion characters long string giodicanio.com
Weird things can happen when you misinterpret a string pointer, but Assembly can help!

Rotate your file funct.app
If you’ve ever wanted to send a file securely, here’s a useful tool that’ll help you do so. Check out the handy little FAQ to see how it works!

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