Unpopular opinion: Classic Lisp/Scheme isn't a great first programming language.[1]

When I learned Lisp in school I was incredibly confused by the difference between functional programming in the sense of passing functions and creating macros.

That key distinction and difference is important, and the homoiconicity[3] made that distinction less clear than it needed to be.

Teach Scheme second or third if you like, not first.

#Lisp #Scheme #CompterScience #ComputerProgramming

[1] No I'm not talking about LOGO.[2]

[2] If LOGO was your first programming language (it was mine) then you're old.

[3] This is the Fediverse and now I'm sure someone is going to change their username to"Homoiconicity"

The wonderful world of Python truths and falsehoods:

bool(0) => False
bool("") => False
but
bool("0") => True

Let the programmer beware...

#ComputerProgramming
#Python

To what extent is AI killing jobs? @brianmerchant put out a call to try and find some answers, and now he's sharing the first of them in his Blood in the Machine newsletter. "Generative AI is the most hyped, most well-capitalized technology of our generation, and its key promise, that it will automate jobs, desperately needs to be examined. This is the start of that examination," he writes. His series will be broken down by field and background, and starts with the tech industry, including stories from a TikTok content moderator, former staff engineer at Dropbox, fintech worker and more.

https://flip.it/HYFRxU

Open University of Catalonia: The use of commercial video games helps students to learn basic programming. “The study, published in open access in the journal Entertainment Computing, tracked more than 50 UOC students from different backgrounds over a period of six weeks. A significant proportion were studying for the Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Engineering… The researchers encouraged the […]

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/06/05/open-university-of-catalonia-the-use-of-commercial-video-games-helps-students-to-learn-basic-programming/

I can setup the project to build using Akku-R7RS:

akku add akku-r7rs;
akku install;
./.akku/env;

But then how should I build each of the .sld files to binary using the Chez compiler?

@mdhughes @civodul @wasamasa do any of you know how to do this?

https://www.europesays.com/2046422/ Apple and Anthropic Building AI-Powered Coding Platform #AI #Anthropic #Apple #ArtificialIntelligence #coding #ComputerProgramming #News #partnerships #PYMNTSNews #What'sHot

A tip for spreadsheet users that I have learned from watching a mistake made by others:

When you use
=MAX(M2-X2/M2,0.1)
to place a floor of 10% on how low you want your calculation to be of a fractional positive gap to reduce M2 to X2 by, please try to remember that the X2 cell value could be *already greater* than the M2 cell value.

You probably want
=IF(X2<M2,MAX(M2-X2/M2,0.1),0)
or similar.

Because if (say) M2 is 6.81E+10 and X2 is 7.99E+10, then your calculation is going to come up with 10% instead of 0%, let alone the correct -17%.

Which might be embarrassing. (-:

Jean Sammet: An Accidental Computer Programmer

The IBM programming language specialist helped develop Cobol in 1959

By Amanda Davis

https://spectrum.ieee.org/jean-sammet-accidental-computer-programmer

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_E._Sammet

Hardest Problems in the Computer Sciences:

1. Cache Invalidation
2. Data Sanitization
3. Naming Things
4. Compound Booleans
5. Determining whether a value is a number or a string
6. Timezones
7. Tolerating Your Coworkers

I was trying to write a toot about magic and computer programming, but I had a lot of thoughts on this topic. So, I wrote a blog post.

My Hugo-based blog that I last touched in 2020 doesn't seem to build with the latest Hugo. It is still rough since I am shifting to a new theme (e.g. it is stuck in dark theme). Anyway, here's the blog post.

A Computer Programmer Talks About Magic
https://njoseph.me/blog/posts/computer-programmer-talks-about-magic/

Margaret Hamilton Recalls Her Life as a Programming Pioneer.

The pioneering software engineer who helped send men to the moon recalls her decades of innovation in a newly published video conversation. by David Cassel via @thenewstack

https://thenewstack.io/nasa-programming-legend-margaret-hamilton-gives-rare-interview/

Danish computer science pioneer and Turing award winner (2005) Peter Naur died #OTD in 2016.

He is best remembered as a contributor, with John Backus, to the Backus–Naur form (BNF) notation used in describing the syntax for most programming languages. He also contributed to creating the language ALGOL 60. Awarded the IEEE Computer Society Computer Pioneer Medal in 1986. via @wikipedia