> Fast forward to 2006. I was shocked to learn that the binary search program that Bentley proved correct and subsequently tested in Chapter 5 of Programming Pearls contains a bug. ... Lest you think I'm picking on Bentley, let me tell you how I discovered the bug: The version of binary search that I wrote for the JDK contained the same bug. It was reported to Sun recently when it broke someone's program, after lying in wait for nine years or so.

https://research.google/blog/extra-extra-read-all-about-it-n...

For instance:

"All current mainstream [C++] compilers perform tail call optimisation fairly well (and have done for more than a decade), even for mutually recursive calls" [1].

"As of July 22, 2023 Safari is the only browser that supports tail call optimization" of JavaScript [2].

"Since Clojure uses the Java calling conventions, it cannot, and does not, make the same tail call optimization guarantees. Instead, it provides the recur special operator, which does constant-space recursive looping" [3].

"The Scala compiler will automatically optimize any truly tail-recursive method. If you annotate a method that you believe is tail-recursive with the @tailrec annotation, then the compiler will warn you if the method is actually not tail-recursive" [4].

[1]: https://stackoverflow.com/a/34129

[2]: https://stackoverflow.com/a/37224563

[3]: https://stackoverflow.com/a/34097339

[4]: https://stackoverflow.com/a/3114245

Relevant discussion yesterday:

> “Government orders GitHub to remove Bluetooth-based chat app Bitchat: Jack Dorsey”

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49036433

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48915910

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

> demanding jobs and long hours in the private sector, where 12-hour days and weekend shifts are common

But well, there’s the problem right there, right? If they restrict max working hours to like European standards, they’d immediately reduce unemployment to near zero.

Plus the extra time off produces greater domestic demand too.

This solution is too obvious. So why don’t they do it?

> Bill Gates had somehow manifested, alone, surrounded by ten Apple employees. … Steve started yelling at Bill, asking him why he violated their agreement.

And what’s more interesting is the conclusion:

> Apple filed a monumental copyright lawsuit against Microsoft in 1988, but they eventually lost on a technicality (the judge ruled that Apple inadvertently gave Microsoft a perpetual license to the Mac user interface in November 1985).

Microsoft didn’t steal Apple’s GUI … Apple gave it to them.

https://www.folklore.org/A_Rich_Neighbor_Named_Xerox.html

You’ll note Dye was an Ive decision. And you’ll see the successor was not in Dye’s camp. Because (work) politics.

From https://daringfireball.net/2025/12/bad_dye_job

> Gurman reported that Billy Sorrentino, a Dye deputy who has served as a senior director of design at Apple since 2016, is leaving for Meta with Dye.3 I don’t have any other names, but word on the street is that other members of Dye’s inner circle are leaving Apple for Meta with him. But those who remain — or who might remain, if they’d have been offered the promotion to replace Dye — simply can’t be trusted from the perspective of senior leadership, who were apparently blindsided by Dye’s departure for Meta.

> Putting Alan Dye in charge of user interface design was the one big mistake Jony Ive made as Apple’s Chief Design Officer.

> Dye had no background in user interface design... Before joining Apple, he was design director for the fashion brand Kate Spade, and before that worked on branding for the ad agency Ogilvy.

> Alan Dye is not untalented. But his talents at Apple were in politics. His political skill was so profound that it was his decision to leave, despite the fact that his tenure is considered a disaster by actual designers inside and outside the company. He obviously figured out how to please Apple’s senior leadership. His departure today landed as a total surprise because his stature within the company seemed so secure.

Yes, and so’s the available distractions and entertainment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_Is_All_You_Need

> on April 7, 2026 … U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell convened an urgent, in-person meeting in Washington with the chief executives of [major US banks] to brief them directly on the cyber risks posed by [Anthropic’s] Mythos

Then a similar meeting happened with the Canadian Financial Sector Resiliency Group (i.e. the Bank of Canada, the Canadian government’s Department of Finance, the Canadian Deposit Insurance Corporation (Canada’s FDIC) and Canada’s six major banks).

Multiple central banks don’t usually do that right?

https://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/article/anthropics-new-ai-mo...

> Swift is strictly better in OO support and C++ interop

So I guess from their point of view that’s why not rust.

I don’t have a horse in the race.

I was genuinely interested in why they didn’t even consider D given they already ruled out rust for those particular reasons, for which it seems D would fulfill nicely.

Why not D?

>> .filter (a -} ajsRed());

>> .forEach(giveApple); [sic]

> The red apple streams one is good. It shows how developers chase shiny new stuff with no respect for fundamentals.

The problem isn’t streams, it’s slop.

$$$

There’s a lot of interacting parts as to why many places have arrived where we are where cheap ghost writers (AI or not) can so easily negatively impact education. But it pretty much all comes down to costs.

“If the title includes the name of the site, please take it out…

“If the title contains a gratuitous number or number + adjective, we'd appreciate it if you'd crop it…

“Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize.” (From that link.)

Hope that helps.