Roundup: Cheese, things nobody told me, music identification, podcasts, LISP, Donald Knuth
Murray Steele
Dec. 21, 2018
A Brief History of Cheese - Ben W
https://youtu.be/QKae1k1BDdA
I've always wondered how cheese started. I mean, why would anyone eat rotten milk?
Things Nobody Told Me About Being a Software Engineer - Elena T
https://anaulin.org/blog/things-nobody-told-me-about-being-a-software-engineer/
Yule probably recognise a lot of these.
How Shazam works - Elena T
http://coding-geek.com/how-shazam-works/
Writing software to identify song fingerprints is snow joke. If you're wondering how Shazam can identify that particular Christmas song in your playlist, this article has you covered.
Wilson podcast magazine - Neil vB
https://wilson.fm/
A curated set of of themed podcast playlists with thoughtful descriptions, updated every week or so. You might be into this if you're a podcast fan and looking to find out about new shows. Also available as an iOS app.
Why do developers revere LISP - Murray S
https://twobithistory.org/2018/10/14/lisp.html
LISP is one of those languages spoken of in hushed tones among some software developers as the one true language. It certainly has a pleasing simplicity (everything is a list!), but it can't just be that, can it? This article tries to explain some of the allure, and how we got there with LISP specifically when there are plenty of other choices.
Donald Knuth interview - Murray S
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/17/science/donald-knuth-computers-algorithms-programming.html
A long interview and profile of Donald Knuth, author of "The Art of Computer Programming". I'm still in awe that when he saw a printed copy of his book he was so horrified by the results, he created an entire new digital typesetting language to make sure it looked better for the next print run. A true yak-shave if ever there was one!