A magazine about programmers, code, and society. Written by and for humans since 2018.
by Adrian Kosmaczewski, December 1st, 2025
A quick search on YouTube with the query "Considered Harmful" is a revealing exercise. The number and variety of articles thereby returned is outstanding and, to a certain extent, hilarious. The day I wrote this article I had the following ones popping up, all of which were literally considered harmful for the purposes of the content: threads, enums, C++ generics, rand(), if, else, the UPDATE SQL statement, global variables, user stories, architecture, YAML (well, this one we can agree upon), IInterface, mocking frameworks, assemblers, abstractions, penetration testing, and yes, even programming itself. Among those search results there was even a talk by Alan Kay himself named "Normal Considered Harmful".
by Adrian Kosmaczewski, October 6th, 2025
On Monday, June 6th, 2011, after Steve Jobs' last public appearance as a keynote speaker, took place the "Developer Tools Kickoff" session at Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference, also known as WWDC. That day, Chris Lattner, creator of the LLVM compiler infrastructure and the Swift programming language, introduced a new feature of the Objective-C language to thunderous applause. This feature, still present in Swift, is known as "Automatic Reference Counting", or ARC.
August 4th, 2025
Welcome to the 83rd issue of De Programmatica Ipsum, about PHP. In this edition, we solemnly declare that PHP deserves a second chance; in the Library section, we review "PHP: The Right Way" by Phil Sturgeon & Josh Lockhart; and in our Vidéothèque section, we watch Kévin Dunglas tell us everything we need to know about FrankenPHP.
February 3rd, 2025
Welcome to the 77th issue of De Programmatica Ipsum, about the C++ programming language. In this edition, we take the risqué choice of comparing the work of Bjarne Stroustrup to that of the late film director David Lynch; in the Library section, we review "Effective C++" by Scott Meyers; and in our Vidéothèque section, we learn about programming language safety from Herb Sutter.
August 5th, 2024
Welcome to the 71st issue of De Programmatica Ipsum, about the Go programming language. In this edition, we provide context to the meteoric ascension of Go in the programming world; in the Library section, we review the work and legacy of Sir C. A. R. "Tony" Hoare; and in our Vidéothèque section, we watch four videos by Rob Pike.
February 5th, 2024
Welcome to the sixty-fifth issue of De Programmatica Ipsum, about the Pascal programming language. In this edition, we react to the sudden news of Niklaus Wirth's passing with memories of the past and perspectives of the present; in the Library section, we review "Classics in Software Engineering" by Edward Nash Yourdon; and in our Vidéothèque section, we watch some recent interviews of Niklaus Wirth himself.
August 7th, 2023
Welcome to the fifty-ninth issue of De Programmatica Ipsum, about the BASIC Programming Language. In this edition, we reconsider the role and importance of BASIC in the education of computer programmers; in the Library section, we review "Endless Loop" by Mark Jones Lorenzo; and in our Vidéothèque section, we review a commemorative video for the 50th anniversary of the BASIC programming language by Dartmouth College.
by Adrian Kosmaczewski, September 5th, 2022
Alan Jay Perlis knew a thing or two about programming languages, both as an early pioneer of our industry and as one of the designers of ALGOL. The language that has inspired the one you, dear reader of this magazine, probably use every day to earn a living.
August 1st, 2022
Welcome to the forty-seventh issue of De Programmatica Ipsum, dedicated to the subject of Rust. In this edition, Graham doubts the need to rewrite all the wheels in Rust; Adrian observes the growth of Rust in the past 15 months; and in the Library section, Graham reviews "Working Effectively with Legacy Code" by Michael Feathers.
by Adrian Kosmaczewski, September 6th, 2021
If there is one galaxy in the software development universe that has suffered from the relentless, unstoppable, frantic, and unbearable pace of innovation, that one is, undoubtedly, JavaScript.