A magazine about programmers, code, and society. Written by and for humans since 2018.
by Adrian Kosmaczewski, December 1st, 2025
In a key scene of the 2012 blockbuster James Bond film "Skyfall", MI6 quartermaster Q, played by Ben Whishaw, realizes too late that plugging a cable into the laptop of a notoriously skilled terrorist like Raoul Silva (one of Javier Bardem's most remarkable roles) was a terrible idea. After a few seconds of connection, the laptop infects the systems of MI6, releasing all physical doors and disabling all security guards, prompting Silva to escape and wreak havoc through the London Underground. A message appears on the laptop screen, taunting Q, reading "Not such a clever boy".
by Adrian Kosmaczewski, September 1st, 2025
Today we are going to talk about a person in a quest to let everyone know that the most popular functional programming language in the world is none other than Microsoft Excel. Yes, the claim sounds outlandish, debatable, laughable, even ridiculous, but she has both data and anecdotal experience backing her point, and this month’s Vidéothèque movie is a brilliant presentation of it. Also, let us be honest; as software developers it is our duty to use our beloved brains, and go past the mocking stages in order to learn and embrace the unknown; in this case, the language used by most of the modern business world to communicate: spreadsheets.
by Adrian Kosmaczewski, June 2nd, 2025
Among the many documents available at the Computer History Museum website there is an interesting artifact: a commercial brochure published in 1957 by the Remington Rand UNIVAC, "a division of Sperry Rand Corporation", titled "introducing a new language for automatic programming". In it, we learn about the advantages of the new (at the time) FLOW-MATIC programming language, the brainchild of United States Navy Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper.
by Adrian Kosmaczewski, December 2nd, 2024
The problem of teaching programming skills to new generations of software engineers is as old as the computers themselves. Each generation has tried to do it in a slightly different way, with various degrees of success. There is a lot of literature available online about the subject, and in this article we will point out papers and books that we found to be the most noteworthy. By no means this is an exhaustive list, but it features some interesting entries that might serve as a starting point for your own research.
by Adrian Kosmaczewski, November 4th, 2024
Let us agree on one basic principle, one that most regular readers of this magazine already know is a core tenet at its heart: the phrase "Human Resources" is atrocious. There is no other way to describe the appalling sentiment and the contempt brought into our minds as we read such a contraption. Even worse, the fact that some people voluntarily choose to wear it as part of their professional title is beyond our comprehension. If you do not agree with this idea, you might want to stop reading altogether.
by Adrian Kosmaczewski, June 3rd, 2024
Most software developers are ejected from academia into the jaws of the business of software with little preparation. Of course, they are equipped with good enough knowledge about some more or less relevant programming language, and maybe some algorithm, hopefully including the venerable linked list reversion, indispensable to pass the dreaded coding interview. But not much more.
by Adrian Kosmaczewski, December 4th, 2023
On Sunday, July 20th, 1969, at precisely 20:14:19 UTC, just a mere three minutes before touchdown, the voice of Edwin Eugene Aldrin Jr. confirmed the "Go for landing" order received from Mission Control together with a phrase nobody wanted to hear at that moment: "Program alarm - 1201."
by Adrian Kosmaczewski, July 3rd, 2023
In the twenty-five years since the appearance of the phrase "Open Source", many authors have tried to explain this simple fact: why do software developers willingly and spontaneously collaborate, often on a pro bono basis, to the creation of open-source software? And most importantly, how does this even happen? Many books have been written around this seemingly illogical fact.
by Adrian Kosmaczewski, June 5th, 2023
The archetype of software engineering dress code is quite parochial: a t-shirt (usually featuring a conference or programming language logo, or a geek joke), a pair of jeans, snickers, and a sweatshirt, in case the weather gets more San Francisco-like than you might expect. And that is it. Let us admit it: the "about us" page of software companies often looks like advertising for The Gap, American Apparel, or sometimes even, sadly, Abercrombie & Fitch, minus the abs, of course.
by Adrian Kosmaczewski, May 2nd, 2022
Developers new to the iOS platform are completely (and thankfully) unaware of its rocky start during its initial years. The first iPhone was announced on January 9th, 2007, and was released in the United States on June 29th that year. The iPhone SDK was announced by Steve Jobs in October 2007, and released in March 2008. But even before the official SDK was first announced, people were already "jailbreaking" the device, and thereby making applications for the iPhone. First-generation iPhone and iPad developers will surely chuckle when reading the words "PwnageTool," "JailbreakMe," and the name of the first App Store, also known as "Cydia."