“Programming Languages in the Age of AI Agents” In the age of “AI” Agents generating the code, is your programming language choice still relevant? Or will we just converge on using the top 5 languages, as that’s what the “AI” trained on? #AI #FP #Opinion #Programming alexn.org/blog/2025/11...

In #Java try-catch-finally can ignore returns, mask exceptions, and breaks the interruption protocol. alexn.org/blog/2025/11...

Programming languages influence chosen solutions. To see, for example, how #Scala influences API design, look no further than the Decline library for CLI parsing. github.com/bkirwi/decline

“On Scala, Functional Programming and Type-Classes” (2012) I wrote this article 13 years ago. I'm so glad I wrote it, it's basically a time capsule containing everything I saw in #Scala that made me stick with it. alexn.org/blog/2012/11...

I haven't blogged in a while, but this needed to be written: kubuszok.com/2025/sanely-...

Sharaf 0.14.0 is out! github.com/sake92/shara... Added support for: - SSE - named tuples in query/form params - union types in query/form params

“Scala vs F#” 🔥🔥🔥 Which language leans more towards functional programming? In this binary choice, people have perceived F# to be that language, due to its ML roots, but I have a different perspective… #FP #Scala #FSharp #JVM #dotNET alexn.org/blog/2025/11...

"Scala 3 / HOCON Parsing" Alternative titles: How to use Circe for HOCON? How to work with multiple JSON codecs per data structure? #Scala #Scala3 #Programming #Snippet alexn.org/blog/2025/10...

'AI' Sucks the Joy Out of Programming I’ve been experimenting enough with LLM/AI-driven programming to have an opinion on it. And it kind of sucks. #AI #Opinion #Programming #ProgrammingRant alexn.org/blog/2025/10...

“Scala 3 / No-Indent” Scala 3 came with “significant indentation”. And I still dislike it, despite trying hard, so I'm switching back to braces. #Languages #Programming #ProgrammingRant #Scala #Scala3 alexn.org/blog/2025/10...

"Scala 3 / Match Types" Scala has a neat new feature, resembling TypeScript's "conditional types", but more powerful. #Languages #Programming #Scala #Scala3 #TypeScript alexn.org/blog/2025/10...

On how I'm using GitHub's Copilot in Agent mode for yak shaving, evolving my Jekyll-powered website for rendering mathematical formulas by SVG images, instead of heavy JavaScript: alexn.org/blog/2025/10... #AI #Blogging #Jekyll #SelfHosting

"Math Pill #2: Square Roots" Simplifying radicals is strangely satisfying. alexn.org/blog/2025/10... #Math #Learning

“Math Pill #1: Sums” #Learning #Math alexn.org/blog/2025/10...

“Outsourced Voices, Outsourced Minds” We are not machines, or automatons. We were fooled, but we can fight back. Don't let algorithms control your thoughts and actions. alexn.org/blog/2025/10... (Note: I'm not replying to comments on Bluesky, comment on my blog instead)

I'm changing (again) how I use social-media. This account is now write-only, meant for publishing links to my website: alexn.org I will not be reading comments on my published links, either. Comment on my blog if you want to say hi and have opinions.

Cancel culture is not the same thing as being banned from an online community for being rude. Internet has a long history of channels poisoned by rude people, starting from Usenet, communities dying by pacifism. Community owners should just forgo COCs and ban whomever they want.

REST vs GraphQL

“The state” does not represent the people. It's better for individuals to make mistakes; when the state makes mistakes, it's a collective tragedy. The state is never shrinking, it only grows, converging on either fascism or communism. Politicians understand E2EE, don't assume good intentions.

On Chat Control 👇

#JUnit 6.0.0 is released! ✨ Java 17 and Kotlin 2.2 baseline 🌄 JSpecify nullability annotations 🛫 Integrated JFR support 🚟 Kotlin suspend function support 🛑 Support for cancelling test execution ⏭️ New `--fail-fast` mode for ConsoleLauncher 🧹 Removal of deprecated APIs docs.junit.org/6.0.0/releas...

Better immutability in Kotlin with Valhalla www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jam... #kotlin #programming #jvm #jvmls

When anti-#Scala people say “nothing like [drama] has happened in the Java community”, that's only because #Java doesn't have a “community”. It's like living in a village, where everyone knows each other, versus a city, where you barely know your next-door neighbours 😉

brew install ghostty

“WASM 3.0 completed” #Scala mentioned ❤️ https://webassembly.org/news/2025-09-17-wasm-3.0/

There's a lot of energy for hate, online, but I'd rather have software developers go back to hating programming languages and MS Windows.

Do you know of any good tutorials on hosting (and securing) WordPress via Docker?

Many people in tech jumped on the static-site generators train, for their blog, since it simplifies hosting and we want to use Markdown syntax for our articles anyway. But in doing so, people outsourced a lot of what made blogs great, like the comments section.

Scala Plugin 2025.2.30 is out! 🚀 It comes with: - Support for SBT 2.0-RC4 - The option to disable error highlighting while the autocompletion popup is open - Better error highlighting for opaque types - Fixes to extension methods support ... and much more!

I love my nerds so much 😍💕

New Scala Projects course by RockTheJVM: rockthejvm.com/courses/scal.... This looks like a great next step after learning Scala basics!

Today I used ChatGPT to help my son with a math problem. My son looks at me and asks: “Dad, have you no shame? Why are you outsourcing your thinking?” Touché.

The difference between maths and (imperative) programming… Programming: “Turn left!” Maths: “There exists a left turn such that…”

“Effects and concurrency in functional programming” I've delivered (sometime this year) this presentation at a local meetup (ING Hubs Romania). The target was mainstream developers, with the intent to give them a taste of #FP and working with I/O in #Scala www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSWn...

You won't lose your job to AI. You'll lose your job to someone that hasn't outsourced their thinking to AI. 🤖🚀🧨

“Free Speech” (2022) Republished article. Given we are on the bad timeline, it's more important than ever for moderates (the vast majority) to realize that censorship is the tool of dictators, always one election cycle away from turning against them. #politics #freespeech alexn.org/blog/2022/04...

What I'm teaching my son: ChatGPT / Google (Search) makes people stupid. You need curiosity, hard skills, to read and write a lot in order to have ideas, to seize opportunities, to think for yourself, instead of parroting other people's pre-digested thoughts.

#Mastodon and #Bluesky aren't going well in terms of adoption. But if the company behind Bluesky dies, the service is gone, whereas Mastodon can be self-hosted for cheap, and even if all other instances shut down, it's still a working website with a functional RSS feed.

They don't make them like they used to www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmin...

How my son's programming lessons with me are going: “In programming and in mathematics (logic / boolean algebra), True is encoded as 1, and False as 0. Except for the Unix shell, but I don't want to talk about that, err … forget what I said.”

Shovel seller tells people that everyone will dig for gold in 3 to 6 months.

Worth repeating: Open-Source projects are private property! If you want revolution, fork it. Forking is what OSS is about. Or leave, either way it's fine. OTOH, calling for the “resignation” of a project's owners is stupid. Ask your landowner to resign, see how that works out.

Programming is a profession maintained with effort. You need to spend free time to learn, to work on personal projects, and this need never stops. Treat your profession as "just a job," and your job will soon be automated or obsoleted. This has happened long before LLMs.

📢 The Kotlin 2.2.20 release is out, bringing important changes for web development! Kotlin/Wasm is now Beta, with improved exception handling in JavaScript interop, npm dependency management, built-in browser debugging support, and a new shared source set for js and wasmJs targets. 🔗 kotl.in/2.2.20

🙌 Excited to share: Kotlin/Wasm is now Beta and ready for real applications. I won’t keep you any longer... Try it now ➡️ kotl.in/wasm.

You may find it unfair that job posts ask for specific programming tools & langs. But the employer's perspective is ... you can always learn on your own, enough to pass any interview, so why haven't you? Yes, companies should train people, but remember the days of job hopping?

If you're using fs2 or http4s-ember with TLS/HTTPS, please upgrade to 3.12.2 or 3.13.0-M7 due this this CVE: github.com/typelevel/fs...

🤯 Null pointer exceptions are still around – and still costly for developers. #JSpecify 1.0 is a new player aiming to fix that, with growing support throughout the #Java ecosystem, including in IntelliJ IDEA. 👉 jb.gg/os04pq

"Why I quit $ProgrammingLanguage" Nobody cares. Save yourself the trouble and just move on. A programming language is just a tool, it's not your identity, employer or religion. And such articles are always cringe, you'll be sorry for writing it, especially when you "come back".

Rants have the best reach on social media, which says a lot about the value of social media for society. A bunch of young and old farts yelling at cloud about their grievances. That was the 2010s, today the Internet is LLM bots hallucinating angrily at each other.