Suppose you're a savvy C++ developer who knows all about data-oriented design and the importance of optimizing for cache locality if you want a prayer of running fast on modern hardware. Now suppose you want to go beyond basics—"just use std::vector" is a good starting point, but you want more! I'm going to go over … Continue reading Benchmarks of Cache-Friendly Data Structures in C++
I just got off the phone with the year 2008... have you heard of this thing called HDR?!?!?!
In describing for a coworker a place where two different subsystems have their own (hopefully identical!) ideas about the state of the UI, I was reminded of this quote from the database world: Between any two copies of the same data, there will be differences. I've tried unsuccessfully to find attribution for this... if you … Continue reading Data Normalization Matters
After Virtue was one of the most challenging things I've read in awhile, both intellectually and emotionally. I'm coming to it from the perspective of someone who was more or less sold on utilitarianism (or some form of consequentialism at least), having had very little contact with virtue ethics previously. Since I assume most people … Continue reading Review of After Virtue
These are my (extremely lengthy) notes on Alastair MacIntyre's After Virtue. This book is credited with reinvigorating the discussion of virtue ethics in the modern context—a branch of ethics that has been more or less ignored since Aquinas. My own thoughts on the book are here. (As much as possible, I've avoided editorialising in the … Continue reading Notes on After Virtue
