In my first job out of college, I was assigned the task of rewriting the autocomplete feature of a search page. The original code, entombed in a decrepit codebase, was a nauseating monstrosity that others wanted no truck with. The plan was to rewrite it in TypeScript-a dialect of JavaScript-drawing on a library that incorporated some handy features from a language called Haskell.
Haskell. It sounded like a good name for a weapon-a well-sharpened blade, like scimitar or katana. The strong German-sounding plosive in its name, as in Nietzsche or Kafka, added a menacing edge. All I really knew about the language was that it was challenging and intended for math PhDs.
The rewrite could be done without knowing Haskell, technically, but I was an overeager graduate with a "challenge accepted" attitude to everything, even when it was absolutely uncalled for. I found a whimsically titled tutorial book –Learn You a Haskell for Great Good! – and spent that winter writing Haskell most evenings after work. It was like learning to program all over again.
Long before Haskell coalesced into a programming language, it was a swarm of theoretical concepts. In 1977, the computer scientist John Backus delivered an influential lecture titled "Can Programming Be Liberated From the Von Neumann Style?" In it, he argued that existing languages were becoming bloated and ineffective. It was a clarion call to evolve "functional programming" from mathematical esoterica to a practical tool.
Bu hikaye WIRED dergisinin July - August 2024 sayısından alınmıştır.
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Bu hikaye WIRED dergisinin July - August 2024 sayısından alınmıştır.
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MOVE SLOWLY AND BUILD THINGS
EVERYTHING DEPENDS ON MICROCHIPS-WHICH MEANS TOO MUCH DEPENDS ON TAIWAN. TO REBUILD CHIP MANUFACTURING AT HOME, THE U.S. IS BETTING BIG ON AN AGING TECH GIANT. BUT AS MONEY AND COLOSSAL INFRASTRUCTURE FLOW INTO OHIO, DOES TOO MUCH DEPEND ON INTEL?
FOLLOW THAT CAR
CHASING A ROBOTAXI FOR HOURS AND HOURS IS WEIRD AND REVELATORY, AND BORING, AND JEALOUSY-INDUCING. BUT THE DRIVERLESS WORLD IS COMING FOR ALL OF US. SO GET IN AND BUCKLE UP.
REVENGE OF THE SOFTIES
FOR YEARS, PEOPLE COUNTED MICROSOFT OUT. THEN SATYA NADELLA TOOK CONTROL. AS THE COMPANY TURNS 50, IT'S MORE RELEVANT-AND SCARIER-THAN EVER.
THE INSIDE SCOOP ON DESSERT TECH
A lab in Denmark works to make the perfect ice cream. Bring on the fava beans?
CONFESSIONS OF A HINGE POWER DATER
BY HIS OWN estimation, JB averages about three dates a week. \"It's gonna sound wild,\" he confesses, \"but I've probably been on close to 200 dates in the last year and a half.\"
A Full-Term Gig - Hiring someone to carry your baby to term is a booming business.
Hiring someone to carry your baby to term is a booming business. The market for surrogacy is expected to expand to $129 billion by 2032, fueled by older parents, rising infertility, and more same-sex families. Silicon Valley contributes to the growth too: Tech companies like Google, Meta, and Snap pitch in up to $80,000 toward the six-figure cost of the process.
Inside the Uncanny World of TikTok Home Remodeling - Turn a tree into a luxury apartment. Retrofit a bedroom for a million children. The videos are bizarre-and going very viral. Who's behind them?
If you've been on TikTok at any point in the past six months, chances are you've stumbled across them, as I first did during a fairly routine doomscroll one night this summer. For me it started with two videos somewhat incongruously tagged #homeremodeling and #housedesign. One of them featured a CGI man summoning a baby phoenix outside of a tree that he planned to turn into an apartment. Then a robotic AI voice started to narrate how the CGI man, identified as Little John, was going to build it. Over the next 90 seconds, Little John transformed the tree into a maniacally space-efficient luxury unit in an AI-generated ballet of flying galvanized square steel, ecofriendly wood veneer, and expansion screws.
THE MIDLIFE NOT -A-CRISIS OF MARK CUBAN
Though he's soon to be out at Shark Tank, the billionaire has a massive new \"disruption\" in the works. He's certain it'll save lives.
THE ALTERNATE UNIVERSE OF MEREDITH WHITAKER
It's free. It doesn't track you or serve you ads. It pays its engineers very well. And it's a go-to app for hundreds of millions of people.
Cooler Heads - The deadliest environmental threat to city dwellers worldwide isn't earthquakes, tornadoes, flooding, or fire. It's heat.
The deadliest environmental threat to city dwellers worldwide isn't earthquakes, tornadoes, flooding, or fire. It's heat. In Phoenix, Arizona, where almost 400 people died from heat exposure last year-and where falling on the pavement can leave a third-degree burn-the question isn't whether this summer's temperatures will kill people, it's how many.
