Rob Janssen

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It's hard to test software: even simple software!

But that's not all that's difficult about it. Though it's a simple game that can be implemented in one line of BBC BASIC, it's complex enough to be really hard to thoroughly test.

The Network is Reliable

"The network is reliable" tops Peter Deutsch's classic list, "Eight fallacies of distributed computing" (https://blogs.oracle.com/jag/resource/Fallacies.html), "all [of which] prove to be false in the long run and all [of which] cause big trouble and painful learning experiences.

Facebook's software architecture

Facebook uses simple architecture that gets things done. Papers from Facebook are refreshingly simple, and I like reading these papers. Two more Facebook papers appeared recently, and I briefly summarize them below.

Violating the “smart enum” pattern in C#

For a while now, I’ve been a big fan of a pattern in C# which mimics Java enums to a certain extent. In general, it’s a lovely pattern. Only after reading a comment on a recent blog post by Eric Lippert did I find out about a horrible flaw. Dubious thanks to John Payson for prompting this post.

Programmer’s dilemma

Recently I interviewed tens of candidates for a kernel programmer’s position. These candidates are from big, good companies, which are famous for chips or embedded OS/systems. Many of them claimed they have at least 10 years on-job experience on kernel.

Performance Tuning ~ Writing an Essay

Skip to the meaty bits. My work at AppNexus mostly involves performance optimisation, at any level from microarchitecture-driven improvements to data layout and assembly code to improving the responsiveness of our distributed system under load.

Favorite Relational Database

Last week we conducted a small research in the form of a poll: "What is your favorite RDBMS?". The poll received more responses than anticipated – a little bit over 900 votes were submitted. The topic in question can induce flame wars, but this time it passed without major incidents.

A Simplified Example of MapReduce

While mentoring through Hackbright I was asked to explain the MapReduce algorithm to students with little technical background, and I came up with an interesting example to illustrate how it works. You want to count how many spades are in a deck of cards.

How to clear HSTS Settings in Major Browsers

So...I moved my hosting to a new company. No big, right? Except, I had an SSL certificate that implemented HSTS (HTTP Strict Transport Security) on my old server.

PhotoMath uses your phone's camera to solve equations

Need a little help getting through your next big math exam? MicroBlink has an app that could help you study more effectively -- perhaps too effectively.

This Read-It-Later-list is just that, bookmarks of stuff I intend to read or have read. I do not necessarily agree with opinions or statements in the bookmarked articles.

This list is compiled from my Pocket list.