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The Bilingual Developer
These days, it's hard to stick with just one language. Sure, you may be a Java developer or a Rubyist and "not interested" in learning another language. We tend to get comfortable in our comfort zone. But, being a polyglot has its advantages.
Tim Crowley just presented at SunJUG and Chris Schaefer was kind enough to circulate Tim's slides. I haven't spent much time on them yet, but being an iOS user and Android admirer, about to go from one to the other, and in light of the recent WWDC revelations, I am sure going to read these slides with passion. Enjoy, and please comment to let us know what you think!
Comment
Happy 10th year, JCertif!
Notes
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Created by Michael Levin Dec 18, 2008 at 6:56pm. Last updated by Michael Levin May 4, 2018.
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InfoQ Reading List
Presentation: Local First – How To Build Software Which Still Works After the Acquihire
Alex Good discusses the fragility of modern cloud-dependent apps and shares a roadmap for "local-first" software. By leveraging a Git-like DAG structure and Automerge, he explains how to move from brittle client-server models to resilient systems where data lives on-device. He explores technical implementation, rich-text merging, and how this infrastructure simplifies engineering workflows.
By Alex GoodArticle: Stateful Continuation for AI Agents: Why Transport Layers Now Matter
Agent workflows make transport a first-order concern. Multi-turn, tool-heavy loops amplify overhead that is negligible in single-turn LLM use. Stateful continuation cuts overhead dramatically. Caching context server-side can reduce client-sent data by 80%+ and improve execution time by 15–29% .
By Anirudh MendirattaPresentation: State of Play: AI Coding Assistants
Birgitta Böckeler discusses the rapid evolution of AI agents, moving beyond "vibe coding" to sophisticated context engineering. She explains how architectural constraints and "harness engineering" create the safety nets required for autonomous code generation. She shares vital insights for leaders on balancing speed with maintainability, security risks, and the cost of AI autonomy.
By Birgitta BöckelerInside Spotify’s 2025 Wrapped Archive: AI Narratives at Scale and the Privacy Trade‑Off
Spotify's engineering team developed the 2025 "Wrapped Archive," generating 1.4 billion personalized reports for 350 million users. This system identifies key listening days and crafts narratives using a language model. As companies increasingly provide narrative recaps, concerns about user privacy and data tracking persist, necessitating a balance between insights and privacy safeguards.
By Matt FosterPresentation: When Every Bit Counts: How Valkey Rebuilt Its Hashtable for Modern Hardware
Madelyn Olson discusses the evolution of Valkey's data structures, moving away from "textbook" pointer-chasing HashMaps to more cache-aware designs. She explains the implementation of "Swedish" tables to maximize memory density. She shares insights on systems intuition, memory prefetching, and the rigorous testing needed for mission-critical caches.
By Madelyn Olson
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