The Worst Mistake of Computer Science
This is a bit of a lengthy article and honestly the broken CSS on the page doesnāt help itās case buuuut I promise thereās a lot of good info and resources for everyone who enjoys going down the rabbit hole.
null is a commonly frustrating value for virtually every developer on the planet. As a primarily Javascript developer who was writing JS before the guardrails of TypeScript this particular phrase has haunted lots of my days
TypeError: Cannot read properties of null (reading .something())This article dives into the nature of NULL as a concept and walks through examples across various languages. Thereās a lot of commentary I could offer here however the article is lengthy enough so instead Iāll say that some of the examples are intentionally contrived but you should try to focus on what the author is trying to convey. Which is that NULL as a value that is not a value is an awful design decision, and hopefully these examples will incentivize you as you write your own code to be more conscious of the pitfalls.
https://lucid.co/techblog/2015/08/31/the-worst-mistake-of-computer-science
Gaining access to anyones browser
Just in time for spooky szn š».
I am not a security researcher by any stretch of the imagination but I do enjoy reading articles written by hackers. This one particular article caused quite a stir in the WebDev community (and generally across the developer space).
Arc Browser by The Browser Company (am I missing a Ā© or ā¢) is a relatively new browser built atop Chromium. Part of their goal is to make the experience of using a web browser to be more personalized, allowing you to override fonts, colors, and more.
I could delve further into this issue and talk about what The Browser Company had to say and other chatter but my quest here is to incentivize you to read, not to function as a journalist. Fireship has a great video on this if youāre curious.
This article does a great job of coloring in the unteachable part of hacking, which is that natural curiosity. Why did they dig into this in the first place? How did they pull on the various threads as it all unraveled? How much spare time do they have in a day? Check it out!