Week 426 - Interesting links

Teach yourself computer science

This list of resources to learn about different areas of computer science seems well thought out, if a little intimidating. Having no formal education in computer science, I really enjoy learning about some of the more esoteric areas of the field and this list seems to cover those as well as more practical subjects too. I saw this list on the London Computation Club slack channel - a great place for getting support when teaching yourself. — CL

Salon des Refusés: Dialectics for new computer science

Apparently the original “Salon des Refusés” was an 1863 exhibition of artworks rejected from the official Paris Salon. This workshop aims to provide a venue where interesting and thought-provoking ideas which might struggle to find space in the modern programming language research community can be exposed to critical evaluation. The idea is to explore novel programming ideas and encourage new ways of doing computer science. Via Rob Chatley. — JM

Miniature Papercraft Synthesizers

I love these tiny, detailed paper recreations of classic synthesizers from Dan McPharlin. McPharlin has also made some beautiful album artwork, lego models and eerie landscapes, all with a retro sci-fi aesthetic. /via @sarah_edo. — CL

Dir.glob returns empty array when OS has no more file handles

I was surprised to discover that unlike methods like File.new, Dir.glob doesn’t raise an exception when the OS has run out of file handles. I’m pleased to see that this bug that I reported a couple of weeks ago has recently been assigned, although it’s not going to be fixed until Ruby v2.5. — JM

G Suite: Hangouts Meet

This paid-for service sounds as if it’s supposed to offer a better experience than the standard Hangouts service. I wonder whether it’s worth us enabling it for our company G Suite account. — JM