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    zik avatar zik 2 years ago | link | on: The search for a faster CRC32

    I wonder how the performance compares with a non-CRC hash algorithm like xxhash for instance? Why use CRC if other, faster alternatives are available?

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      alfiedotwtf avatar alfiedotwtf 2 years ago | link

      Legacy I guess. Cyrus is on CRC32 because that’s what it’s always used. As for switching to xxhash, here’s a copy-pasta from the same HN question:

      Pretty much this. From the post:

"Because it produces different results, it would render all our stored
 checksums invalid, so we'd have to recalculate them all. That's a big job,
 so we'd need to do a lot of testing first to make sure that it's so much better
 that it's actually worth the effort."
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      alfiedotwtf avatar alfiedotwtf 2 years ago | link | on: What are you working on this week?

      Trying to finish a blog post about the Traveling Salesman Problem, Metaheuristics and Rust. I’m sad that it’s taking me so long, but life gets in the way :/

      If anyone is interested in reviewing, it’d be awesome to hear from you: alfie@alfie.wtf

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        alfiedotwtf avatar alfiedotwtf 3 years ago | link | on: What are your favourite books (or other writings) on debugging?

        You might be better off reading a reverse engineering book like “Reversing: Secrets of Reverse Engineering” by Eldad Eilam (which is ok) rather than how to use a debugger. But to be honest, you’re better of reading 80s/90s cracking tutorials to get a sense of methods/tactics on debugging etc.

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          GeoffWozniak avatar GeoffWozniak 3 years ago | link

          Books or guides on how to use a debugger are explicitly ones I’ve avoided, but the reverse engineering ones are certainly a worthy consideration.

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          shazow avatar shazow 3 years ago | link | on: What are you reading this week?

          I’ve been making my way through Michael Abrash’s Graphics Programming Black Book (free epub/mobi) in an attempt to learn a bit more about graphics programming. It covers a lot of the fascinating advancements in graphics during his tenure at id Software, but it’s not the most pragmatic read for modern graphics programming.

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            alfiedotwtf avatar alfiedotwtf 3 years ago | link

            It’s a tough book, but a lot of fun. I think the reason why it’s not completely graphics oriented is because the first part was taken from his other book “The Zen of Code Optimization”. Later on in the book it focuses on graphics programming.

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              shazow avatar shazow 3 years ago | link

              Yea I started reading kinda from the middle, around the BSP section, but now I’m branching back out. It’s growing on me.

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                alfiedotwtf avatar alfiedotwtf 3 years ago | link

                If you’re interested in going further down the optimisation rabbit hole, have a look at “Code Optimization: Effective Memory Usage” by Kris Kaspersky. But if you’re more interested in graphics programming, I’ve found that games programming books go into more detail rather than graphics alone… depends on what you’re after.

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            alfiedotwtf avatar alfiedotwtf 3 years ago | link | on: What are you reading this week?

            Although I loved using Turbo Debugger in a past life, most of time I’ve been more of a “print sprinkler”. Now that I’m playing with Rust (as opposed to Perl), I figured now would be the best time to learn my way around GDB. Started reading “The Art of Debugging with GDB, DDD, and Eclipse” in the past week and so far so good. With the book open in front of me, I almost feel comfortable in gdb.

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              alfiedotwtf avatar alfiedotwtf 3 years ago | link | on: Project Oberon

              Along those same lines (complete operating system and compiler) is “Developing Your Own 32-Bit Operating System” by Richard A. Burgess:

              http://www.amazon.com/Developing-32-Bit-Operating-System-Cd-Rom/dp/0672306557/
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                alfiedotwtf avatar alfiedotwtf 3 years ago | link | on: What book are you reading this week?

                I’ve been a bit obsessed with the Traveling Salesman lately, and have found an awesome book on it - “In Pursuit of the Traveling Salesman: Mathematics at the Limits of Computation” by William J. Cook. Starts off with the history of the problem and the story behind people attacking it, explaining their tactics etc. It’s a really fun read and nothing really that technical. Would recommend again A+++