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While there is much trepidation in the media about AI, I must remind myself that the move towards automation is nothing new and that AI itself is a form of automation. When the term automation was first coined it referred to installing automatic equipment on a factory’s production line, but the modern usage generally refers to they way we utilize technology in such a way that we supersede a set of manual processes for automatic ones. So the statement can be made that technology drives innovation and automation.

On the 29th of August 2023, major flight delays were reported in the UK news due to an issue occurring with the UK National Air Traffic Services systems. The cause of the issue has since been identified as a rare instance of incorrect flight plan data. While the technical side of this issue was resolved within three hours, the repercussions would impact and flights and airports for several days. Another such event happened on the 6th of September 2023. When I had first heard about this incident, I thought about defensive programming and if applied, how it had essentially failed to account for an error, one reported to be ‘one in 15 million’.

I thought it would be interesting to see how I could get this site (which is currently running on shared hosting) to interact with a service on another network, the caveat being that the other network is only accessible over a dynamic IP address.

About a month before writing this article, I needed a website. Although I had a simple portfolio and blog on GitHub pages, the platform had it’s limitations, so I explored other options, from self-hosting to shared hosting. I chose the latter.

RUST is an exceptional programming language that stands out in many ways. It excels in memory management and prevents memory leaks. The rust compiler is user-friendly, providing suggestions to correct mistakes. The cargo build system is a joy to use. When all these features come together, it results in a satisfying experience of compiling code that works flawlessly. Rust ensures correctness, making everything right in the world.

The idea for this post originated from a question asked on Reddit the other day, one that is often asked, ‘I have learned languages A, B and C should I learn D?’. The person in question had learnt several languages over the past few months and wanted to know if learning this new language would prove beneficial because it was popular. It had occurred to me that their approach to learning languages had missed the mark. It was something which I also failed to grasp early on in my development journey. If I had, I would not have wasted so much valuable time with little to show. They had failed to realise that learning a given language is only a prerequisite to reaching a professional role. Thus, choosing to learn another language based on its popularity can often be viewed as an exercise in wasting time.

JavaScript is a widely-used programming language that is easily accessible and often the first language people learn. While it was not my initial programming language, I began using it, off and on, over 10 years ago. Initially, I struggled to understand JavaScript as it operates differently from the other programming languages I had encountered before it. Though this difference may not be immediately obvious to those who are new to programming. Many beginners share a common misunderstanding of the nature of the language, and this may be why JavaScript is viewed with such polarized opinions among developers. I used to dislike it myself and only managed to write basic code with the help of frameworks like jQuery, but I realized that I hadn’t taken the time to truly understand the language. Now that I have a better grasp of its core concepts, I enjoy coding with JavaScript. I believe that anyone can come to appreciate the language if they take the time to understand its fundamentals.

Throughout the history of computers, countless programming languages have been developed. While some have endured, others quickly became obsolete. This has led me to question why languages like Fortran, which is over 60 years old, have stood the test of time, while newer and more advanced languages have faded away. In my opinion, a programming language’s survival depends on four key factors: its niche, relevance, popularity, and accessibility.