Liam Proven, in a nice obituary in The Register:

Swiss computer scientist Professor Niklaus Wirth died on New
Year’s Day, roughly six weeks before what would have been his 90th
birthday.

Wirth is justly celebrated as the creator of the Pascal
programming language, but that was only one step in a series of
important languages and research projects. Both asteroid
21655 and a law of computer design are named after
him. He won computer-science boffinry’s highest possible gong, the
Turing Award, in 1984, and that page has some short
English-language clips from a 2018 interview. […]

As described in C H Lindsey’s History of ALGOL-68 [PDF],
when the ALGOL-W proposal was rejected, Wirth resigned from the
committee, contributing a strong “Closing Word” to the
November 1968 Algol Bulletin 29, containing gems such as:

I pulled out my copy of the draft report on ALGOL-68 and showed it
to her. She fainted.

Instead, Wirth took his proposal, changed it to be somewhat
less compatible with ALGOL, and released it in 1970 under the
name Pascal.

Wirth’s Law encapsulates Wirth’s philosophy: “The hope is that the progress in hardware will cure all software ills. However, a critical observer may observe that software manages to outgrow hardware in size and sluggishness.” Or, as he rephrased it in his paper describing Project Oberon: “In spite of great leaps forward, hardware is becoming faster more slowly than software is becoming slower.” In many ways, this remains the fundamental problem of our entire industry. It’s a truism, and can only be mitigated.

He endorsed simplicity and clarity, and his languages and system designs exemplified those ideals. Studying computer science in the early to mid-1990s, I was among the last to learn Pascal as a teaching language. After outgrowing BASIC, I had actually started learning Pascal my senior year in high school, in a class with just two other students — thanks, Mrs. Spatz — and it was that class that made me want to study computer science in college.

And Pascal was to the original Macintosh what Objective-C was to Mac OS X — the language Apple established as the default for writing application software. Most of the apps that established the Macintosh as the platform for people with good taste in the 1980s and early 1990s were written in Pascal. THINK Pascal was an IDE years — maybe over a decade — ahead of its time.

 ★ 

Liam Proven, in a nice obituary in The Register:

Swiss computer scientist Professor Niklaus Wirth died on New
Year’s Day, roughly six weeks before what would have been his 90th
birthday.

Wirth is justly celebrated as the creator of the Pascal
programming language, but that was only one step in a series of
important languages and research projects. Both asteroid
21655 and a law of computer design are named after
him. He won computer-science boffinry’s highest possible gong, the
Turing Award, in 1984, and that page has some short
English-language clips from a 2018 interview. […]

As described in C H Lindsey’s History of ALGOL-68 [PDF],
when the ALGOL-W proposal was rejected, Wirth resigned from the
committee, contributing a strong “Closing Word” to the
November 1968 Algol Bulletin 29, containing gems such as:

I pulled out my copy of the draft report on ALGOL-68 and showed it
to her. She fainted.

Instead, Wirth took his proposal, changed it to be somewhat
less compatible with ALGOL, and released it in 1970 under the
name Pascal.

Wirth’s Law encapsulates Wirth’s philosophy: “The hope is that the progress in hardware will cure all software ills. However, a critical observer may observe that software manages to outgrow hardware in size and sluggishness.” Or, as he rephrased it in his paper describing Project Oberon: “In spite of great leaps forward, hardware is becoming faster more slowly than software is becoming slower.” In many ways, this remains the fundamental problem of our entire industry. It’s a truism, and can only be mitigated.

He endorsed simplicity and clarity, and his languages and system designs exemplified those ideals. Studying computer science in the early to mid-1990s, I was among the last to learn Pascal as a teaching language. After outgrowing BASIC, I had actually started learning Pascal my senior year in high school, in a class with just two other students — thanks, Mrs. Spatz — and it was that class that made me want to study computer science in college.

And Pascal was to the original Macintosh what Objective-C was to Mac OS X — the language Apple established as the default for writing application software. Most of the apps that established the Macintosh as the platform for people with good taste in the 1980s and early 1990s were written in Pascal. THINK Pascal was an IDE years — maybe over a decade — ahead of its time.

Read More 

Jason Koebler, writing for 404 Media:

A 13-year-old competitive Tetris player has become the first
known human to beat the game on the original NES by
forcing it into a kill screen. In doing so, the player, Blue
Scuti, broke world records for overall score, level achieved, and
total numbers of lines in the 34-year-old game. Previously, only
an AI had broken Tetris.

The feat took Blue Scuti about 38 minutes, as shown in a video he
posted to his YouTube. As he nears the feat, Blue Scuti says “Oh I
missed it,” after misplacing a block. He recovers, then says “Oh
my God,” as it seems like he’ll be able to do it. “Please crash,”
he says as the blocks careen down the screen impossibly fast. He
gets another line and the game freezes: “Oh my God! Yes! I’m going
to pass out,” he says. “I can’t feel my hands.”

From Sopan Deb’s story about Gibson for The New York Times:

Ms. Cox bought her son a version of a Nintendo console called a
RetroN, which used the same hardware as the original Nintendo
console, from a pawnshop, as well as an old cathode-ray tube
television to help him get started. In a given week, Willis said,
he plays about 20 hours of Tetris.

“I’m actually OK with it,” Ms. Cox, a high school math teacher,
said. “He does other things outside of playing Tetris, so it
really wasn’t that terribly difficult to say OK. It was harder to
find an old CRT TV than it was to say, ‘Yeah, we can do this for a
little bit.’”

Koebler’s story ends with a sad note: “Blue Scuti dedicated the game to his dad, Adam Gibson, who died in December.” My mom’s mother died when my mom was just 16, so I’m familiar, second-hand, with how devastating such a loss is. Young Gibson seems utterly delightful — a gracious champion — so we’d all be rooting for him anyway, but this adds a note of poignancy.

Recommended viewing: This 17-minute video from aGameScout is a wonderful, fun explanation of Gibson’s feat — it explains why NES Tetris was, for decades, thought to end at level 29; the new advanced controller techniques that allow elite players to blow past level 29; and suggests future accomplishments that remain unachieved.

 ★ 

Jason Koebler, writing for 404 Media:

A 13-year-old competitive Tetris player has become the first
known human to beat the game on the original NES by
forcing it into a kill screen. In doing so, the player, Blue
Scuti, broke world records for overall score, level achieved, and
total numbers of lines in the 34-year-old game. Previously, only
an AI had broken Tetris.

The feat took Blue Scuti about 38 minutes, as shown in a video he
posted to his YouTube. As he nears the feat, Blue Scuti says “Oh I
missed it,” after misplacing a block. He recovers, then says “Oh
my God,” as it seems like he’ll be able to do it. “Please crash,”
he says as the blocks careen down the screen impossibly fast. He
gets another line and the game freezes: “Oh my God! Yes! I’m going
to pass out,” he says. “I can’t feel my hands.”

From Sopan Deb’s story about Gibson for The New York Times:

Ms. Cox bought her son a version of a Nintendo console called a
RetroN, which used the same hardware as the original Nintendo
console, from a pawnshop, as well as an old cathode-ray tube
television to help him get started. In a given week, Willis said,
he plays about 20 hours of Tetris.

“I’m actually OK with it,” Ms. Cox, a high school math teacher,
said. “He does other things outside of playing Tetris, so it
really wasn’t that terribly difficult to say OK. It was harder to
find an old CRT TV than it was to say, ‘Yeah, we can do this for a
little bit.’”

Koebler’s story ends with a sad note: “Blue Scuti dedicated the game to his dad, Adam Gibson, who died in December.” My mom’s mother died when my mom was just 16, so I’m familiar, second-hand, with how devastating such a loss is. Young Gibson seems utterly delightful — a gracious champion — so we’d all be rooting for him anyway, but this adds a note of poignancy.

Recommended viewing: This 17-minute video from aGameScout is a wonderful, fun explanation of Gibson’s feat — it explains why NES Tetris was, for decades, thought to end at level 29; the new advanced controller techniques that allow elite players to blow past level 29; and suggests future accomplishments that remain unachieved.

Read More 

More fun to play than you’d think. (Via Andy Baio, who’s achieved a high score of 2,689 (!). I thought I did pretty well with a 167.)

 ★ 

More fun to play than you’d think. (Via Andy Baio, who’s achieved a high score of 2,689 (!). I thought I did pretty well with a 167.)

Read More 

Alex Heath, reporting for The Verge:

Humane laid off 4 percent of employees this week in a move that
was described as a cost cutting measure to those who were
impacted, according to sources familiar with the matter. Employees
were recently told by leadership that budgets would be lowered
this year, said one of the people, who requested anonymity to
speak without the company’s permission.

The cuts, which numbered 10 people, come ahead of the
five-year-old startup shipping its first device: a $699,
screenless, AI-powered pin that is pitched as a smartphone
replacement.

In a text message, Bongiorno told me that the cuts were “not
communicated as a layoff” to those who were impacted, despite
sources telling me that they were — both verbally and in writing.
“It goes without saying that, like every company, we have a
responsibility to remain prudent and proactive, ensuring we have
the right roles, right people, and the right structure at every
juncture,” she said.

Layoffs are never good — and layoffs before shipping the company’s first product are a particularly bad look — but 10/400 employees really does sound more like belt-tightening. But I do not think their AI Pin preorder numbers have set the world afire, nor do I think the company’s investors are interested in funding them further. (Sam Altman, Humane’s largest shareholder, is reportedly working with Jony Ive and LoveFrom on “AI hardware”. To me, that’s far more of a warning sign about Humane than their laying off 10 employees.)

 ★ 

Alex Heath, reporting for The Verge:

Humane laid off 4 percent of employees this week in a move that
was described as a cost cutting measure to those who were
impacted, according to sources familiar with the matter. Employees
were recently told by leadership that budgets would be lowered
this year, said one of the people, who requested anonymity to
speak without the company’s permission.

The cuts, which numbered 10 people, come ahead of the
five-year-old startup shipping its first device: a $699,
screenless, AI-powered pin that is pitched as a smartphone
replacement.

In a text message, Bongiorno told me that the cuts were “not
communicated as a layoff” to those who were impacted, despite
sources telling me that they were — both verbally and in writing.
“It goes without saying that, like every company, we have a
responsibility to remain prudent and proactive, ensuring we have
the right roles, right people, and the right structure at every
juncture,” she said.

Layoffs are never good — and layoffs before shipping the company’s first product are a particularly bad look — but 10/400 employees really does sound more like belt-tightening. But I do not think their AI Pin preorder numbers have set the world afire, nor do I think the company’s investors are interested in funding them further. (Sam Altman, Humane’s largest shareholder, is reportedly working with Jony Ive and LoveFrom on “AI hardware”. To me, that’s far more of a warning sign about Humane than their laying off 10 employees.)

Read More 

David Heinemeier Hansson:

I’ll admit it was a bit cheeky to make our new HEY
Calendar app “do something” by including Apple’s own
history as a preview for people who don’t have an account.
And I didn’t give the gambit better than 30% odds of succeeding,
but lo and behold, it did! Apple has approved our app, and it’s
now available in the App Store!

Sanity prevails — but at least I got a good headline out of the story.

 ★ 

David Heinemeier Hansson:

I’ll admit it was a bit cheeky to make our new HEY
Calendar app “do something” by including Apple’s own
history as a preview for people who don’t have an account.
And I didn’t give the gambit better than 30% odds of succeeding,
but lo and behold, it did! Apple has approved our app, and it’s
now available in the App Store!

Sanity prevails — but at least I got a good headline out of the story.

Read More 

Sean Bates, on Twitter/X:

Found an iPhone on the side of the road… Still in airplane
mode with half a battery and open to a baggage claim for

AlaskaAirlines ASA1282 Survived a 16,000 foot drop perfectly

in tact!

It was just still usable — it was seemingly unscathed. It has a case and a screen protector, but landing on grass was surely a huge factor. Just amazing.

When I first saw this story, I was skeptical, wondering how Bates got past the lock screen. But the phone had no passcode, as Bates described in a follow-up video. I find that almost as crazy as the phone surviving a 16,000-foot drop, but I’d probably be shocked to know how many people rock the no-passcode lifestyle. I just don’t get it, given how Face ID makes it feel like you don’t have a passcode.

(Judging by this thread, it’s also apparently quite common for people to turn off Auto-Lock in Settings → Display & Brightness.)

 ★ 

Sean Bates, on Twitter/X:

Found an iPhone on the side of the road… Still in airplane
mode with half a battery and open to a baggage claim for

AlaskaAirlines ASA1282 Survived a 16,000 foot drop perfectly

in tact!

It was just still usable — it was seemingly unscathed. It has a case and a screen protector, but landing on grass was surely a huge factor. Just amazing.

When I first saw this story, I was skeptical, wondering how Bates got past the lock screen. But the phone had no passcode, as Bates described in a follow-up video. I find that almost as crazy as the phone surviving a 16,000-foot drop, but I’d probably be shocked to know how many people rock the no-passcode lifestyle. I just don’t get it, given how Face ID makes it feel like you don’t have a passcode.

(Judging by this thread, it’s also apparently quite common for people to turn off Auto-Lock in Settings → Display & Brightness.)

Read More 

PBS News Hour:

Federal investigators say a door panel slid up before flying off
an Alaska Airlines jetliner last week, and they are looking at
whether four bolts that were supposed to help hold the panel in
place might have been missing when the plane took off. The
comments Monday from the National Transportation Safety Board came
shortly after Alaska and United Airlines reported separately that
they found loose parts in the panels — or door plugs — of some
other Boeing 737 Max 9 jets.

“Since we began preliminary inspections on Saturday, we have found
instances that appear to relate to installation issues in the door
plug — for example, bolts that needed additional tightening,”
Chicago-based United said.

Alaska said that as it began examining its Max 9s, “Initial
reports from our technicians indicate some loose hardware was
visible on some aircraft.”

This tidbit seems nutty to me:

The jet involved in Friday’s blowout is brand-new, having been put
in service in November. After a cabin-pressurization system
warning light came on during three flights, the airline stopped
flying it over the Pacific to Hawaii. Some aviation experts
questioned why Alaska continued using the plane on overland routes
until it figured out what was causing the pressurization warnings.

Homendy said Monday, however, that NTSB has seen no evidence to
link the warnings with the blowout of the door plug.

There may be no evidence yet, but what are the odds that a door plug that blew off a brand-new jet mid-flight — in a fleet of planes they’ve now discovered have loose bolts holding those doors in place — wasn’t to blame for the cabin-pressurization warnings?

 ★ 

PBS News Hour:

Federal investigators say a door panel slid up before flying off
an Alaska Airlines jetliner last week, and they are looking at
whether four bolts that were supposed to help hold the panel in
place might have been missing when the plane took off. The
comments Monday from the National Transportation Safety Board came
shortly after Alaska and United Airlines reported separately that
they found loose parts in the panels — or door plugs — of some
other Boeing 737 Max 9 jets.

“Since we began preliminary inspections on Saturday, we have found
instances that appear to relate to installation issues in the door
plug — for example, bolts that needed additional tightening,”
Chicago-based United said.

Alaska said that as it began examining its Max 9s, “Initial
reports from our technicians indicate some loose hardware was
visible on some aircraft.”

This tidbit seems nutty to me:

The jet involved in Friday’s blowout is brand-new, having been put
in service in November. After a cabin-pressurization system
warning light came on during three flights, the airline stopped
flying it over the Pacific to Hawaii. Some aviation experts
questioned why Alaska continued using the plane on overland routes
until it figured out what was causing the pressurization warnings.

Homendy said Monday, however, that NTSB has seen no evidence to
link the warnings with the blowout of the door plug.

There may be no evidence yet, but what are the odds that a door plug that blew off a brand-new jet mid-flight — in a fleet of planes they’ve now discovered have loose bolts holding those doors in place — wasn’t to blame for the cabin-pressurization warnings?

Read More 

I just don’t get it. Apple has nothing to gain by this — *nothing, not a cent — but a lot to lose.

David Heinemeier Hansson:

Apple waited until end of business on Friday to send us the formal
rejection of the HEY Calendar app. It seems they love to play
these little games to try to drown any controversy with the cover
of a weekend. But we don’t roll over that easy, so the team worked
through the weekend to prepare a new build to appease the App
Store’s bullying bureaucrats, and I think you’re going to like
what we came up with.

See, Apple’s stated reason for rejecting the HEY Calendar app is
once again that “it doesn’t do anything when you download it”. In
other words, it features a login screen, and requires you to have
an existing account with our HEY email service in order
to use it. It’s the textbook definition of a free companion app,
which Apple specifically exempts from having to use in-app
payments. They even cite Email Services(!!) as an example
in 3.1.3(f):

3.1.3(f) Free Stand-alone Apps: Free apps acting as a
stand-alone companion to a paid web based tool (eg. VOIP, Cloud
Storage, Email Services, Web Hosting) do not need to use
in-app purchase, provided there is no purchasing inside the app,
or calls to action for purchase outside of the app.

It seems bonkers to me that after all the bad publicity that befell Apple in June 2020 over Apple’s rejection of the Hey email app, that they’d veto a Hey companion app — that requires the exact same type of account as Hey email — for the exact same reasons. They should have just let it through, for the risk of bad publicity alone.

Here’s just a taste from my own coverage of the Hey email app rejection back in June 2020:

Dithering: ‘Hey Apple, Cut It Out’
On Avoiding or Embracing Apple’s In-App Purchase Cut
Phil Schiller Talks to Matthew Panzarino on Hey’s App Store Rejection
Kara Swisher: ‘Is It Finally Hammer Time for Apple and Its App Store?’
Siracusa on the App Store: ‘Apple Needs to Decide if It Wants to Be “Right” or if It Wants to Be Happy’
Apple, Hey, and the Path Forward
Nilay Patel’s Summary of the Apple/Hey Drama

Apple doesn’t want people writing articles like those (or this very one) this week. They want people writing articles about Vision Pro.

More crucially, regulators and legislators around the world are looking to wield antitrust powers against Apple, and all of them are primarily looking at the App Store. The stakes for Apple are much higher today than they were in 2020. The last thing Apple wants is a news narrative along the lines of “More Bullshit From Apple Trying to Squeeze Developers Into Giving Them a Cut of Revenue When the Developers Simply Want to Sell Subscriptions Directly to Customers Over the Web”. But by rejecting Hey Calendar, they seem to be inviting such a narrative.

I just don’t get it. Apple has nothing to gain by this — *nothing, not a cent — but a lot to lose.

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Apple’s first commercial for Vision Pro is (a) perfect, and (b) a splendid callback to the iPhone’s “Hello” ad. Not a bad list of movies to watch, either.

(I’d bet money that Joz — a Michigan nut — has it debuting during tonight’s college football championship.)

 ★ 

Apple’s first commercial for Vision Pro is (a) perfect, and (b) a splendid callback to the iPhone’s “Hello” ad. Not a bad list of movies to watch, either.

(I’d bet money that Joz — a Michigan nut — has it debuting during tonight’s college football championship.)

Read More 

My thanks to Flexibits for sponsoring the previous two weeks at Daring Fireball. Fantastical isn’t just the best calendaring app for iOS and Mac; Cardhop isn’t just the best contacts app for iOS and Mac — these are two of the best apps in the world today, period.

And, lo, Fantastical is no longer just for Mac, iPhone, and iPad. From Apple’s Newsroom announcement about Vision Pro pre-orders and availability today:

An infinite canvas for productivity: With key productivity and
collaboration apps like Fantastical, Freeform, JigSpace, apps from
Microsoft 365, and Slack, Apple Vision Pro is an ideal
productivity tool for everyday tasks.

I believe this means that Fantastical is the first third-party VisionOS app Apple has ever mentioned. Can’t wait to see it.

2023 was a huge year for Flexibits, and they have a terrific year-in-review blog post that runs down all the details. But the highlights are obvious: excellent support for widgets (on all platforms, including interactive widgets on the latest OSes) and Live Activities on iOS. They also added several improvements to their Openings feature that lets people find meeting times that work for everyone.

Through the end of the week, Flexibits has a killer offer for DF readers: 20 percent off for up to two full years, both for new and current Flexibits subscribers. (I just used the code to renew my own annual subscription. Even if your subscription isn’t due for renewal yet, you can apply the code now.)

 ★ 

My thanks to Flexibits for sponsoring the previous two weeks at Daring Fireball. Fantastical isn’t just the best calendaring app for iOS and Mac; Cardhop isn’t just the best contacts app for iOS and Mac — these are two of the best apps in the world today, period.

And, lo, Fantastical is no longer just for Mac, iPhone, and iPad. From Apple’s Newsroom announcement about Vision Pro pre-orders and availability today:

An infinite canvas for productivity: With key productivity and
collaboration apps like Fantastical, Freeform, JigSpace, apps from
Microsoft 365, and Slack, Apple Vision Pro is an ideal
productivity tool for everyday tasks.

I believe this means that Fantastical is the first third-party VisionOS app Apple has ever mentioned. Can’t wait to see it.

2023 was a huge year for Flexibits, and they have a terrific year-in-review blog post that runs down all the details. But the highlights are obvious: excellent support for widgets (on all platforms, including interactive widgets on the latest OSes) and Live Activities on iOS. They also added several improvements to their Openings feature that lets people find meeting times that work for everyone.

Through the end of the week, Flexibits has a killer offer for DF readers: 20 percent off for up to two full years, both for new and current Flexibits subscribers. (I just used the code to renew my own annual subscription. Even if your subscription isn’t due for renewal yet, you can apply the code now.)

Read More