How do you fit a 250kB dictionary in 64kB of RAM and do lookups? For reference, even gzip -9 cannot compress this file beyond 85kB. In the 1970s, Douglas McIlroy at AT&T had the same challenge when implementing the spell checker for Unix. Instead of relying on generic compression techniques, he analyzed the distribution of the data and came up with a compression algorithm which was just 0.03 bits away from the theoretical limit of possible compression. To this day, it remains unbeaten. The story of how he designed this dictionary lookup from the ground up is a lesson in software engineering. How you consider the resource constraints in front of you and design your solution to run within them. In my latest article I take you through each step of the design of this ingenious algorithm right from the scratch. (Check replies for the link)

Dear WordPress plugin developers. Stop loading your assets on every single page. It is not necessary, slows down sites and isn't helping our reputation for speed.

A lot of people have reached out to me privately asking why I haven't been more vocal about the latest happenings with WordPress. There are several reasons, but here are the most relevant: 1) All of the activity surrounding WordPress has created a huge amount of extra work for our team. I've been focused on making sure SiteCare clients are protected and that the impacts from the changes are minimal for the people who trust us as stewards of their websites. 2) I've found over time that being reactionary will cause more damage than good. I've been watching everything closely, and I have opinions (strong ones), but I don't see how they enhance the conversation or get us any close to a resolution with the current trajectory or parties involved. 3) It all bums me out way too much to spend extra brain and heart cycles on it. I hate that everyone is losing right now. Literally no one in this mess is better off now than they were three weeks ago. And it all keeps devolving. I have to keep some distance for self-preservation sake. So yeah, I've been quiet, but I haven't been idle. Know that I'm here to support however I can, but not from out front right now. Send me a private message and I'll be more than happy to do what I can. ❤️❤️❤️

Someone with experience in search should create an Etsy-style search engine that only ranks small publishers, independent creators, local news, and small e-commerce sites... #seo #antitrust #smallbusiness #vcs #entrepreneurs #startups #google #bing #duckduckgo #ahrefs

While I love WordPress, I sadly no longer trust it as a CMS. Here's what I would love to see happen: • The top companies (@wpengine, @elemntor, @bluehost, etc, etc) fork WordPress and pledge financial support for an entirely new foundation • Importantly, governance should be truly independent. Voting rights could be earned by developer hours or plugin contributions, but no single person or company could any longer make unilateral decisions • @Cloudflare could donate capacity to this new entity If setup correctly, we could have a true community-driven non-profit supported by *distributed* for-profit enterprises, and create a cherished web resource not unlike the Internet Archive or Wikipedia Foundation. I would support this open source CMS until my last breath

Organic results are so deep my finger cramped as I scrolled (and scrolled and scrolled ) through the AI Organized Restaurant results.