Great things and people that I discovered, learned, read, met, etc. in 2014. No particular ordering is implied. Not everything is new. *also: see the lists from [2013](http://blog.fogus.me/2013/12/27/the-best-things-and-stuff-of-2013/), [2012](http://blog.fogus.me/2012/12/26/the-best-things-and-stuff-of-2012/), [2011](http://blog.fogus.me/2011/12/31/the-best-things-and-stuff-of-2011/) and [2010](http://blog.fogus.me/2010/12/30/the-best-things-in-2010/)* Great blog posts read --------------------- * [What happens if you write a TCP stack in Python?](http://jvns.ca/blog/2014/08/12/what-happens-if-you-write-a-tcp-stack-in-python/) *Julia Evans answers this question with "something awesome." I couldn't agree more.* * [The Bootstrapped Compiler and the Damage Done](http://tratt.net/laurie/blog/entries/the_bootstrapped_compiler_and_the_damage_done) *Laurence Tratt writes my favorite blog.* * [How Steve Wozniak Wrote BASIC for the Original Apple From Scratch](http://gizmodo.com/how-steve-wozniak-wrote-basic-for-the-original-apple-fr-1570573636/all) *The title says enough.* * [The Legend Of Linda Perhacs, 'A Most Unlikely Rock Star'](http://www.npr.org/2014/03/05/283049017/the-legend-of-linda-perhacs-a-most-unlikely-rock-star) *Linda Perhacs is a little-known Folk singer who almost disappeared into eternal obscurity. That is, until her music was rediscovered decades after releasing her only album.* * [Life of a HTTP request, as seen by my toy web server](http://tia.mat.br/blog/html/2014/10/06/life_of_a_http_request.html) *I've always thought that programming toys (e.g. compilers, interpreters, servers, etc.) were, like the fruit fly, useful ways to gain a deeper understanding of larger systems within the confines of a constrained tableau.* * [The problematic culture of "Worse is Better"](http://pchiusano.github.io/2014-10-13/worseisworse.html) *Well someone had to say it, and I'm glad that it was Paul Chiusano who did.* * [How I wrote Neuromancer](http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/nov/26/william-gibson-neuromancer-book-club) *A lovely little vignette by William Gibson about how Neuromancer came to be. The spirit of the article really resonates with my own experience and motivations for helping to write [The Joy of Clojure](http://www.amazon.com/Joy-Clojure-Michael-Fogus/dp/1617291412/?tag=fogus-20).* * [ALEC’s a Language for Expressing Creativity](http://www.wisdomandwonder.com/article/9325/alecs-a-language-for-expressing-creativity) - *[Grant Rettke is building a system on top of Emacs called Alec](https://github.com/grettke/home/blob/master/ALEC.txt) that is not only a useful tool, but a tool that has informed his very way of thinking. His ongoing journey is told via [org-mode-babel](http://orgmode.org/worg/org-contrib/babel/) files on Github and it's a joy to read.* * [Frank Sinatra has a cold](http://www.esquire.com/features/ESQ1003-OCT_SINATRA_rev_) *a great story from a bygone age about a force of nature.* * [A Generation Lost in the Bazaar](http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2349257&ref=fullrss) *A critical essay about the bazaar model of software development.* * [The second operating system hiding in every mobile phone](http://www.osnews.com/story/27416/The_second_operating_system_hiding_in_every_mobile_phone) *Little-known considerations about firmware insecurities in your phone.* * [Forth Methodology Applied to Programming](http://www.ultratechnology.com/method.htm) *The title say enough.* * [What is Gradual Typing](http://wphomes.soic.indiana.edu/jsiek/what-is-gradual-typing/) *from the source* * [Ramblings on languages and architectures](http://www.freelists.org/post/luajit/Ramblings-on-languages-and-architectures-was-Re-any-benefit-to-throwing-off-lua51-constraints) *Mike Pall's mind is open.* Most viewed blog posts by me (20K+ viewers) ------------------------------------------- I've been scaling back on blogging this past year and have tried something different instead - [Read-Eval-Print-λove](http://www.readevalprintlove.org). That said, there were a couple of high-traffic posts on my blog. 1. [10 Technical Papers Every Programmer Should Read (At Least Twice)](http://blog.fogus.me/2011/09/08/10-technical-papers-every-programmer-should-read-at-least-twice/) -- *My most popular post of 2011 was also my most popular of 2012 and also of 2013 and also of 2014 -- go figure.* 2. [Timothy Hart, Rest in Peace](http://blog.fogus.me/2014/01/27/timothy-hart-rest-in-peace/) -- *Timothy Hart was the father of LISP macros.* Favorite technical books discovered (and read) ---------------------------------------------- * [Creating Interactive Fiction with Inform7](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1435455061/?ie=UTF8&tag=fogus-20) -- *Inform7 is a perspective-altering programming language. It's nearly the pinnacle of languages that are informed (hah) by the types of problems that they're attempting to solve. Beautiful.* * [Object Oriented Forth](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0125635702/?ie=UTF8&tag=fogus-20) -- *Honestly, I can't think of better tech literature available than those written about Forth.* * [Ruby Under a Microscope](http://www.amazon.com/Ruby-Under-Microscope-Illustrated-Internals/dp/1593275277/ref=sr_1_1?tag=fogus-20) -- *I'll honestly say that I went into this book expecting the worst. However, I was pleasantly surprised when I was done that the book is a fairly nice dive into the Ruby internals. I'm frankly shocked that a book like this was even published, but once again the long tail reigns supreme; much to our benefit.* * [Programmer avec Scheme](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/2841801314/ref=x_gr_w_bb_t1_x?tag=fogus-20) -- *I read this in a marathon 3-days during Strange Loop 2014 thanks to [Nada Amin](http://lampwww.epfl.ch/~amin/cv/), who hauled it all the way across the planet for me to read. I'd really love to get another chance to go through it and digest it, but I did like it very much on my first pass. My favorite part was that while the prose was French, the code too was "very French" also!* Favorite non-technical books read --------------------------------- * [Ulysses](http://www.amazon.com/ULYSSES-illustrated-complete-unabridged-Dubliners-ebook/dp/B00F32YJNY/?tag=fogus-20) by James Joyce -- *I finally got around to reading this and wow am I glad that I did. It took me a month to read and tended to dominate my other parallel books at the time, but it was worth the effort. Leopold Bloom is now one of my favorite anti-heroes from fiction.* * [How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They're Built](http://www.amazon.com/How-Buildings-Learn-Happens-Theyre/dp/0140139966/?tag=fogus-20) -- *It was this book that made me (finally) realize that some of the best programming books are not about programming at all. As a result I've cut back drastically on my "language-specific" programming books[^old] and have sought programming-relevant books instead.* * [Feminism Is for Everybody: Passionate Politics](http://www.amazon.com/FEMINISM-FOR-EVERYBODY-bell-hooks/dp/0745317332/?tag=fogus-20) -- *The most lucid outline of feminism that I've found so far.* * [Anarchy and Alchemy: The Films of Alejandro Jodorowsky](http://www.amazon.com/Anarchy-Alchemy-Alejandro-Jodorowsky-Persistence/dp/1840681454/?tag=fogus-20) -- *I've always been an admirer of Jodorowsky's films and graphic novels, so when I saw the cover I knew that I had to read this. I was not disappointed. The book is filled with spoilers, so beware.* * [Blindness](http://www.amazon.com/Blindness-Harvest-Book-Jose-Saramago/dp/0156007754/?tag=fogus-20) -- *Another book that could have been easily subtitled 'Humans are terrible.'* * [How to Travel with a Salmon and Other Essays](http://www.amazon.com/Travel-Salmon-Other-Essays-Harvest/dp/015600125X/?tag=fogus-20) -- *I couldn't put this book down. Eco's wit is impeccable and had me giggling at 2am.* [^old]: And I've made it a personal goal to limit the "language-specific" books to those written before 1995. ## Number of books read [a bunch](http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/266149-michael?page=1&shelf=2014_read&view=covers) ## Number of books published [1