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Issue 255: Developers love clean code. Documentation, not so much

Welcome to ISSUE #255 of The Overflow! This newsletter is by developers, for developers, written and curated by the Stack Overflow team and Cassidy Williams. This week: Chatting with the guy responsible for building the Call of Duty game engine, focusing the James Webb Space Telescope, and implementing a technical solution to help with amnesia.

From the blog

Meet the guy responsible for building the Call of Duty game engine

Chris Fowler, Director of Engine for Call of Duty, tells Ben and Ryan about his path from marine biology to game development, the ins and outs of game engines, and the technical feats involved in creating massively popular games like Call of Duty. Chris also explains why community feedback is so critical in game development and offers his advice for aspiring game developers.

A student of Geoff Hinton, Yann LeCun, and Jeff Dean explains where AI is headed

Ben and Ryan are joined by Matt Zeiler, founder and CEO of Clarifai, an AI workflow orchestration platform. They talk about how the transformer architecture supplanted convolutional neural networks in AI applications, the infrastructure required for AI implementation, the implications of regulating AI, and the value of synthetic data.

Why do developers love clean code but hate writing documentation?

It's time to delegate to the robots.

Stop Moving Data Around

In this AWS article and companion video, learn how Elastic Cloud’s Elastic Learned Sparse Encoder (ELSER) and Amazon Bedrock can streamline your architecture when leveraging Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG). Try for free in AWS Marketplace.

Interesting questions

How did they focus the James Webb mirrors?

“‘Amazing’ is the understatement of the millennia as far as I’m concerned!”

If someone buys a ticket for me, can they check if I am actually on the flight?

Just call your mom.

How to ask a professor to join their research lab?

The worst they can say is no.

How can I insulate my apartment ceiling against noise from above?

“To isolate the neighbors’ noise, you’d have to build an entire room inside your existing room, resting on air-filled cushions. Your landlord may not allow such a structure.”

Links from around the web

Go Turns 15

Golang is 15 years old!

MomBoard: E-ink display for a parent with amnesia

How one engineer set up a technical solution to help a parent with amnesia live independently.

How AI stole the ✨ sparkles ✨ emoji

Perhaps you've spotted the sparkle emoji on more and more AI products. How did that happen?

New study on moons of Uranus raises chance of life

If this planet's not working out, maybe there's hope?


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