Firebase Presentation

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Posting the slides from my presentation about Firebase to the Haystack Group here!

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Building a Toy Language Compiler in Go

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A follow-up to my previous post about building a toy language interpreter in Go. Throughout this post, I'll be referencing my repo . We'll go over a compiler which translates source code to machine code, and then a VM to execute this machine code. What is a compiler?  A compiler takes source code and translates it to executable machine code . (See my previous post for more details.) The figure below shows the high-level architecture of a simple compiler. Like the interpreter we built previously, our compiler has a lexer and a parser which turn our source code into an AST . This is our compiler's frontend . However, that's where a compiler diverges.  The compiler may translate the AST into at least one internal representation (IR) . The IR(s) may be represented using any data structure (even another AST!), but they should follow two rules: (1) be easy to produce, (2) be easy to translate into the target machine code. The IR can also be optimized...
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board2board

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This winter break, Andrew (my brother) and I worked on board2board, a collaborative drawing web app that uses a computer's webcam for object detection. We were inspired to create this after realizing that at least on our Macs, it was annoying to draw on the trackpad or having to switch back and forth to our iPads. Why not draw in the air instead? Features include using the space bar to toggle between drawing/not drawing... ...pressing the "c" key to clear everything...   ...multiple users collaborating in the same session (hover over avatars to see full usernames)... ...and being able to choose between detecting green or blue drawing objects. For example, in the gif below, using a green marker is much more accurate. We added this feature after finding that object detection accuracy heavily depends on where the user is. If there's a lot of other blue, then a blue marker wouldn't be as easily tracked.   Check out my brother's blog post f...
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tldr: Raft + Implementation Tips

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Part of the tldr series , which summarizes papers I'm currently reading. Inspired by the morning paper . Raft (Extended Version) + Implementation Tips [2014] Ongaro et al. Note: For implementation tips, see the end of this blog post.  Introduction Consensus algorithms The r eplicated state machine approach  is useful for providing fault-tolerance in distributed systems. It lets a cluster of unreliable machines continue operating even when some of its members fail. In this approach, machines   usually use a replicated log to stay in sync. As shown in the figure below, each server's log stores the same commands in the same order. Every state machine executes commands from its own log in order. State machines are deterministic, so each produces the same order of outputs. Once the majority of machines have responded, the command is done executing. Consensus algorithms ensure that the replicated log stays consistent. In the figure above, clients s...
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