Learning on Markus Löning

Juggling

Sun, 12 Apr 2026 19:10:06 +0200

I first learned to juggle three balls at university, together with a group of friends during our exam period. During the following summer break, I kept practicing, juggling two balls in one hand while walking and holding my dog’s leash in the other. When I returned for the next term, I could juggle four balls. Five balls requires serious practice. While I’ve felt like I’ve been close at times, I have never quite managed to get the five-ball cascade flowing.

Learning C++

Wed, 14 May 2025 08:47:02 +0200

Build process

For an introduction to the build process, see The C++ Build Process Explained and the related HackerNews thread. For a deeper explanation, see The Bits Between the Bits: How We Get to main(). For a real-time visualisation of the build process, see this post.

Writing well

Sun, 12 Jan 2025 11:54:52 +0100

Here are some resources for writing well.

General writing

“Style: The Basics of Clarity and Grace” (3rd Edition) 3rd Edition, by Joseph M. Williams
“The Chicago Manual of Style”, 16th Edition Sixteenth Edition, by University of Chicago Press Staff
https://matt.might.net/articles/shell-scripts-for-passive-voice-weasel-words-duplicates/

Technical docs

A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, Seventh Edition: Chicago Style for Students and Researchers (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing) 7th Edition, by Kate L. Turabian (Author), Wayne C. Booth Gregory G. Colomb Joseph M. Williams
https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/scaling-engineering-teams-via-writing-things-down-rfcs/
https://www.industrialempathy.com/posts/design-docs-at-google/
https://github.com/joelparkerhenderson/architecture-decision-record/
https://surfingcomplexity.blog/2022/11/24/writing-docs-well-why-should-a-software-engineer-care/
https://stevelosh.com/blog/2013/09/teach-dont-tell/
https://medium.com/@apappascs/write-like-an-amazonian-14-tips-for-clear-and-persuasive-communication-e2a11afc7362
https://grantslatton.com/how-to-design-document

Tutorials

https://refactoringenglish.com/chapters/rules-for-software-tutorials/

Learning Rust

Sat, 11 Jan 2025 12:08:32 +0100

General resources

Why Rust? See Considering Rust by Jon Gjengset
Rust Book (introductory book)
Programming Rust: Fast, Safe Systems Development (book)
Effective Rust (book)

Lifetimes

As a Rust beginner, I understood lifetimes backwards, thinking <'a> means I’m declaring a lifetime which I then use. What that actually declares is a placeholder for a lifetime the compiler will attempt to find wherever that variable or function is used, just as it would attempt to find a valid type for a generic type <T> at the points of usage. In this sense, lifetimes and generics are similar concepts: code is generic over some lifetimes just as it can be generic over some type (thanks to wrs for making me realise this).

Learning French

Tue, 30 Apr 2024 11:17:44 +0200

I’ve started learning French. Here are some resources I found useful.

Also see my post on exploring Paris.

Listen

Radio France, different radio stations and podcasts (e.g. France Inter, France Info or France Culture); for French-only music, see Fip - Sacré Français
Radio France Internationale, e.g. Journal en français facile
ByteFM programs France, en confidence and What the France about French music, moderated in German

For example, here a two Radio France podcasts on the French Revolution: