The hottest Extensions Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
Category
Top Technology Topics

Introducing ExBoost: Revolutionizing Chrome Extension Discoverability

!important • 87 implied HN points • 12 Feb 24
🕹 Technology Extensions Promotion Digital Advertising
  1. Extensions struggle with visibility in the large Chrome Web Store catalog, especially new ones without reviews or users
  2. ExBoost is a community-driven solution that lets extensions promote each other for free through banners
  3. ExBoost balances traffic across extensions, allowing them to gain visibility by showing banners inside other extensions

Swift Tooling: Windows Edition

Speaking in Swift by The Browser Company • 4 HN points • 07 Mar 24
🕹 Technology Development Tooling IDE Debugging Extensions
  1. Swift development on Windows is productive and ready for industry use, with a mature environment for writing code and continuous improvements to the developer experience.
  2. Visual Studio Code is the preferred development environment, offering essential features like building, debugging, auto-complete, error reporting, and more for Swift programming on Windows.
  3. Swift developers on Windows have access to a range of tools like SPM, CMake, LLDB, and Windows-specific debugging tools like WinDbg and Windows Performance Analyzer for efficient building, testing, and debugging of Swift code.
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RISC-V vector crypto spec freeze update

Fprox’s Substack • 19 implied HN points • 25 Jun 23
🕹 Technology Crypto Extensions Specifications Performance
  1. The RISC-V vector crypto specification has reached the frozen milestone after approval by the ARC and RVIA committee chairs.
  2. Changes include revised instructions for better integration, addition of new instructions like 'vgmul.vv', and splitting the Zvkb extension into Zvbb and Zvbc.
  3. The new Zvkt extension emphasizes data-independent timing for secure software implementations and the specification introduces meta-extensions for different cryptography suites and simplified illegal instruction conditions.

Zimop/Zcmop may-be-operations

Fprox’s Substack • 2 HN points • 15 Oct 23
🕹 Technology Extensions
  1. When designing new instructions, ensuring compatibility with older implementations can be challenging.
  2. Zimop and Zcmop introduce placeholder instructions that can be leveraged for future functionalities.
  3. These extensions may not have immediate impact, but pave the way for implementing specific features like control flow integrity in the future.

RISC-V Profiles

Fprox’s Substack • 5 HN points • 22 Mar 23
🕹 Technology Hardware Software Profiles Specifications Extensions
  1. RISC-V profiles consist of base ISA, mandatory, and optional extensions organized into families for specific modes.
  2. Allowing optional extensions in profiles promotes compatibility and testing of new features before mandating them.
  3. The concept of major and minor profile versions ensures a balanced evolution of profile families while allowing time for ecosystem adoption.

Adding a new RISC-V extension (to spike)

Fprox’s Substack • 2 HN points • 14 Apr 23
🕹 Technology Coding Simulation Extensions Development Testing
  1. The post describes how to extend the RISC-V ISA simulator Spike to implement a new instruction for vector AES-128 encryption.
  2. It covers steps like adding the new opcode in riscv-opcodes, declaring the new instruction in riscv-isa-sim, and testing the program.
  3. The process involves modifying opcode header files, updating the simulator, and building a test program to implement and verify the new instruction.