Urgent.News

What's breaking now, across thousands of outlets.

More in Tech

Word never stores the list numbers you see — a DOCX converter has to run a numbering engine

A law firm sent me a 60-page contract to convert, and by section 7 every cross-reference was off by one. The text said "as set out in clause 6.3" while the heading it pointed to read "6.4".

  • List numbers in DOCX files are not stored, only computed at render time.
  • Word's numbering engine handles formatting, start values, and overrides.
  • Accurate conversion requires implementing ECMA-376 sequence resolution rules.

A git tag is not a release: requests v2.16.1 declares 2.16.0

In psf/requests, the tag v2.16.1 points at code whose __version__.py says 2.16.0 . The tag v2.16.0 says the same, and the code differs between them.

  • Git tag v2.16.1 points to code version 2.16.0
  • Tag v2.16.0 also points to same code version
  • Discrepancy raises question of tags being different things

The Epistemology of Quality

Should we expect human software developers to review code written by AI? For many the answer is clearly yes: how else will we maintain accountability?

  • Traditional code review focused on syntax and standards, lacking teaching opportunities.
  • Pair programming combined various evidence types, providing stronger defect detection.
  • AI-generated code may lack real-world proof, making manual review critical.

More from Saturday 10 October →