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programming languages

ASCII Pronunciation Rules for Programmers

As programmers, we deal with a lot of unusual keyboard characters that typical users rarely need to type, much less think about: $ # % {} * [] ~ & <> Even the characters that are fairly regularly used in everyday writing – such as the humble dash, parens, period, and question mark – have radically different meaning

By Jeff Atwood ·
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markov chains

Markov and You

In Finally, a Definition of Programming I Can Actually Understand I marveled at particularly strange and wonderful comment left on this blog. Some commenters wondered if that comment was generated through Markov chains. I considered that, but I had a hard time imagining a text corpus input that could possibly

By Jeff Atwood ·
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ruby

Exploring Wide Finder

I have decidedly mixed feelings about the book Beautiful Code, but one of the better chapters is Tim Bray’s “Finding Things.” In it, he outlines the creation of a small Ruby program: counts = {} counts.default = 0 ARGF.each_line do |line| if line =~ %r{GET /ongoing/When/dddx/(dddd/

By Jeff Atwood ·
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software development concepts

Finally, a Definition of Programming I Can Actually Understand

I believe very strongly that a blog without comments is not a blog. For me, the whole point of this blogging exercise is the many-way communication of the comments – between me and the commenters, and among the commenters themselves. As I said in How To Advertise on Your Blog Without

By Jeff Atwood ·
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programming languages

The Greatest Invention in Computer Science

What do you think the single greatest invention in computer science is? Besides the computer itself, I mean. Seriously, before reading any further, pause here for a moment and consider the question. I’ve talked before about how young so-called modern computer programming languages really are, and it bears repeating

By Jeff Atwood ·
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security

Please Give Us Your Email Password

A number of people whose opinions I greatly respect have turned me on to Yelp over the last six months or so. Yelp is a community review site, and a great way to discover cool new places in whatever neighborhood you happen to be in. I’ve enjoyed using Yelp,

By Jeff Atwood ·
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storage

Large USB Flash Drive Performance

In the last three years, I’ve gone from carrying a 512 MB USB memory stick to a 16 GB USB memory stick. That’s pretty amazing. According to the storagereview.com archives, hard drives with 16 GB of storage were introduced sometime around the beginning of 1999. Barely 10

By Jeff Atwood ·
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ui design

Whatever Happened to UI Consistency?

Although I rather like Windows Vista – I think the amount of Vista nerd rage out there is completely unwarranted – there are areas of Vista I find hugely disappointing. And for my money, nothing is more disappointing than the overall fit and finish of Vista, which is truly abysmal. It’s

By Jeff Atwood ·
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security

Revisiting the Black Sunday Hack

One of the most impressive hacks I’ve ever read about has to be the Black Sunday kill. Since the original 2001 Slashdot article I read on this is 99.9% quote, I’m going to do the same. I can see why they quoted so extensively; it’d be

By Jeff Atwood ·
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programming languages

Strong Opinions, Weakly Held

I seldom pause to answer criticism of my blog. If I did, I’d have time for little else in the course of the day, and no time for constructive work. But occasionally I’ll encounter a particularly well written critique that gives me pause, such as Alastair Rankine’s

By Jeff Atwood ·
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spam

Designing For Evil

Have you ever used Craigslist? It’s an almost entirely free, mostly anonymous classified advertising service which evolved from an early internet phenomenon into a service so powerful it is often accused of single-handedly destroying the newspaper business. Unfortunately, these same characteristics also make Craigslist a particularly juicy target for

By Jeff Atwood ·
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programming languages

It’s Clay Shirky’s Internet, We Just Live In It

I can’t remember when, exactly, I discovered Clay Shirky, but I suspect it was around 2003 or so. I sent him an email about micropayments, he actually answered it, and we had a rather nice discussion on the topic. I’ve been a fan of Clay’s writing ever

By Jeff Atwood ·
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