programming languages
I believe there's a healthy balance all programmers need to establish, somewhere between … * Locking yourself away in a private office and having an intimate dialog with a compiler about your program. * Getting out in public and having an open dialog with other human beings about your program. I&
programming languages
In response to Wil Shipley's recent post about the lack of an iPhone SDK, a reader left this comment: I often enjoy reading these entries, but you always come across as a little bit of an a**hole. Full of yourself, overly critical and a bit mean. Dismissing
software development concepts
Most software projects fail. But that doesn't mean yours has to. The first question you should ask is a deceptively simple one: how big is it? Steve McConnell explains in Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art: [For a software project], size is easily the most significant determinant of
programming languages
Paul Heberli and Bruce Karsh proposed something they call futurist programming in 1994: We believe there is a great opportunity for Futurist principles to be applied to the science of computer programming. We react against the heavy religious atmosphere that surrounds every aspect of computer programming. We believe it is
programming languages
Tim Berners-Lee on the Principle of Least Power [http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/Principles.html]: > Computer Science spent the last forty years making languages which were as powerful as possible. Nowadays we have to appreciate the reasons for picking not the most powerful solution but the least powerful. The
.net
As I mentioned two weeks ago, my plan is to contribute $10,000 to the .NET open source ecosystem. $5,000 from me, and a matching donation of $5,000 from Microsoft. There's only two ground rules so far: 1. The project must be written in .NET managed
design patterns
Many developers consider the book Design Patterns a classic. So what's a design pattern? A design pattern systematically names, motivates, and explains a general design that addresses a recurring design problem in object-oriented systems. It describes the problem, the solution, when to apply the solution, and its consequences.
programming languages
Dennis Forbes took issue with my recent post on C# and the Compilation Tax, offering this criticism, pointedly titled "Beginners and Hacks": Sometimes [background compilation and edit and continue] are there to coddle a beginner, carefully keeping them within the painted lines and away from the dangerous electrical
programming languages
If you didn't get a chance to watch today's historic interview between Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, you should. Finally seeing these two computer industry giants on stage interacting with each other was fascinating and at times even a little touching. * Steve Jobs and Bill Gates
software development concepts
Rich Skrenta writes that code is our enemy [http://www.skrenta.com/2007/05/code_is_our_enemy.html]. > Code is bad. It rots. It requires periodic maintenance. It has bugs that need to be found. New features mean old code has to be adapted. The more code you
javascript
Mike Shaver, a founding member of the Mozilla team, has strong feelings about how the web became popular: If you choose a platform that needs tools, if you give up the viral soft collaboration of View Source and copy-and-paste mashups and being able to jam jQuery in the hole that
programming languages
It's hard to imagine now, but in the early days of Microsoft, Bill Gates was an actual programmer [https://blog.codinghorror.com/how-to-become-a-better-programmer-by-not-programming/]. One bit of hard evidence is the BASIC program DONKEY.BAS [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DONKEY.BAS] included with original IBM PCs running IBM