programming languages
If you’ve followed my blog for any length of time, you know that I am a total regular expression fanboy. It’s almost embarrassing how much I love the damn things. I’m pretty sure my teammates roll their eyes every time they see yet another class I’ve
programming languages
It’s pop quiz time! Put away your notes, and let’s begin. a) Do you own this book?* b) Do you know who this man is? c) Does this FAQ look familiar to you? 3) OUR LITTLE FRIEND, THE COMPUTER 3.1) Are there any OSes that don’t
programming languages
Although I’m a huge fan of Code Complete – it is my single most recommended programming book for good reason – there are chapters in it that I haven’t been able to digest, even after 16 years. One of those chapters describes something called the Pseudocode Programming Process. And on
programming languages
If you’re waiting around for users to tell you about problems with your website or application, you’re only seeing a tiny fraction of all the problems that are actually occurring. The proverbial tip of the iceberg. Also, if this is the case, I’m sorry to be the
programming languages
Ah, spring. What a wonderful time of year. A time when young programmers’ minds turn to thoughts of... never ending last-man-standing filibuster arguments about code formatting. Naturally. And there is no argument more evergreen than the timeless debate between tabs and spaces. On defaultly-configured Unix systems, and on ancient dumb
software development
Are there any programming jobs you wouldn’t take? Not because the jobs didn’t pay enough, had poor benefits, or limited upside – but because the work itself made you uncomfortable? Consider the tale of one freshmeat.net writer: Back in the old days (let’s say 1996), I was
programming languages
I’ve been following Michael Abrash for more than 10 years now; he’s one of my programming heroes. So I was fascinated to discover that Mr. Abrash wrote an article extolling the virtues of Intel’s upcoming Larrabee. What’s Larrabee? It’s a weird little unreleased beast that
programming languages
One of the more famous Edsger Dijkstra quotes is from his 1972 Turing award lecture, How do we tell truths that might hurt? Besides a mathematical inclination, an exceptionally good mastery of one’s native tongue is the most vital asset of a competent programmer. Note that he specifically says
programming languages
On the internet, you can pretend the world is flat. Whatever country you live in, whatever language you speak, you have the same access to the accumulated knowledge of the world as every other citizen of the planet Earth. And a growing percentage of that knowledge can and should be
programming languages
I have the very great honor of speaking at this year’s EclipseCon with one of my heroes, Clay Shirky. The theme of this year’s EclipseCon is collaboration – so all the talks are presented by two speakers. Our talk, The Social Mind: Designing Like Groups Matter, will alternate between
software development concepts
I’ve been a longtime fan of Eric Lippert’s blog. And one of my favorite (albeit short-lived) post series was his Five Dollar Words for Programmers. Although I’ve sometimes been accused of being too wordy, I find that learning the right word to describe something you’re doing
programming languages
There was a little brouhaha recently about some comments Joel Spolsky made on our podcast: Last week I was listening to a podcast on Hanselminutes, with Robert Martin talking about the SOLID principles. (That’s a real easy-to-Google term!) It’s object-oriented design, and they’re calling it agile design,