xml
Occasionally I'll write about things that I find sort of mildly, vaguely thought provoking, and somehow that writing turns out to be ragingly controversial once posted here. Case in point, XML: The Angle Bracket Tax. I'm still encountering people online who almost literally hate my guts
ruby
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/
software development concepts
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
programming languages
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
programming languages
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
software development concepts
As programmers, it is our responsibility to ensure that when something goes horribly wrong with our software, the user has a reasonable escape plan. It's an issue of fundamental safety in software error handling that I liken to those ubiquitous airline safety cards. Which one accurately depicts the
html
One of the things we're thinking about while building stackoverflow.com [http://stackoverflow.com/] is how to let users style the questions and answers they're entering on the site. Nothing's decided at this point, but we definitely won't be giving users one
xml
Everywhere I look, programmers and programming tools seem to have standardized on XML. Configuration files, build scripts, local data storage, code comments, project files, you name it -- if it's stored in a text file and needs to be retrieved and parsed, it's probably XML. I
programming languages
Like everything else in software engineering, it seems, the concept of Model-View-Controller was originally invented by Smalltalk programmers. More specifically, it was invented by one Smalltalk programmer, Trygve Reenskaug. Trygve maintains a page that explains the history of MVC in his own words. He arrives at these definitions in a
programming languages
One of the central themes of stackoverflow.com is that software developers no longer learn programming from books, as Joel mentioned: Programmers seem to have stopped reading books. The market for books on programming topics is miniscule compared to the number of working programmers. Joel expressed similar sentiments in 2004&
programming languages
Edsger Dijkstra had this to say about Beginner's All Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code: It is practically impossible to teach good programming style to students that have had prior exposure to BASIC; as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration. I'm sure he was
programming languages
Our old pal A. K. Dewdney first introduced the world to Core War in a series of Scientific American articles starting in 1984. (Full page scans of the articles, including the illustrations, are also available.) Core War was inspired by a story I heard some years ago about a mischievous