Great one liner on PL design: Every programming language is designed to restrict trouble programmers can get into. The key is that they all have different ideas of trouble. via Hacker News
Author Archives: admin
Yeah, Toast
So, for those not familiar, I go by toast` on the programming language IRC channels. So when I saw this video come up on youtube, with Mr. Engineer (my preferred TF2 class), I had a feeling of a certain kind of awesome. Like it was meant for me, or something. Yeah, Toast!!
Is it better to remain blissfully unaware…
I was once asked “why bother learning these other languages, if you can’t use them”. It hadn’t occurred to this person that I code off hours. I’ve also been asked “what if you find these other languages actually are better than C++? Won’t you find it depressing having to code in a normal language then?” …
Continue reading “Is it better to remain blissfully unaware…”
Best way to learn a Programming Language
(Update, added Casting SPELs) For better or worse, it’s accepted in our industry to be fluent in only a single programming language or technology. It’s lame, but there are plenty of excuses for this. “Turing equivalence” right? Finding quality tools is hard. And worse yet, to learn a new language you have to spend days …
Comma Abuse
Found this old C++ source file in my scratch directory, apparently from last September. I don’t even remember writing this, but it’s written using my idioms. If I did write it, rest assured it was primarily for amusement purposes (abusement purposes?) only. #include <iostream> using namespace std; int fibonacci(int x) { int a=0, b=1, temp; while(x?(–x,temp=a,a=b,b=temp+b):0); return …
Typography for Lawyers
… And for everyone else. Typography for Lawyers; an easy read, very accurate, and despite the title, the typography advice is really for everybody. Well, maybe not for typographers. I get the impression this is all entry level stuff.
Cache effects
Quick call out to an illustrative blog entry on various cache effects. http://igoro.com/archive/gallery-of-processor-cache-effects/ When someone bugs me about “X is too slow, because it has to make a virtual call”, and I get annoyed, it’s because a hot virtual call is an overhead of some dozen cycles or so. Missing the cache? In the thousands. …
[ot] 500 mile email bug
Just a humorous software bug story, the case of the 500 mile email: “We’re having a problem sending email out of the department.” “What’s the problem?” I asked. “We can’t send mail more than 500 miles,” the chairman explained. I choked on my latte. “Come again?” A must read for CS/IT folks.
My programming languages story
It’s bad style, but I must start with an aside: on reddit/scheme, there was a link to a blog series on developing a Scheme interpreter over January 2010. It might not implement any particular Scheme standard or particularly many libraries, but it’s got all the functional elements. Bootstrapping a programming language is fun and easy. …
Busy with v2
Been busy with my personal version 2, Evelyn or Evie for short, who is now 2 and a half weeks old. Say hi Evie ^_^