David Chisnall takes a look at the two dominant paradigms in object-oriented languages (classes and prototypes) and discusses the strengths and weaknesses of each.Two terms are quite often confused when describing programming languages:class-based and object-oriented:Simula was the first class-based language. It provided classes (actually implemented using closures) as a means of encapsulating abstract data types.Smalltalk was the first object-oriented language. It provided a mechanism for decomposing programs into subprograms that ran on a simplified model of a computer an...

I got an email request to publish this article a few days ago.I was actually on the verge of moving the email to the trash when I noticed the first name of the author: Rand.For those of you not familiar with the Wheel of Time series, the main character’s name is Rand.I admit that it’s an embarrassing weak reason to respond to a strange email, but reading some 10,000 pages of a fantasy series obviously messes with your mind.Then again, it’s probably no stranger than Rand Mendoza wanting to publish his article on this blog to begin with.Anyways, enjoy…**...

In PHP MySQL mannual. There are three functions which need to be clarified for some users who may get confused when choosing which one to use to get the result.mysql_fetch_array() : by seeting the different parameters, there are three ways to return the result set. MYSQL_ASSOC(Result set with field names as the associative indexs.It means you can use the field name as the index to get value of the specified cell). MYSQL_NUM(Result set with field names as the number indices). Or MYSQL_BOTH(you can use both modes to get value of a specified cell).mysql_fetch_assoc():Result set with field na...

A comparison of streaming video via the Adobe Flash and HTML5 formats with numerous different browsers on both Mac and Windows produced wildly different results based on the operating system and browser, making neither a clear winner.The test, from Streaming Learning Center, was conducted in response to recent comments alleged to have been said by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, in which he reportedly called Flash a "CPU hog." While the test found that HTML5 is significantly more efficient than Flash on the Mac when running the Safari Web browser, those same advantages do not exist on other Mac b...

Photo Credit: Pranav MistryBeing a good hacker is an invaluable skill. But is being a coder the same as being a hacker? Is it possible that coders are at a creative disadvantage to hackers who don’t know how to code?Here’s a story that helped me see the difference.I was recently invited to mentor at Startup Weekend. On Friday night, we gathered to eat pizza, pitch ideas, create teams and discuss launch plans. At the end of the day, everyone was feeling great about what they’d be working on for the rest of the weekend.I arrived Saturday morning to find people hard at w...

memcpy() copies the bytes of data between memory blocks. If the block of memory overlaps, the function might not work properly. Use memmove() to deal with overlapping memory blocks. memmove() is very much like memcpy() but very flexible as it handles overlapping of memory blocks. example : char msg[50] = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz"; char temp[50]; main() { strcpy(temp, msg); printf("Original Msg = %s\n",temp); memcpy(temp+4, temp+16, 10); printf("After memcpy without overlap = %s\n",temp); strcpy(temp , msg); memcpy(temp+6, temp+4, 1...