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  Before Python

This morning I had a chat with the students at Google's CAPE program. Since I wrote up what I wanted to say I figured I might as well blog it here. Warning: this is pretty unedited (or else it would never be published :-). I'm posting it in my "personal" blog instead of the "Python history" blog because it mostly touches on my career before Python. Here goes.Have you ever written a computer program? Using which language?HTMLJavascriptJavaPythonC++COther - which?[It turned out the students ha...

   Python,History,Programming language,B     2012-01-18 08:08:53

  Thoughts on Python 3

I spent the last couple of days thinking about Python 3's current state a lot. While it might not appear to be the case, I do love Python as a language and especially the direction it's heading in. Python has been not only part of my life for the last couple of five years, it has been the largest part by far. Let there be a warning upfront: this is a very personal post. I counted a hundred instances of a certain capital letter in this text. That's because I am very grateful for all the opport...

   Python,Python 3,Feature,Drawback,Embrace     2011-12-07 08:46:47

  Top Ten Tips for Correct C++ Coding

Brian Overland, long-time Microsoft veteran and author of C++ Without Fear: A Beginner's Guide That Makes You Feel Smart, 2nd Edition, shares 10 of his most hard-earned, time-saving insights from decades of writing and debugging C++ code.My first introduction to the C family of languages was decades ago (yes, I know this dates me horribly). Later I learned C++. I wish someone back then had steered me around the most obvious potholes; it might have saved me hundreds of frustrating hours.I ca...

   C++,Tips,Top,Ten,Magic number,Integer di     2011-09-03 10:58:35

  Pointers, arrays, and string literals

A recently posted question on Stack Overflow highlighted a common misconception about the role of pointers and arrays held by many programmers learning C.The confusion stems from a misunderstanding concerning the role of pointers and strings in C. A pointer is an address in memory. It often points to an index in an array, such as in the function strtoupper in the following code:void strtoupper(char *str) { if (str) { // null ptr check, courtesy of Michael while (...

   char pointer,initialization,literal,cann     2011-09-22 13:29:23

  HTML above flash (transparency + z-index)

We have faced this problem many of the times. When we want to display some message on top of all layers on a page or use some feature like jQuery light boxes. Normally the flash file continues to shine through the page. No matter what you do with layering the dom elements using z-index.See the layering flash content problem definition here.Before this, people used to dodge this issue with some fixes like hiding the flash area completely and then showing a static image of...

   HTML,Flash,Above,z-index,wmode,transpare     2011-05-01 15:46:34

  It’s Not China; It’s Efficiency That Is Killing Our Jobs

The majority of wealth is now concentrated at the top of the social ladder. This is particularly true in the US, and the gap is widening every year. This, I believe, is because of efficiency, not China. Today the best ideas can efficiently and quickly propagate worldwide, and everyone can efficiently find them and buy them. This makes the owners of these ideas filthy rich, and those ideas that are not the best, can hardly survive. It’s not just transfer of information that is fast; wealth...

   China,Efficiency,Job,Opportunity,Wealth     2011-10-23 11:43:18

  VIM Plugins for C/C++ developers

Following up on my previous post on Essential Vim Plugins for Web Developers, I have decided to tell you about the awesomeness of the C / C++ plugin for Vim in this article.Now to get things going, let’s start by thinking what are the basic stuffs that you would be carrying out as a C / C++ developer? Include header files, some functions, loops, conditional statements and a main function. These are some repetitive boring tasks that you would rather have someone else do it for you. We...

   Plugin,Vim,C,C++,developer,Vim for C     2011-09-28 09:23:55

  Programming language choices for an IT manager

A TechRepublic reader named Aaron emailed me and posed excellent questions; here’s an excerpt from his email:“I manage a small IT department and all my skills are self-taught. At times I struggle with complex business initiatives and I believe if I had some programming skills I would be more adept at handling the initiatives. Can you recommend a programming language? Is formal education the best path or have you found that programming can be self-taught?”I’m sure a lot ...

   IT Manager,Programming,Skills,Programming knowledge     2011-10-21 08:37:10

  Wow: Intel unveils 1 teraflop chip with 50-plus cores

I thought the prospect of quad-core tablet computers was exciting.Then I saw Intel's latest -- a 1 teraflop chip, with more than 50 cores, that Intel unveiled today, running it on a test machine at the SC11 supercomputing conference in Seattle.That means my kids may take a teraflop laptop to college -- if their grades don't suffer too much having access to 50-core video game consoles.It wasn't that long ago that Intel was boasting about the first supercomputer with sustained 1 teraflop performan...

   Intel,Chip,Multi-core,teraflop     2011-11-16 08:15:39

  The Greatest Hacks of All Time

Reader's advisory: Wired News has been unable to confirm some sources for a number of stories written by this author. If you have any information about sources cited in this article, please send an e-mail to sourceinfo[AT]wired.com. In 1972, John T. Draper discovered he could make free long-distance phone calls using a whistle from a Cap'n Crunch cereal box. The whistle emitted a 2,600-hertz tone that got him into the internal authorization system at the phone company. With another noi...

   Hack,Greatest,All time     2012-02-29 05:05:42

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