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  Python: copying a list the right way

new = old[:] Those proficient in Python know what the previous line do. It copies the list old into new. This is confusing for beginners and should be avoided. Sadly the [:] notation is widely used, probably because most Python programmers don’t know a better way of copying lists.A little bit of pythonic theoryFirst we need to understand how Python manages objects & variables. Python doesn’t have variables like C. In C a variable is not just a name, it ...

   Python,List,Copy,Reference,[:],list()     2011-11-07 08:04:48

  The Problem With Client-Side Analytics

Client-side analytics is broken. The numbers produced by it are trivially spoofable by competitors and nefarious characters. Most websites use client-side analytics of one type or another and the only way to get numbers you can trust is to compare numbers from multiple providers and to take an average of the closest two.This post highlights the problem and proposes a partial solution that substantially mitigates the issues with minimal effort. Our proposed solution is simply to include a digital...

   Client side,Analysis,Problem,Tricks,ASP.NET,spoof     2011-10-22 12:58:51

  What I learned from Google - You Get Fifteen Years

four years ago I was in Mountain View, California, interviewing for a position with Google. It was an odd sort of interview.  Lots of puzzles, math-like challenges, and code.  Lots, and lots, and lots of code. What struck me at Google wasn’t the challenges.  Nor was it the office environment, the cafeteria, or the mini-swimming pool, all of which were impressive. No, what struck me were the people. All of the people I met — and I mean all of them — had this ...

   Career,Technology,Programmer,Transform,Lifetime     2011-12-06 02:27:04

  Use pdb to help understand python program

  As I have mentioned in Why do I need a debugger?: (3) Debugger is a good tool to help you understand code. So when I come across difficulty to understand vfscount.py code in bcc project, I know it is time to resort to pdb, python's debugger, to help me. The thing which confuses me is here: counts = b.get_table("counts") for k, v in sorted(counts.items(), key=lambda counts: counts[1].value): print("%-16x %-26s %8d" % (k.ip, b.ksym(k.ip), v.val...

       2017-08-22 22:42:37

  Games don’t need to be social

Social games have been a big trend in recent years. Zynga struck it big and now everyone else is trying to emulate them. Unfortunately, the first thing that pops into anyones head when a Zynga game is mentioned is Facebook. Facebook is the platform upon which their success stories like FarmVille were built, but it’s not the reason for their success.Zyngas games work because they are fun. The social connectivity is merely a mechanism to share your enjoyment of the game with other...

   Game,Social,No need,Game design     2011-10-29 07:15:34

  Why are ugly websites so successful?

“Techmeme has redesigned,” Gabe Rivera founder of the popular technology news site wrote in January 2012. “Drudge Report is now indisputably the web’s ugliest news site.” I use Techmeme all the time. I find it an excellent news website. It’s a collection of well-selected links to important issues in the technology industry. It doesn’t look pretty but it works fine for me. Asides from the quality of its stories it also has black text on white bac...

   Website design,Ugly,Success,Analysis     2012-02-13 05:27:56

  Test-Driven Development? Give me a break...

Update: At the bottom of this post, I've linked to two large and quite different discussions of this post, both of which are worth reading... Update 2: If the contents of this post make you angry, okay. It was written somewhat brashly. But, if the title alone makes you angry, and you decide this is an article about "Why Testing Code Sucks" without having read it, you've missed the point. Or I explained it badly :-)Some things programmers say can be massive red flags. When I h...

   Test driven,Application design,tool     2011-10-17 10:19:16

  In College, Working Hard to Learn High School Material

In June, Desiree Smith was graduated from Murry Bergtraum High. Her grades were in the 90s, she said, and she had passed the four state Regents exams. Since enrolling last month at LaGuardia Community College in Queens, Ms. Smith, 19, has come to realize that graduating from a New York City public high school is not the same as learning. She failed all three placement tests for LaGuardia and is now taking remediation in reading, writing and math. So are Nikita Thomas, ofBedford Stuyves...

   Education,College,High school,Material,Knowledge transfer     2011-10-24 11:51:39

  Round Peg, Square Hole: How to Know If a Developer is a Good Fit for Your Team

Over the last few months, we have been recruiting developers, and we’ve started to get a sense for the type of developer who is a good fit for our team.  These attributes probably apply for developers at most web startups, so I wanted to share them with you. Before I get into it, the most important thing to know is that technical skill is a threshold requirement.  The assumption is that any person who is a fit for our team will have the relevant technical experience t...

   Recruitment,Gire ,Employee,Skill     2011-07-09 09:50:54

  The tips of learning Linux kernel

  As the Linux kernel has become one of the most gigantic and complex software project in the world, its complication scare many novices away. In this post, I will give some personal experience on how to learn Linux kernel, and hope these tips can offer some help to newcomers. (1) Download vanilla kernel and install it. Yes, I suggest you can find a physical machine, or if you really don’t have one at hand, virtual machine is also OK. Download the newest vanilla k...

       2017-07-28 22:53:11

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