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  How big is sizeof structure?

First let's see the codes of a structure: struct node{ int a; int b; }; Question : What's sizeof(node)? The answer is very simple, on a 32 bit machine, an int will take 4 bytes and two ints will take 8 bytes. So sizeof(node) is 8. The answer for the above codes is 8, then how about the following structure: struct node{ char a; int b; }; Question : Then what's sizeof(node) now? int takes 4 bytes, char takes 1 bytes, is the answer 5? Now the answer may not be 5, on some mac...

   Data structure alignment, pack     2012-10-29 12:13:37

  Don't Overload #nil?

There’s a popular post on Hacker News about writing confident code by, among other things, overloading Object#nil? and returning “null objects” instead of nil itself.DO NOT DO THIS.In Ruby, all objects (except nil itself) coerce to the boolean value true. Your object will be nil and true at the same time. Bad things will happen. Your coworkers will cry. Sad people from around the world will ask bewildering questions on your mailing list.Here’s what happen...

   Ruby,#nil,Overload,Object     2011-11-10 10:50:22

  How can I teach a bright person, with no programming experience, how to program?

I usually prescribe the same sequence for anyone who wants to learn programming. It's very theoretical, but it lays a good foundation. It should take three or four months of fulltime study, but programming isn't something you learn overnight.If you can't get through this sequence, you're not going to be able to program, so you might as well give up now.Code, by Charles Petzold.The C Programming Language, K&RThe Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, Abelson and Sussman.My rule is...

   Steps,Programming,No experience,No knowledge     2011-11-07 08:27:48

  STOP WRITING GOOD CODE; START WRITING GOOD SOFTWARE

Good software trumps elaborate code. And unfortunately, you can’t usually have both. The real world has deadlines and ship dates. It’s a game of pick two:Ship on timeShip with elaborate codeShip with a fantastic productAlmost always, you should pick the first and the last when you’re building software applications for users (if you’re building API’s or open source libraries for other developers, then it’s a different story). Too often I have seen de...

   Good software,Standard,Good code,Deadline,Tradeoff     2011-11-20 06:56:06

  I've got an idea for an app

I’ve been an iPhone developer for over three years now. The first app I built was CookieCombo. We sold enough copies to go bowling twice, but still it was completely worth it. We tweeted about it, and got some awesome gigs out of that. Everybody was in need of iPhone developers, and there was a huge shortage. Good times.As more and more people got to know that I’m an iPhone developer, I got to hear the following phrase more often: “Hey, you know, I got a great idea for an app...

   Idea,App,Induction,Creativity,Innovation     2011-09-08 10:37:09

  Concise bash programming skills

The following are some concise bash programming skills which we may need in our daily programming work. 1. Check status of command execution The usual way: echo abcdee | grep -q abcd   if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then echo "Found" else echo "Not found" fi Concise way: if echo abcdee | grep -q abc; then echo "Found" else echo "Not found" fi Of course you can remove if...else with following code [Sun Nov 04 05:58 AM] [kodango@devops] ~/workspace $ echo abcdee | grep -q ...

   bash, skill,tip     2012-11-06 10:38:42

  Android Tutorial: Creating and Using an SD Card in the Emulator

In a previous post, I mentioned how user-friendly Android is for developers. There’s extensive documentation and information on the architecture, the different components and best practices. However, the documentation has a few blind spots. Many of the tools have little documentation and no usage examples. The information is there, it’s just hidden behind a few layers of Android theory.So I’m going to try and document a few of the basic things that you’ll probabl...

   Android,Emulator,SDCard,Load,Create     2011-04-13 12:08:41

  Share on Twitter link

Ever wanted to give your readers, or your client’s readers a chance to share the post quickly on Twitter?The code is straight forward:<a href=”http://twitter.com/home?status=Currently reading http://www.test.com/post-url” title=”Click to share this post on Twitter”>Share on Twitter</a>If you’re using WordPress and want to automate this, simply use the following to insert the link to the current post in the loop into your link:<a href=”ht...

   Twitter,Share button,Customize,Custom     2011-08-24 10:55:51

  Rails and Web Development - Take the First Step

Getting started with web development isn’t easy. Looking back to when I started, the first few weeks were the toughest to stick with it. For someone who is new to text editors and the terminal – the installation process can be really overwhelming. I recently went through the process of helping some of my friends get set up with Ruby on Rails and after doing it a few times, I realized it would be helpful to write a post that others looking to get started could refer to.The following...

   Web design,Rail,Ruby,Ruby on Rails     2011-10-17 11:16:51

  Create trigger in MySQL

To create trigger in MySQL, the syntax is :CREATE [DEFINER = { user | CURRENT_USER }] TRIGGER trigger_name trigger_time trigger_event ON tbl_name FOR EACH ROW trigger_bodyOne example is :DELIMITER %%DROP TRIGGER IF EXISTS delete_commentCREATE TRIGGER delete_comment AFTER DELETE ON file_generate_infoFOR EACH ROW BEGIN DELETE FROM article_comment WHERE article_id=OLD.article_id;END%%The whole create trigger statement should be complete statement but not many separate com...

   MySQL,Trigger,Dilimiter,phpMyAdmin     2011-04-20 15:35:30