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  How Duff’s Device Works

I like C, but I have to admit that, sometimes, “The Old Man of Programming” can be a bit of a killjoy. This is one of the most exciting eras in computer history, but lately, C’s acting like he doesn’t evenwant to have a good time. While the cool kids like Ruby and Haskell are living it up, C’s over in the corner obsessing over bits and bytes and memory alignment and pointers and the stack and machine architecture and unreachable allocations and multiple indi...

   Duff device,Algorithm,Switch,Case     2011-05-27 14:10:18

  How big are PHP arrays (and values) really? (Hint: BIG!)

Upfront I want to thank Johannes and Tyrael for their help in finding some of the more hidden memory usage. In this post I want to investigate the memory usage of PHP arrays (and values in general) using the following script as an example, which creates 100000 unique integer array elements and measures the resulting memory usage: <?php $startMemory = memory_get_usage(); $array = range(1, 100000); echo memory_get_usage() - $startMemory, ' bytes'; How much would you expect it to ...

   PHP,Array,Memory occupation,Garbage collection     2011-12-16 10:06:04

  SQL Server: Removing Deprecated Code and Future Proofing your Queries

New features are added with every release of SQL Server and as a result, some features get removed or deprecated. Deprecated features are features that are still operational (for backward compatibility) but will be removed in a future version. Deprecated features can be of two types: those that will be deprecated in a future version and those that will be deprecated in the next version.In this article, we will explore how to track deprecated code and correct it. I will also share our observation...

   SQL Server,Microsoft,MS SOL,Proof query,Remove redundancy     2011-10-17 11:14:49

  Top 10 Reasons to Use HTML5 Right Now

So you’re still not using HTML5, huh? I guess you probably have your reasons; it’s not fully adopted yet, it doesn’t work in IE, you don’t like users, you’re out of touch or you are just passionately in love with writing strict XHTML code. HTML5 is the revolution that the web needed and the fact is, it is the future whether you like it or not — suck it up and deal. HTML5 isn’t hard to use or understand and even though it’s not fully a...

   HTML5,Accessibility,Cross browser compatibility     2011-12-08 02:52:38

  Don't write on the whiteboard

I recently interviewed at a major technology company. I won't mention the name because, honestly, I can't remember whether I signed an NDA, much less how strong it was.I did well. Mostly because of luck. I normally step over myself when I interview. I guess I've improved over the years. Here are a few tips to ace your own interview.1. Don't write on the whiteboardWhen I interviewed at Palantir around 5 years ago, I had a lot of trouble with this. Yes, I knew next to nothing about compu...

   Interview,Preparation,Whiteboard,Note,Python     2012-01-11 11:31:32

  10 Secrets of Successful Leaders

Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “A good leader inspires people to have confidence in the leader, a great leader inspires people to have confidence in themselves.” But, becoming a great leader isn’t easy. Successfully maneuvering a team through the ups and downs of starting a new business can be one of the greatest challenges a small-business owner faces.Leadership is one of the areas that many entrepreneurs tend to overlook, according leadership coach John C. Maxwell, whose books...

   Leader,Skill,Calm,Trust,Involvement     2011-11-03 03:36:56

  Prototypes in JavaScript

Following on from his previous article, David Chisnall explores JavaScript as an example of prototype-based object orientation. In this article, he shows how it's possible to implement more complex object models on top of this simple abstraction.My previous article, Prototypes and Object Orientation, considered the differences between class-based and prototype-based object orientation. In this article, we'll look in a bit more detail at the workings of the JavaScript object model, since it'...

   JavaScript,Prototype,Object oriented,Obj     2011-09-02 11:44:12

  Cracking Siri

On October 14, 2011, Apple introduced the new iPhone 4S. One of its major new features was Siri, a personal assistant application. Siri uses a natural language processing technology to interact with the user.Interestingly, Apple explained that Siri works by sending data to a remote server (that’s probably why Siri only works over 3G or WiFi). As soon as we could put our hands on the new iPhone 4S, we decided to have a sneak peek at how it really works.Today, we managed to crack ...

   Siri,Cracking,Defect,Speech to text,Record,AI     2011-11-15 08:38:23

  Design Secrets for Engineers

If you are a designer like me, you must be asked on a regular basis to “make it look pretty.” The request can stroke your designer ego, making you feel like a design rockstar with super powers to make this world a more beautiful place. This is especially true at startups, where you are one of the few, maybe the only designer there. However, it can also be really annoying–almost degrading at times. Thoughts like “why the hell can’t engineers do this on their o...

   Design,UI,pretty,engineer,designer font     2011-10-24 11:18:25

  Will We Need Teachers Or Algorithms?

Editor’s note: This is Part III of a guest post written by legendary Silicon Valley investor Vinod Khosla, the founder of Khosla Ventures. In Part I, he laid the groundwork by describing how artificial intelligence is a combination of human and computer capabilities In Part II, he discussed how software and mobile technologies can augment and even replace doctors. Now, in Part III, he talks about how technology will sweep through education. In my last post, I ...

   Teacher,Algorithm,Development     2012-01-16 10:17:45

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