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  A Baseline for Front-End Developers

I wrote a README the other day for a project that I’m hoping other developers will look at and learn from, and as I was writing it, I realized that it was the sort of thing that might have intimidated the hell out of me a couple of years ago, what with its casual mentions of Node, npm, Homebrew, git, tests, and development and production builds. Once upon a time, editing files, testing them locally (as best as we could, anyway), and then FTPing them to the server was the essential ...

   Front-end,JavaScript,Baseline     2012-04-18 07:13:49

  How Computers Boot Up

The previous post described motherboards and the memory map in Intel computers to set the scene for the initial phases of boot. Booting is an involved, hacky, multi-stage affair – fun stuff. Here’s an outline of the process: An outline of the boot sequence Things start rolling when you press the power button on the computer (no! do tell!). Once the motherboard is powered up it initializes its own firmware – the chipset and other tidbits – and tries to ...

   Computer,Boot-up,Rationale     2012-04-11 13:43:02

  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

  Go vs C benchmark. Could Go be faster than C?

During last semester I was attending Multiprocessor Architectures course, given at Facultad de Informática where I study my Computer Science degree. As part of the assignments due to pass the course, we had to do several programs written in C to benchmark matrix multiplication by testing different techniques and technologies. First of all we had to do a secuential program in three different versions: A normal one where the result matrix is ordered by rows and the loops range the matrix by ...

   Gp,C,Benchmark,Faster,Speed,Comparison     2012-02-08 10:09:07

  Learning Go

This year I'm going to try a new programming language - Go. I had this notion that compiled, type based languages are overly complex and reduces developer efficiency. However, after doing some reading about Go, it appeared to take a different path from the rest and felt like something worth trying. Acquainting a programming language is a journey. First few steps you take with it will define your perception about it. These first few steps went well for me with Go and it felt lik...

   Go,Google,Learning,Resource     2012-01-05 08:09:55

  Battlelog: Modern Web Applications are Here

It's the shooter season of the year and this fall was all about Modern Warfare 3 versus Battlefield 3. And being the kind of game they are they also try to keep their audience playing by introducing some additional level of engagement. Both Call of Duty and Battlefield introduced their own online community websites and statistic platforms. Call of Duty has Elite, Battlefield has Battelog.But just because these services are sitting in the same spot it does not mean they are in any way similar. An...

   Game,Call of duty,Elite,Battlelog,Web platform     2011-11-15 08:11:40

  JavaScript's Two Zeros

JavaScript has two zeros: -0 and +0. This post explains why that is and where it matters in practice. The signed zero Numbers always need to be encoded to be stored digitally. Why do some encodings have two zeros? As an example, let’s look at encoding integers as 4-digit binary numbers, via the sign-and-magnitude method. There, one uses one bit for the sign (0 if positive, 1 if negative) and the remaining bits for the magnitude (absolute value). Therefore, -2 and +2 are encoded as f...

   JavaScript,zeros     2012-03-24 05:21:49

  The Story of W&L: China’s Great Internet Divide

Here’s an introductory quote from The Story of W&L, a tale of China’s great internet divide: China does not have one so-called “national internet,” instead there’s a great divide. It encompasses the elite with ThinkPad laptops and also the grassroots with MTK Shanzhai mobile phones. Our elites are on par with America, while our grassroots are on par with Vietnam. This is the story of W&L, two representatives of China’s great internet divide. T...

   China,Internet divide,Elite,Grassroot,Laptop,Mobile phone     2011-12-05 12:23:56

  20 bit operations programmers should know

While talking about bit operation, programmers usually think about its efficiency. In embedded programming and system core optimization, appropriate use of bit operations is always a fascinating. When finding a job, it will help you a lot if you use bit operations when writing codes. Mastering simple bit arithmetic skills is necessary. 1. Get maximum int value int getMaxInt(){           return (1 << 31) - 1;//...

   Bit operation, Tips     2012-12-19 12:53:33

  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