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SEARCH KEYWORD -- Impractical Programming

  Why every programmer should learn Python or Ruby

If you are a student, you probably know C, C++ and Java. A few know VB, or C# / .NET. At some point you’ve probably built some web pages, so you know HTML, CSS and maybe JavaScript. By and large, it is difficult to find students who have any exposure to languages beyond this. And this is a shame because there are a number of programming languages out there which will make you a better programmer. In this article, we give some reasons why you must learn Python or Ruby2. Compared to C...

   Python,Ruby,Advantage,JavamCmDusadvantag     2011-07-25 08:41:42

  The Singular Secret of the Rockstar Programmer

Before all the laws of software, before the purpose of software, before the science of software design itself, there is a singular fact that determines the success or failure of a software developer. This fact makes the difference between the senior engineer who can seem to pick up new languages in a day and the junior developer who struggles for ten years just to get a paycheck, programming other people’s designs and never improving enough to get a promotion. It differentiates the poor...

   Programming,Tip,Great developer,Rockstar     2011-08-07 23:42:09

  Programming: the benefits of taking a break

This post lists several benefits of taking a break during programming.You work smarter, not harder. Once, I worked really hard on a feature. For two weeks, 12 hours a day, I put in a lot of effort. After those two weeks, I took a break and came up with several ideas that made much of the work unnecessary.You think more clearly. Being tired has a similar effect as being drunk. At the end of a day, I often kid myself that I’ll just get this one thing finished quickly to have a fre...

   Programming,Break,Rest,Refresh,New idea     2011-11-08 08:50:45

  What Level Programmer Are You?

Everybody's talking about how programming is the skill that we all are going to need. [Except those folks who might feel that most programming could be turned into wizard-like tools. Insert long discussion about Strong AI.] But what's a programmer? Is the guy who set up his own Apache Web Server a programmer? How about the guy who created a complex Excel spreadsheet? The guy who made his own RPG level? Minecraft players? When we say "Everybody is going to have to know programming" what, e...

   Programmer,Skill,Level,Criteria     2012-02-08 10:07:41

  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

  We need a programming language for the rest of us

Recently I took on the enormous task of learning Objective-C from the bottom up and I was struck by something I couldn’t shake: this is too hard. An experienced developer might scoff at me for saying that, but it’s true. I’ll be honest about my education, Calculus II was the most math I ever took, I have an advanced degree from Berkeley in Journalism. I am a proficient HTML/CSS developer and can glue enough javascript together to solve almost any problem that has presen...

   Code.Programming,Expectation,Easy-to-use     2011-07-22 02:20:09

  The Greatest Regex Trick Ever (Simplified)

There is a post which is really hot recently which showcased a best ever regular expression trick. In this post, it provides a trick which can be adapted to situations where one wants to match some patterns desired and exclude the patterns undesired. In simple, the trick is : Pattern not desired | (Pattern desired) Then taking the group 1 match of the capturing group of matched. This group will contain the strings matching the desired patterns. Have to say this trick is really neat and brilliant...

   REGULAR EXPRESSION,PROGRAMMING,JAVA     2015-10-01 21:59:05

  The Wasteful Legacy of Programming as Language

A few years ago I visited a friend who is a graduate student in linguistics. After some time he asked me if I was aware of the work by Chomsky on formal languages. I told him that yes, Chomsky work was a basis for much of the developments in theoretical computer science. More than that, I was glad to learn that there was something technical that I could share and discuss with other people in linguistics. At the time I found this was just a great coincidence. It was only recently, though, t...

   Programming language,Human language,Chomsky     2011-11-28 10:36:34

  Do we need other languages other than C and C++?

There were hundreds of or thousands of programming languages created since the invention of computer. All these languages have the same target which is to make the computer do what we want it do. So we may find that many languages have the same functions, i.e, one task can be completed by one language can be completed by another language as well. Now we may wonder why we need so many different languages. Can we just have C or C++ since they provide the best performance we need. The answer obviou...

   programming language,C,Erlang     2014-06-14 19:39:40

  The significance of coding competition to actual work

Some friends asked this question: In secondary schools we participate in the NOI, in university we participate in ACM/ICPC, TopCoder.What's the significance of coding competition to actual work? I participated in the NOI from 1994 to 1996, ACM/ICPC from 1999 to 2000 and TopCoder in 2002 for six months. Later I paid little attention to coding competition, so I may not understand the changes in recent years and race mode . The capabilities we can get by participating the competition can be summari...

   ACM,Programming,Facebook,TopCoder     2013-02-28 20:38:23

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