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  In defence of Objective-C

An unashamed apologist’s perspective on the loveliest language i’ve worked with.I’ve worked with a lot of programming languages in my time. Not a huge number, mind you, but enough that i can say that i’m open minded and seasoned about it. And, as they say: ‘Don’t feed the trolls’ – well, i’m about to do exactly that: feed the trolls at work who love to rag on about how awful obj-c is! So here i go, foolishly treading where no sensible...

   Apple,Objective-C,Syntax,Defense,Memory management     2011-10-17 11:28:39

  Unfortunate Python

Python is a wonderful language, but some parts should really have bright WARNING signs all over them. There are features that just can't be used safely and others are that are useful but people tend to use in the wrong ways. This is a rough transcript of the talk I gave at my local Python group on November 15, with some of the audience feed back mixed in. Most of this came from hanging around the Python IRC channel, something I highly recommend. [update 2011-12-19: improved "array" cr...

   Python,Defects,Deprecated methods,Warning     2011-12-20 08:27:36

  insertAdjacentHTML() Enables Faster HTML Snippet Injection

In Firefox 8, we’ve added support for insertAdjacentHTML(). It’s an ancient feature of Internet Explorer that has recently been formalized in HTML5 and then spun out into the DOM Parsing specification. The bad news is that Firefox is the last major browser to implement this feature. The good news is that since other major browsers implement it already, you can start using it unconditionally as soon as the Firefox 8 update has been rolled out to users.Basic Usage...

   InsertAjacentHTML,Firefox,HTML5,DOM     2011-11-10 10:52:00

  CSS Rounded Corners In All Browsers (With No Images)

In the past two years, increased browser support has transformed CSS3 from a fringe activity for Safari geeks to a viable option for enterprise level websites. While cross-browser support is often too weak for CSS3 to hold up a site’s main design, front-end developers commonly look to CSS3 solutions for progressive enhancement in their sites. For instance, a developer might add a drop-shadow in Firefox, Safari and Chrome using -moz-box-shadow and -webkit-box-shadow, and the...

   CSS,Rounded corner,No image,IE,Chrome,Fi     2011-06-30 22:50:34

  Understanding PHP's internal function definitions

Welcome to the second part of the “PHP’s Source Code For PHP Developers” series. In the previous part ircmaxell explained where you can find the PHP source code and how it is basically structured and also gave a small introduction to C (as that’s the language PHP is written in). If you missed that post, you probably should read it before starting with this one. What we’ll cover in this article is locating the definitions of internal functions in t...

   PHP,internal function,definition,rationale     2012-03-16 10:46:26

  Yes, Virginia, Scala is hard

Let me first say that I am a Scala lover and have been a Scala champion for almost 5 years.  I've written books and articles on Scala.  I've worked with dozens of companies that have launched Scala and Lift projects.  I've code reviewed many dozens of Scala projects.I used to think that Scala was easy.  It was, and continues to be, a cure for some of the numerous problems with Java.  From the "stuff that's hard or impossible in Java is simple in Scala," Scala is a very e...

   Scala,OOP,FP,function programming,hard,idiom     2011-11-08 08:47:43

  How One Missing `var` Ruined our Launch

Well, that was a veritable shitstorm (sorry for the language).  Long story short, MelonCard was featured today on TechCrunch (along with other500Startups companies, also on VentureBeat, Forbes, …) and everything broke all at once.  Every. little. thing.  We had rolled out a huge change to MelonCard over the last few days to make our site a seamless “everything just updates” look-good / feel-good product using NodeJS lo...

   JavaScript,NodeJs,jQuery,Variable,Scope,Global     2011-11-02 13:01:22

  6 Most Effective Methods to Code HTML and CSS

IntroductionJust few weeks ago, I have resigned as a "full on" web developer (frontend, backend, server admin and misc) and moved on to become a pure frontend developer (yay)! It is a really exciting change, as you might know frontend developer role didn't exist few years ago. Thanks to the introduction of HTML5, CSS3 and Javascript framework, frontend development has to be separated from backend due to its complexity, and I think I'm trained to fit in that gap nicely.For many years, I've equipp...

   html,CSS,Style,Design,Pattern     2011-05-26 10:42:21

  The 15 Golden Rules of UI design and flow.

Last night a good friend of mine showed me the latest Need for Speed game on the iphone / ipad. Quite an impressive feat of rendering and a relatively good game to boot. However, the front end, wow, a classic case in UI mis-engineering. Loads of stats, pages and pages of bits and pieces to wade through – a classic case of over stimulating the player with lots of decisions they have no business making – stuff that will significantly change their game play experience but being...

   UI design,Game design,Feature     2012-04-05 12:20:18

  JavaScript is now a necessity

I've long looked at JavaScript as a second-class citizen in the programming world. Early on, it was the source of numerous security problems; it was a nice bit of glue to patch together HTML applications with a bit of styling, but nobody would use it for serious code; and so forth. Java, Ruby, Python, they were the languages for doing real work. But my attitude toward JavaScript has changed completely in the past few years. JavaScript has "grown up." I'm sure there are many JavaScript dev...

   JavaScript,HTML5,Necessary,Client langua     2011-06-24 00:50:14

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