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  Why programmers work at night

A popular saying goes that Programmers are machines that turn caffeine into code. And sure enough, ask a random programmer when they do their best work and there’s a high chance they will admit to a lot of late nights. Some earlier, some later. A popular trend is to get up at 4am and get some work done before the day’s craziness begins. Others like going to bed at 4am. At the gist of all this is avoiding distractions. But you could just lock the door, what’s so special a...

   Programmer,Sleep,Later,Efficiency,Habit     2011-12-16 10:13:27

  Code Refurbishment

Within our industry we use a huge range of terminology.  Unfortunately we don’t all agree on what individual terms actually mean.  I so often hear people misuse the term “Refactoring” which has come to make the business in many organisations recoil in fear.  The reason for this fear I’ve observed is because of what people often mean when misusing this term.I feel we are holding back our industry by not being disciplined in our use of terminology.  If...

   Code Refurbishment,Code design,terminolo     2011-09-05 08:17:14

  Handling Plugins In PHP

A common problem that developers face when building applications is how to allow the application to be "plug-able" at runtime.  Meaning, to allow non-core code to modify the way an application is processed at runtime.  There are a lot of different ways that this can be done, and lots of examples of it in real life.  Over a year ago, I wrote a StackOverflow Answer on this topic.  However, I think it deserves another look.  So let's look at some patterns and common im...

   PHP,Plugin,Handling     2012-03-11 13:18:39

  Creating a PHP 5 Extension with Visual C++ 2005

This article describes the steps to create a custom PHP extension DLL for the Windows platform. The Zend API documentation that comes with PHP 5 on Windows (see php_manual_en.chm) does a good job explaining how to write extension methods, parse method parameters, and return values. But there is not currently a good step-by-step tutorial on how to get your first extension project up and running on Windows. The aim of this article is to fill that gap. Prerequisites Visual Studio 2005 You can...

   PHP,Extension,Writing,Windows,Step by st     2011-07-23 01:56:53

  Automate Everything

Performing manual, repetitive tasks enrages me. I used to think this was a corollary of being a programmer, but I’ve come to suspect (or hope) that this behaviour is inherent in being human. But being able to hack together scripts simply makes it much easier to go from a state of rage to a basic solution in a very small amount of time. As a side point, this is one of the reasons that teaching the basics of programming in schools is so important. It’s hard to think of any j...

   Automate,Email,Repeative     2012-02-07 06:21:19

  Must read C++ book list

Every programmer should read some books to enhance their understanding about the language before the start to practice. But some of us often wonder what books we should read and in what order. Some books may not be suitable for beginners and some books may cover the similar topics. Here I summarize a C++ book list we should read.Stage 1"Essential C++" : It is short but powerful and it can enhance our understanding of C++'s features.This book is specifically designed to bring you up to speed in a...

   C++,Book list,Read,Effective C++     2012-05-23 13:03:30

  10 design principles of Google data center

Google's data center supports the world's largest search engine, smart phone application platform and cloud computing services. The data center is Google's core engine and competitiveness. Over the years, Google also plays the role of the founder and innovator of large-scale web service data center technology. Its data center infrastructure design is also at the forefront of the industry, including renewable energy use, low-power refrigeration, new energy utilization as well as data center room ...

   Google,Data center,Design principle     2013-03-11 19:09:25

  JavaScript as a First Language

At Khan Academy we've been investigating teaching Computer Science to students in some new and interesting ways. The most interesting aspect of which is that we're likely going to be teaching them JavaScript as their first language. We're in a very unique position as we're primarily aiming to teach students who've been through our previous math and science-centric curriculum. Because of this we can create some rather compelling exercises and projects that never would've been feasible other...

   JavaScript,Learning,First language,Inheritence,Prototype     2011-12-23 07:53:45

  The Five Stages of Hosting

As a proud VPS survivor, I thought it might be fun to write up five common options for hosting a web business, ranked in decreasing order of 'cloudiness'. People who aren't interested in this kind of minutia would be wise to pull the rip cord right here. 1. The Monastery You run your site on an 'application platform' like Heroku, Azure, or Google App Engine. You design your application around whatever metaphors and APIs the service lays out, and in return you are veiled from all t...

   Website hosting,Recommendations,Stages,Advantages     2012-01-30 05:43:42

  Some famous product release venues

About product release conference, you must remember Apple Worldwide Developers Conference(WWDC), right? But do you remember where the conference is held? Actually, when companies release new products, they will hold some kind of conferences or sessions to introduce their products. But does anyone know what are the places where these conferences are held? Here geekpark summarized some product release places for us. 1. Moscone West Convention Center Moscone West Convention Center is the biggest co...

   Conference, Place,Product release     2012-10-11 20:32:22

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