Today's Question:  What does your personal desk look like?        GIVE A SHOUT

SEARCH KEYWORD -- Ruby vs Python

  Building an iPhone application.

One of my New Years resolutions was to finally learn the iOS SDK and build a 'real' application.I am happy to report that progress is going really well and wanted to share something that I have noticed about iOS programming.It only looks scary... it's not. It's actually very easy.Now, I am not building Mail, Angry Birds or Photosynth or anything, but the core concepts of the SDK are not that bad once you spend some time learning delegation. If you don't understand delegation, iOS programmi...

   Apple,iOS,Application development     2012-01-28 07:03:36

  Why I switched from Ruby back to C++

After two months of Sol Trader development in Ruby, I took a difficult decision last Wednesday morning: I’ve decided to rewrite the game code from scratch in C++. Let me explain my reasons. If you'd like to receive announcements about Sol Trader or be part of the beta program, sign up at soltrader.net. Why I did it Slow frames: When working with Ruby, I use the excellent Gosu library to do all my game specific coding. This initially worked great, but occasionally I’d just...

   C++,Ruby,Advantage,Feature     2012-01-09 08:56:21

  Standardizing Python WSGI deployment

Over the past year I have been testing all of the new python platform as a service companies that have popped up, and I have posted my notes on my blog so that everyone can learn from my experiences. ep.io, apphosted.com, gondor.io, dotcloud.com, DjangoZoom.com, Heroku, Django hosting roundup, All and all, the platforms were very similar, they allowed you to easily host your python/django project without having to worry about managing a server or other typical system administr...

   Python,Standard,WAR,Java     2011-12-31 15:39:44

  What are some lesser known but useful Unix commands?

A few that come to mind, some less known, some more: xargs or parallel: run things in parallel, with lots of options sed and awk: more well-known but still super useful for processing text files, and faster than Python or Ruby m4: simple macro processor screen: powerful terminal multiplexing and session persistence yes: print a string a lot cal: nice calendar env: run a command (useful in scripts) look: find English words (or lines in a file) beginning with a string cut and paste and join: data...

   Linux,Unix,Command,Less used     2011-12-27 09:27:49

  Python: copying a list the right way

new = old[:] Those proficient in Python know what the previous line do. It copies the list old into new. This is confusing for beginners and should be avoided. Sadly the [:] notation is widely used, probably because most Python programmers don’t know a better way of copying lists.A little bit of pythonic theoryFirst we need to understand how Python manages objects & variables. Python doesn’t have variables like C. In C a variable is not just a name, it ...

   Python,List,Copy,Reference,[:],list()     2011-11-07 08:04:48

  Rails and Web Development - Take the First Step

Getting started with web development isn’t easy. Looking back to when I started, the first few weeks were the toughest to stick with it. For someone who is new to text editors and the terminal – the installation process can be really overwhelming. I recently went through the process of helping some of my friends get set up with Ruby on Rails and after doing it a few times, I realized it would be helpful to write a post that others looking to get started could refer to.The following...

   Web design,Rail,Ruby,Ruby on Rails     2011-10-17 11:16:51

  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

  Python Performance Tips, Part 1

To read the Zen of Python, type import this in your Python interpreter. A sharp reader new to Python will notice the word “interpreter”, and realize that Python is another scripting language. “It must be slow!” No question about it: Python program does not run as fast or efficiently as compiled languages. Even Python advocates will tell you performance is the area that Python is not good for. However, YouTube has proven Python is capable of serving 40 million videos...

   Python,Performance,Efficiency,Tips     2012-02-14 10:50:22

  My love… for Expressive Programming Languages

I started out my journey with programming as a teenager learning GW-BASIC. Soon I learnt C language followed by C++.  I was impressed with the OO syntactic constructs C++ had on offer but I felt a little uneasy with a few constructs such as the scope resolution. I started studying Java. It immediately caught my attention with the syntactic improvements and simplifications it brought over C++. I was still in academics, so learning(precisely trying) programming languages on su...

   descriptive,programming,language,prefere     2011-08-17 07:31:09

  Web programs written in C++ are no big deal

I had an interesting conversation with a friend the other day. She wanted to try putting together a weekend "hackathon" just to see what we could build. It would be one of those fun things where we just start tinkering and see what comes out of it. Somehow, this conversation got to the topic of libraries, programming languages, and frameworks. Then it got a little weird. I guess the current "shiny" thing is still more-or-less Ruby, and particularly when used with Rails. Oh, I suppo...

   C++,Web design,Library,Web app     2012-01-11 11:57:26

RECENT