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  How Speeding The "Most Important Algorithm Of Our Lifetime" Could Change This Modern World

Math breakthroughs don't often capture the headlines--but MIT researchers have just made one that could lead to all sorts of amazing technological breakthroughs that in just a few years will touch every hour of your life. Last week at the Association for Computing Machinery's Symposium on Discrete Algorithms (SODA) a new way of calculating Fast Fourier Transforms was presented by a group of MIT researchers. It's possible that under cert...

   FFT,Speed-up,Fast fourier transform     2012-03-20 07:47:04

  PHP: a fractal of bad design

Preface I’m cranky. I complain about a lot of things. There’s a lot in the world of technology I don’t like, and that’s really to be expected—programming is a hilariously young discipline, and none of us have the slightest clue what we’re doing. Combine with Sturgeon’s Law, and I have a lifetime’s worth of stuff to gripe about. This is not the same. PHP is not merely awkward to use, or ill-suited for what I want, or suboptimal, or...

   PHP,Design,Analysis     2012-04-11 13:46:57

  How the Internet Is Ruining Everything

The ongoing argument about whether the Internet is a boon or a bust to civilization usually centers on the Web’s abundance. With so much data and so many voices, we each have knowledge formerly hard-won by decades of specialization. With some new fact or temptation perpetually beckoning, we may be the superficial avatars of an A.D.D. culture.David Weinberger, one of the earliest and most perceptive analysts of the Internet, thinks we are looking at the wrong thing. It is not the co...

   Internet,Everything,Market,Shape world     2011-12-06 09:08:27

  Why we don’t hire .NET programmers

Skip my post and read this one instead.  It says the same thing, but less offensively.  (Or, rather, more offensively to Facebook and Google employees, less offensive to .NET developers, though the underlying message is the same.) Tuesday midnight edit: After >500 comments, >1000 tweets, and >1000 Facebook likes, I’m closing comments on this thread so we can all get back to work.  The very last comment takes the cake, however, and is a fitting close.  Th...

   ASP.NET,High level,Low flexibility,Weakness     2011-12-20 08:43:28

  10 things you gotta have to succeed in IT

Takeaway: Everyone seems to agree that IT is a tough field. But what does it take to overcome the adversities and become a successful IT pro? These qualities may be the key. I recently wrote a string of articles discussing various reasons to leave IT — and various alternative careers for dissatisfied IT workers. I received an amazing amount of feedback from readers who have always wanted to express similar sentiments. But that leaves out a huge swath of peo...

   Tips,IT,Development     2011-07-21 21:55:13

  Reducing Code Nesting

"This guy’s code sucks!" It’s something we’ve all said or thought when we run into code we don’t like. Sometimes it’s because it’s buggy, sometimes it’s because it conforms to a style we don’t like, and sometimes it’s because it just feels wrong. Recently I found myself thinking this, and automatically jumping to the conclusion that the developer who wrote it was a novice. The code had a distinct property that I dislike: lots of ...

   Code nesting,Readability,Maintainability,Reduction     2012-01-02 08:13:46

  Web Symbols typeface

There are those points in every interactive designer’s career when he becomes fed up with producing the same set of graphics all over again for every website he designs. It could be the social network icons, gallery arrows or any number of his «signature» butterflies for the footer of each of his projects. Similar for interactive developers that have to slice the same GIFs and PNGs each time art-director asks them to.U...

   Web,Type face,Interactive mode,Design icon     2011-11-19 02:08:47

  Three Simple Ways to Improve the Security of Your Web App

It seems like web app security has entered the public conscious recently, probably as a result of the press covering the activities of groups like Anonymous and incidents like security breaches at several CAs. Here are a couple of quick security tips to improve the security of your web apps. Think of these as low-hanging fruit, not as a substitute for thorough analysis of your app’s security. If there’s interest in this topic we can do more posts, too - let us know in the com...

   Web app,Security,X-FRAME-OPTIONS,SSL     2011-12-08 10:10:20

  Paradigms of Iteration in JavaScript

One of the joys of programming is that no matter how simple a problem may seem there are always tons of ways to solve it. It can be good practice to go back and revisit fundamentals by solving simple problems with as many implementations as you can think of. In this post we'll explore approaches to basic iteration in JavaScript. This style of exercise is a good interviewing technique, too, because it's open ended and leads to good discussions. The focus isn't a tricky, wacky problem you're...

   JavaScript,Iteration,Wrap,Recursive,For,Loop     2012-01-08 10:11:15

  Useful Bash Scripts

Many people hack together shell scripts quickly to do simple tasks, but these soon take on a life of their own. Unfortunately shell scripts are full of subtle effects which result in scripts failing in unusual ways. It's possible to write scripts which minimise these problems. In this article, I explain several techniques for writing robust bash scripts. Use set -u ...

   Linux,Shell,Bash,Command,Robust     2012-01-15 10:28:00

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