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  The Essence of Google Dart: Building Applications, Snapshots, Isolates

WÑ–th thousands of programming languages floating around, why is Google introducing Google Dart? What can it possibly add? The short answer: the Google Dart team wanted a language well suited to modern application development, both on the server and the (mobile) client. Some of Dart's features address problems that languages like Java or Javascript have long had. Dart's Snapshots resemble Smalltalk images, allowing (nearly) instant application startup and wi...

   Dart,Google,Client side,Web,Language,Snapshort,Isolate     2011-10-24 11:41:16

  Don't write on the whiteboard

I recently interviewed at a major technology company. I won't mention the name because, honestly, I can't remember whether I signed an NDA, much less how strong it was.I did well. Mostly because of luck. I normally step over myself when I interview. I guess I've improved over the years. Here are a few tips to ace your own interview.1. Don't write on the whiteboardWhen I interviewed at Palantir around 5 years ago, I had a lot of trouble with this. Yes, I knew next to nothing about compu...

   Interview,Preparation,Whiteboard,Note,Python     2012-01-11 11:31:32

  Stop Designing Pages And Start Designing Flows

For designers, it’s easy to jump right into the design phase of a website before giving the user experience the consideration it deserves. Too often, we prematurely turn our focus to page design and information architecture, when we should focus on the user flows that need to be supported by our designs. It’s time to make the user flows a bigger priority in our design process. Design flows that are tied to clear objectives allow us to create a ...

   Web design,Paradigm,Advice,User experience,Flow     2012-01-05 08:16:18

  How to read Haskell like Python

Have you ever been in the situation where you need to quickly understand what a piece of code in some unfamiliar language does? If the language looks a lot like what you’re comfortable with, you can usually guess what large amounts of the code does; even if you may not be completely familiar how all the language features work.For Haskell, this is a little more difficult, since Haskell syntax looks very different from traditional languages. But there's no really deep difference here; you j...

   Haskell,Python,Format,Like,Similarity     2011-11-15 08:45:39

  Getting the most out of your pixels - adapting to view state changes

In Windows 8, your apps run on a variety of screen sizes and under various view states. A user might have your app snapped to the side of a 25-inch desktop monitor, or fill the whole screen of a 10-inch widescreen tablet. In each case, you want your app to take full advantage of the available space. In this post, I show you how you can track the current size and view state of your app in code, and give you tips on how to write your app in the Windows 8 Consumer Preview to handle screen si...

   Windos 8,Metro,Resolution,Style     2012-04-23 06:13:02

  Functional Programming in C++

Probably everyone reading this has heard “functional programming” put forth as something that is supposed to bring benefits to software development, or even heard it touted as a silver bullet.  However, a trip to Wikipedia for some more information can be initially off-putting, with early references to lambda calculus and formal systems.  It isn’t immediately clear what that has to do with writing better software. My pragmatic summary:  A large fraction of th...

   C++,Functional programming     2012-04-28 06:16:37

  Why, oh WHY, do those #?@! nutheads use vi?

Yes, even if you can't believe it, there are a lot fans of the 30-years-old vi editor (or its more recent, just-15-years-old, best clone & great improvement, vim). No, they are not dinosaurs who don't want to catch up with the times - the community of vi users just keeps growing: myself, I only got started 2 years ago (after over 10 years of being a professional programmer). Friends of mine are converting today. Heck, most vi users were not even born when...

   Linux,Vi,Vim,Advantage,History     2012-02-05 07:21:17

  The Disruptor In The Valley

Justin Kan and Emmett Shear watched their first startup, an online calendar called Kiko, implode when Google decided to do the same thing in 2006. They sold Kiko's scraps on eBay for $258,000 and wondered what to do with their lives. So the pair did the only thing they could think of: They went to see Paul Graham at his house in Cambridge, Mass., near Harvard Square. Graham sat them down and helped bang out a plan to create Justin.tv, now the Web's biggest portal for live video, with 31 million ...

   Paul Graham,Creative,Programmer,Investme     2011-08-28 04:13:43

  Comparing Floating Point Numbers, 2012 Edition

We’ve finally reached the point in this series that I’ve been waiting for. In this post I am going to share the most crucial piece of floating-point math knowledge that I have. Here it is:[Floating-point] math is hard.You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly hard it is. I mean, you may think it’s difficult to calculate when trains from Chicago and Los Angeles will collide, but that’s just peanuts to floating-point math.Seriously. Each ti...

   Floating point number,Comparison,True value     2012-02-23 07:11:03

  Learn Vim Progressively

tl;dr: Want to learn vim (the best text editor known to human kind) the fastest way possible. I suggest you a way. Start by learning the minimal to survive, then integrate slowly all tricks.Vim the Six Billion Dollar editorBetter, Stronger, Faster.Learn vim and it will be your last text editor. There isn’t any better text editor I know. Hard to learn, but incredible to use.I suggest you to learn it in 4 steps:SurviveFeel comfortableFeel Better, Stronger, FasterUse vim ...

   Vim,Learning,Skills,Tips,Steps,Progressi     2011-09-08 10:44:06

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