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

SEARCH KEYWORD -- Trap

  An Object is not a Hash

Following my article A String is not an Error, I want to bring attention to an issue that similarly applies to JavaScript in general, but has special relevance in the Node.JS environment. The problem boils down to the usage of {} as a data-structure where the keys are supplied by untrusted user input, and the mechanisms that are normally used to assert whether a key exists. Consider the example of a simple blog created with Express. We decide to store blog posts in memory in a {}, indexed ...

   Object,Hash,Node.js,JavaScript     2012-01-19 10:16:10

  9 quotes that stayed with me as a developer

I find quotes inspiring, motivating or sometimes just thought provoking, so here's some of my favourites from over the years. Sometimes reading a book can have a real influence on how you write code, or how you approach a problem. Sometimes a simple quote  is enough to make me question the way I look at the code I'm writing. Or often I sit in awe about someone's so well distilled what I've known internally for ages but have never been able to enunciate.   "Design is finding t...

   Quote,programmer,programming     2011-05-27 03:34:49

   Opinion: The Elusive 'Quick Iteration' - Tips for Indie Devs

[In this reprinted #altdevblogaday-opinion piece, WB Games/Kindling Games' Kristen Bornemann offers independent developers advice on iterating and shipping their projects as fast as possible.] From agile and scrum to extreme programming, everyone's trying to nail down what it takes to iterate on products quickly and efficiently. There are a lot of methodologies that you can employ to guide you through shipping products. But today, I'll be talking specifically about video games and how, as a...

   Game,Electronic,Efficient,Development me     2011-08-15 07:41:47

  Moving from Java to C++: An Interview with Rogers Cadenhead

In this interview, co-author of Sams Teach Yourself C++ in 24 Hours, 5th Edition Rogers Cadenhead discusses moving from Java to C++, what brought him to C++, and the best tactics for learning C++.Danny Kalev: For how long were you a Java programmer? Can you tell us a bit about the nature of the projects in which you took part at that time?Rogers Cadenhead: I've been a Java programmer since the language was launched by Sun Microsystems in 1995. I was doing website develop...

   Java,C++,Transfer,Transform,New challeng     2011-09-03 11:01:26

  What else is new in C# 5?

The big new feature in C# 5 is asynchronous programming support, which I wrote about last week. However, the C# folks have also slipped in a couple of smaller features and I thought I’d round things out by mentioning those. Method caller information There’s a complete style guide to be written on Writing Enterprisey Code, but one of my favourite “enterprisey” tells, after the use of Visual Basic, is obsessively logging every function you pass through: Function Ad...

   C# 5,New feature,Analysis     2012-03-20 07:45:11

  I hate cut-and-paste

Me, I blame the IDE's.Coding used to be hard. Not because programming itself was overly hard, but mostly because editors absolutely sucked. How much the typical development environment in the 70's and 80's sucked is hard to convey (except for a very lucky few, and those would have likely been using DEC and WANG gear). I got in on the tail end of the punch card era. Punching your own program is lots of fun. Once. And if you drop a deck you get to play with the sorter, which is also lots of fun (o...

   IDE,Editor,Cut and paste,Shortcut,Blame     2011-10-24 11:33:46

  #46 – Why software sucks

No one makes bad software on purpose. No benevolent programmer has ever sat down, planning out weeks of work, with the intention of frustrating people and making them cry. Bad software, or bad anything, happens because making things is hard, making good things doubly so. The three things that make it difficult are: Possessing the diverse skills needed not to suck.Understanding who you’re making the thing for.Orchestrating the interplay of skills, egos and constraints over the course of...

   Software design,Sucks,Software industry     2012-03-19 13:10:37

  Time-saving tips Linux users should know

As a programmer or system administrator, we have more chances of working on *nix platforms. It's tough experience when first start use *nix as we need to face a black screen without knowing what's behind it. Now, if we can have some resources to rely on, then we will find the beautify of *nix. They are fast, efficient and most importantly sexy. Below are some great tips for helping Linux users get used to Linux. This list is a bit long. So be patient. To get more information on a command mention...

   Linux,Tips     2013-09-03 22:30:48

  Performance is a Feature

We've always put a heavy emphasis on performance at Stack Overflow and Stack Exchange. Not just because we're performance wonks (guilty!), but because we think speed is a competitive advantage. There's plenty of experimental data proving that the slower your website loads and displays, the less people will use it. [Google found that] the page with 10 results took 0.4 seconds to generate. The page with 30 results took 0.9 seconds. Half a second delay caused a 20% drop in traffic. Half a seco...

   Website,Perfomance,Optimization     2011-07-02 01:52:12

  Functional Programming Is Hard, That's Why It's Good

Odds are, you don’t use a functional programming language every day. You probably aren’t getting paid to write code in Scala, Haskell, Erlang, F#, or a Lisp Dialect. The vast majority of people in the industry use OO languages like Python, Ruby, Java or C#–and they’re happy with them. Sure, they might occasionally use a “functional feature” like “blocks” now and then, but they aren’t writing functional code.And yet, for years we’v...

   Functional Programming,Hard,Difficult,Reason to learn,Good     2011-10-18 02:55:38

RECENT