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  Thoughts on Python 3

I spent the last couple of days thinking about Python 3's current state a lot. While it might not appear to be the case, I do love Python as a language and especially the direction it's heading in. Python has been not only part of my life for the last couple of five years, it has been the largest part by far. Let there be a warning upfront: this is a very personal post. I counted a hundred instances of a certain capital letter in this text. That's because I am very grateful for all the opport...

   Python,Python 3,Feature,Drawback,Embrace     2011-12-07 08:46:47

  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

  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

  Why developer-friendliness is central to API design

Today, APIs play a bigger role in software development than ever before. The evolution of computing has been dominated by ever-increasing levels of abstraction; the use of higher-level languages, of course, but also the development of platforms, libraries, and frameworks. Professor Douglass C. Smith claims the progression of this second category far outpaced the development of programming languages.  Developers are also noticing that difficulty has shifted from designing algorithms a...

   API,User friendly,Significance, Improve quality     2011-12-21 02:29:54

  Signs that you're a bad programmer

1. Inability to reason about codeReasoning about code means being able to follow the execution path ("running the program in your head") while knowing what the goal of the code is.SymptomsThe presence of "voodoo code", or code that has no effect on the goal of the program but is diligently maintained anyway (such as initializing variables that are never used, calling functions that are irrelevant to the goal, producing output that is not used, etc.)Executing idempotent functions multiple times (...

   Sign,Programmer,Characteristics,Knowledge,Skill     2011-10-20 08:56:16

  A String is not an Error

I decided to write a little article to discourage an unfortunately common pattern in Node.JS modules (and browser JavaScript, to a lesser extent) that can boil down to these two examples: // A:function myFunction () {  if (somethingWrong) {    throw 'This is my error'  }  return allGood;} and // B: async Node.JS-style callback with signature `fn(err, …)`function myFunction (callback) {  doSomethingAsync(function () {    // …    if (...

   JavaScript,Node.js,String,Error object     2011-12-23 08:00:32

  If PHP Were British

When Rasmus Lerdorf first put PHP together, he - quite sensibly, despite his heritage - chose not to write it in Greenlandic or Danish. Good job too - that would have been rather unpleasant to work with. He opted instead, being in Canada at the time, for the local tongue. No, not French - that bastard dialect of the Queen's English commonly referred to as "US English"1. PHP developers in Britain have been grumpy about this ever since. What was he thinking? And more importantly, how do we ...

   PHP,British,Class,Statement,Engilish like     2011-12-01 02:36:55

  Don't Overload #nil?

There’s a popular post on Hacker News about writing confident code by, among other things, overloading Object#nil? and returning “null objects” instead of nil itself.DO NOT DO THIS.In Ruby, all objects (except nil itself) coerce to the boolean value true. Your object will be nil and true at the same time. Bad things will happen. Your coworkers will cry. Sad people from around the world will ask bewildering questions on your mailing list.Here’s what happen...

   Ruby,#nil,Overload,Object     2011-11-10 10:50:22

  Guide to use Compass

Sass is one kind of CSS Preprocessor, it can make CSS development simple and maintainable. But to show its real power we may need to have Compass. This article is to introduce Compass. Once you learn Compass, your CSS development efficiency will be largely improved. Here we assume you have mastered the major uses of CSS, if you know Sass, then it's better. It's still ok if you don't know Sass. 1. What is Compass? In simple, Compass it the toolkit of Sass. Sass itself is only a compiler, Compass...

   Compass,CSS,Sass,Tutorial     2012-12-03 13:35:46

  Where Have You Installed Your Python Packages?

Preface I am writing this article because I recently noticed in the Python community that there are several frequently asked questions: Why does running the command after installing pip result in a "executable not found" error? Why does importing a module result in a "ModuleNotFound" error? Why can I run my code in PyCharm, but it doesn't work in the command prompt? Rather than just providing solutions, it is better to teach people how to fish. To address these types of issues, you need to und...

   PYTHON,PATH,PATH_PREFIX,PACKAGE LOCATION     2023-12-17 01:03:45

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