Anyone who claims to be even remotely versed in computer science knows what “spaghetti code” is. That type of code still sadly exists. But today we also have, for lack of a better term — and sticking to the pasta metaphor — “lasagna code”.Lasagna Code is layer upon layer of abstractions, objects and other meaningless misdirections that result in bloated, hard to maintain code all in the name of “clarity”. It drives me nuts to see how badly some code today is. And then you come across how small Turbo Pascal v3 was, and after comprehending i...

If you want to send email using your Gmail account or using Gmail's smtp server in ASP.NET application or if you don't have a working smtp server to send mails using your ASP.NET application or aspx page than sending e-mail using Gmail is best option.you need to write code like this First of all add below mentioned namespace in code behind of aspx page from which you want to send the mail.using System.Net.Mail;Now write this code in click event of button C# code protected void Button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e){  MailMessage mail = new MailMessage();  mail.To.Ad...

It’s a sure thing that CSS3 features like transitions, animations and transforms can add extra spice to your designs.In this article you will see how you can build an awesome CSS3 animated dropdown menu with some of these cool features.View demoHere’s a quick preview for the CSS3 animated dropdown menu that we’re going to create today:Remember the previous CSS3 dropdown menu? That menu is awesome, and thanks to you is the most popular tutorial around here (at this time).Perhaps the best title for this article would have been: CSS3 dropdown menu – Revisited...

I had tried to register for Elite yesterday, and the servers were being funny, so I wasn't sure if I'd registered. I just now tried to reset my password, and I got the following:Hello JoshForgot your password? These things happen. Access your account with the password below:{Actual Unencrypted Password}Really? They're storing hundreds of thousands of passwords in plain text??EDIT: Not sure what the downvotes are for, surely it's not because huge companies like Steam and Sony never get hacked, and their user base leaked...Further EDIT: Perhaps I seemed too snarky, and I apologize for that. The ...

A col­lec­tion of python “must reads”:The Python yield key­word explainedPython’s super() con­sid­ered super!Under­stand­ing Python DecoratorsWhat is a meta­class in Python?Meta­classes DemystifiedTry/Catch for val­i­da­tion or speed?Python (and Python C API): __new__ ver­sus __init__Python “self” keywordPython and the Prin­ci­ple of Least AstonishmentA Curi­ous Course on Corou­tines and ConcurrencyGen­er­a­tor Tricks for Sys­tems ProgrammersCode like a Python­ista: Idiomatic Py...

As a programmer I like to write comments because I know that some future person (often me) is going to need to know something about my code that won't be immediately obvious from reading it. Here's a recent example from my homebrew display's code:// protocol_init: Set up a newly powered-on string of lights.  The lights are arranged// in an array wired diagonally starting from the bottom left.  For ease of programming// it's better if they are given numbers which correspond to coordinates.  Given that// each LED has a 6 bit address it's possible to address the entire array u...

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 just have to squint at it just right. Here is a fast, mostly incorrect, and hopefully useful guide fo...

Since I started my Perl Tutorial series a couple of people commented on what and how I am teaching.Some people asked why did I show "open or die" and why not using autodie. Others recommended the use IO::All instead of open.Another complaint was the introduction of time and localtime instead of DateTime.While I was mostly writing parts of my regular training material these comments led me to think about it again. I wonder how to teach Perl in 2012?When I started to write the tutorial I still called it "modern perl tutorial" but now I mostly call it "Perl tutorial" and I am going to eliminate t...