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  Before Python

This morning I had a chat with the students at Google's CAPE program. Since I wrote up what I wanted to say I figured I might as well blog it here. Warning: this is pretty unedited (or else it would never be published :-). I'm posting it in my "personal" blog instead of the "Python history" blog because it mostly touches on my career before Python. Here goes.Have you ever written a computer program? Using which language?HTMLJavascriptJavaPythonC++COther - which?[It turned out the students ha...

   Python,History,Programming language,B     2012-01-18 08:08:53

  Google search engine algorithm change history

Recently, Google had a major adjustment on its search algorithm: Users can directly see answers to the searched question on the top of the page.There are billion of search requests each day on Google. There is no doubt that the algorithm will become the subject of discussion. Last year, Google did an adjustment to its search algorithm every 17.5 hours in average. We all experience the change of the algorithm. Following information chart summarizes the major changes of Google search algorit...

   Google,Search engine,History,Google+     2012-04-07 12:41:10

  Designing Great API Docs

Writing documentation is one of those things that is dreaded by many developers. It takes a lot of effort and time to get right. And too often, people take shortcuts. This is sad, because well designed documentation is the key to getting people excited about your project, whether it's open source or a developer focused product. In fact, I argue that the most important piece of UX for a developer product isn't the homepage or the sign up process or the SDK download. It's the API documentati...

   API docs,Design API docs,Advice     2012-03-09 23:15:00

  Measure the improvement of Google search algorithm

On the day of Google's 15th birthday, Google released its new "Hummingbird" search algorithm, this is the first time that Google changes its search algorithm since 2010 after the Caffeine algorithm. It will affect 90% of search results, according to Amit Singhal, Lead of Google Search. Some may be curious about how Google measures the improvement of a new search algorithm. There are many factors need to be considered, for example, accuracy, relevance, search depth etc. According to Amit Singhal...

   Google search,Algorithm, improvement     2013-09-29 23:25:53

  Chrome to block mixed content downloads in version 86

Google has announced its plan to block mixed content downloads in Chrome in February 2020 and now the day to block mixed content downloads is coming soon as we are nearing October when Chrome 86 is supposed to be released. What is mixed content downloads? According to Google, it is non-HTTPS downloads started on secure pages. For example, if you access a page called https://example.com/download, and in this page, there is a download link to http://download.example.com/something, ...

   CHROME,MIXED CONTENT DOWNLOADS     2020-09-18 21:10:53

  YOU'RE A DEVELOPER, SO WHY DO YOU WORK FOR SOMEONE ELSE?

As a developer, you are sitting on a goldmine. Do you even realize it? No, seriously, a @#$% goldmine!Never in modern history has it been so easy to create something from scratch, with little or no capital and a marketing model that is limited only by your imagination.Think about the biggest websites you visit or use on a regular basis: Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Foursquare, or even Google for that matter -- all of them were created by developers who created something from little more than an id...

   Developer,Work,Startup,Money,Idea,Time     2011-11-06 14:35:48

  C++ and Java over Python in Google products

In Google, most of the products are written in C++ and Java. They usually don't choose Python to write their product stack. What's behind the decision to choose one language over the other in Google? Let's get to read some opinions from Robert Love, a Google software engineer. Love said he couldn't imagine writing let alone maintaining a large software stack in Python. They use C++, Go, and Java for production software systems, with Python employed for scripting, testing, and tooling.There are a...

   Java,Python,Google     2014-07-20 04:39:09

  Steve Jobs attacks Android just for show?

Steve Jobs has a famous statement which says Android is a stolen product. What does Google CEO Larry Page think about this statement? Recently, Page said in an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek that Apple hates Android just for show. He believes people should not look only to the competitions, but should focus on the potential cooperation opportunities to make the world better.The following is overview of the interview:Q: When you took over as CEO, one of your goals was to take the cle...

   Steve Jobs,Android,Larry Page     2012-04-08 08:30:33

  Advice From An Old Programmer

You've finished this book and have decided to continue with programming. Maybe it will be a career for you, or maybe it will be a hobby. You'll need some advice to make sure you continue on the right path, and get the most enjoyment out of your newly chosen activity. I've been programming for a very long time. So long that it's incredibly boring to me. At the time that I wrote this book, I knew about 20 programming languages and could learn new ones in about a day to a week depending on how w...

   Advice,Programming,Python,Old programmer     2012-03-08 13:51:11

  Application vs Database Programming

A few years ago, I had a problem.  A database routine for processing bulk payments for LedgerSMB that was humming along in my test cases was failing when tested under load with real data prior to implementation.  Some testing showed that while it ran fine with small numbers of inputs, it eventually slowed way down as the number of inputs rose.  Andrew Sullivan, who was also on the project through a different company, suggested it was something called a "cache miss" because I...

   Application Programming,Database programming,Comparison,Difference     2012-03-04 12:08:35