Monthly Archives: April 2013

Can Objective-C be given safe categories?

That was the subject of this lunchtime’s vague thinking out loud. The problems with categories are well-known: you can override the methods already declared on a class, or the methods provided in another category (and therefore another category can replace … Continue reading

Posted in code-level, OOP | Comments Off on Can Objective-C be given safe categories?

APPropriate Behaviour is almost done

I just pushed another update to APPropriate Behaviour, my work on the things programmers do that aren’t programming. There’s some refinement to the existing material to be done, and a couple of short extra chapters to finish and add. But … Continue reading

Posted in advancement of the self, books | Leave a comment

As the Kaiser Chiefs might say: Ruby ruby ruby n00bie

Imagine someone took the training wheels off of Objective-C. That’s how I currently feel. I’ve actually had a long—erm, not quite “love-hate”, more “‘sup?-meh”—relationship with Ruby. I’ve long wanted to tinker but never really had a project where I could … Continue reading

Posted in OOP, ruby | Comments Off on As the Kaiser Chiefs might say: Ruby ruby ruby n00bie

On designing collections

Introduction This post explores the pros and the cons of following the design rule “Objects responsible for collections of other objects should expose an interface to the collection, not the collection itself”. Examples and other technical discussion is in Objective-C, … Continue reading

Posted in Foundation, OOP, software-engineering | Comments Off on On designing collections

On rewriting your application

I’m really far behind on podcasts. I have a long commute, and listen to one audiobook every month, filling the slack time with a selection of podcasts. It happens that between two really long books (Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson and … Continue reading

Posted in Business, software-engineering | Leave a comment

Rebooting the Programmer Competency Matrix

For the last couple of years, I’ve posted a self-review based on the Programmer Competency Matrix: on my own competency from 2011 and on my newer competence from 2012. This year, because writing on APPropriate Behaviour is continuing apace, I … Continue reading

Posted in advancement of the self | 2 Comments