APPropriate Behaviour
The book about all the things software writers do that aren't writing software.
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Author Archives: Graham
zed shaw: It didn’t matter that most of these detractors admitted to me that they don’t code C anymore, that they don’t teach it, and that they just memorized the standard so they could “help” people. […] I cannot help … Continue reading
On switching to Linux
In November, I switched to GNU/Linux at home (I still use OS X at work, because I still write Objective-C in Xcode at work). Or rather, I switched back: I’d been using it around a decade ago. In December, I … Continue reading
Posted in advancement of the self, GNU, Mac
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Layers of Distraction
A discussion I was involved in over on Facebook reminded me of some other issues I’d already drafted for this blog, so I stuck the two together and here we are. Software systems can often be seen as aggregations of … Continue reading
I imagine many of you are familiar with the difference between Ruby (a beautiful language representing the best pragmatic balance between Smalltalk’s elegance and C’s ubiquity) and Rubby (a horrendous mishmash of abominations in the style of all scripting languages, … Continue reading
In which I resolve
When I was a student I got deeply into GNU and Linux. This has been covered elsewhere on this blog, along with the story that as Apple made the best UNIX, and the lab had NeXT computers, I went down … Continue reading
Posted in futurology, Responsibility
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Derek Jones, from the PL advent calendar ‘J’ entry: Javascript would not have existed without the Internet and its ‘design’ must be a contender for the most costly software mistake [ever] made. Me, 14 months ago: Fundamentally I fear a … Continue reading
Object-Oriented Programming in 1714
Here are some excerpts from Leibniz’s La Monadologie (specifically from Daniel Garber and Roger Arlew’s English translation in Discourse on Metaphysics and Other Essays). THE MONAD, which we shall discuss here, is nothing but a simple substance that enters into … Continue reading
An odd thought: I have written software for a computer whose CPU was used as an I/O controller for a computer that I have programmed, whose CPU was used as an I/O controller for a computer that I have programmed. … Continue reading
Programming language advent
http://shape-of-code.coding-guidelines.com/2014/12/01/algol-60-awk-algol-68-ada-apl-and-assembler/ The first article, containing languages beginning with ‘A’, is linked above. I can tell this is going to be a month of reading.
Posted in tool-support
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That can’t possibly work.
A while back I was at a Facebook developer event, talking about techniques for analysing Objective-C. My summary of the problem was something like “it’s one of those things that works pretty well in the ivory towers of practice but … Continue reading
Posted in learning
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