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The Hard-Core Coder

~ I can't stop writing code!

The Hard-Core Coder

Monthly Archives: August 2016

The Thing About Constants

16 Tuesday Aug 2016

Posted by Wyrd Smythe in CS101

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Tags

constants, defined values, global constants, literal values, literals, named constants, named values, numerical constants, P.J. Plauger, string constants

Along with “always use less-than” is another great piece of always advice, except this one is a prohibition, a never rather than an always (same thing, really, from a programmer’s point of view).

It has to do with never having literal values embedded in your code!

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Good Ol’ BASIC

13 Saturday Aug 2016

Posted by Wyrd Smythe in Fun

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Tags

BASIC, free verse, poetry

Here’s a free verse ode to my very first computer programming language, good old BASIC:

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Counting From Zero

08 Monday Aug 2016

Posted by Wyrd Smythe in CS101

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Tags

Edsger Dijkstra, EWD831, greater-than, indexing, integer ranges, less-than, zero, zero indexing

In his brief 1982 essay (EWD831), computer science giant Edsger Dijkstra examines a topic that (inappropriately, as it turns out) vexes some programmers: Why in the world do computer people count starting at zero? Everyone knows that counting starts at one!

As it turns out, there are two very good reasons for counting from zero!

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What is a “Programming” Language?

06 Saturday Aug 2016

Posted by Wyrd Smythe in CS101

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Tags

computer language, computer languages, computer programming, computer science, language design, programming language, Turing complete

Back in the post HTML is not a programming language! I brought up the three properties required by a programming language. A discussion recently got me thinking about it again. This post is just some notes on those thoughts…

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Wyrd Smythe

Wyrd Smythe

The canonical fool on the hill watching the sunset and the rotation of the planet and thinking what he imagines are large thoughts.

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