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The Hard-Core Coder

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The Hard-Core Coder

Author Archives: Wyrd Smythe

Thinking Ahead

05 Friday Feb 2021

Posted by Wyrd Smythe in CS101

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Tags

Computer Language magazine, computer programmers, computer programming

I’ve been going through my old Computer Language magazines, and man have things changed since 1984. It’s a fascinating trip through the early days of personal computing.

I was reading an article about using dates in an application and was struck by the prescience of one bit.

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Brian Kernighan: Successful Language Design

04 Monday Jan 2021

Posted by Wyrd Smythe in Interesting

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Tags

computer language, language design, programming language

I very much enjoyed this one-hour talk by Brian Kernighan:

He’s absolutely right about small languages. Doing a big one is hard to get right.

My Python App Framework

03 Saturday Oct 2020

Posted by Wyrd Smythe in CS101

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Python code

For me, Python modules seem to divide into two basic classes: library modules and application modules. The former contain basic building blocks, but the latter has top-level routines the operating system invokes when it runs the application.

Today I thought I’d post about the application framework I use for all apps.

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Multiplication Visualized

01 Tuesday Sep 2020

Posted by Wyrd Smythe in Fun

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Cartesian product, Japanese multiplication method, multiplication, Pillow (PIL fork), Python, Python code

On my regular blog I just posted about a Japanese visual multiplication method. It’s a cute trick that ties into the notion of grid multiplication techniques. (In general, multiplication techniques are of some interest due to the Mandelbrot set, which requires multiplying large numbers lots of times.)

It turns out code to generate the patterns was a lot easier than I thought it would be. The hardest part was generating the diagonal summing lines.

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Square Root of 2

15 Friday May 2020

Posted by Wyrd Smythe in Fun

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This post contains some simple code for calculating the square root of 2 and then generating the bits of the value.

It’s a companion to a post on my other blog.

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Life With Class

07 Thursday May 2020

Posted by Wyrd Smythe in Fun

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Tags

computer code, Conway's Life game, John Conway, program, Python code

Last time I showed you the functions necessary for Life — for John Conway’s game of Life, that is. We ended up with a set of functions you can use to generate frames of a Life session.

This time I’ll show you an object-oriented version (a Life class) along with some other tweaks to make things look nicer.

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John Conway’s Life

03 Sunday May 2020

Posted by Wyrd Smythe in Fun

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Tags

computer code, Conway's Life game, John Conway, program, Python code

You may have heard that mathematician John Conway died last April. To his everlasting dismay, most people only know him for his “game” of Life (which he considered trivial and inferior to his real mathematical work). Unfortunately for Conway, his Life game is fascinating.

To honor his passing, I whipped up a Python version that I thought I’d share. Python is about the only language I’ve used a lot in which I’ve never implemented Life, so high time I did, right?

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Python Decorators, part 2

25 Saturday Apr 2020

Posted by Wyrd Smythe in CS101

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Aspect-Oriented Programming, computer language, programming language, Python, Python code, Python decorator

Last time I began exploring Python decorators, which are a way of having one function “wrap” another function. Because the wrapper has access to both the input parameters and the return value, it can modify these values (unbeknownst to the inner function).

This time I pick up where I left off by exploring decorators modifying return values, decorators that take parameters, and decorators in classes.

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Python Decorators, part 1

24 Friday Apr 2020

Posted by Wyrd Smythe in CS101

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Aspect-Oriented Programming, Python, Python code, Python decorator

I’ve been playing around with what Python calls decorators. They’re a built-in way of implementing Aspect-Oriented Programming techniques in Python. In fact, they’re quite powerful.

Since they aren’t a common language feature, they can be a little confusing at first, so I thought I’d try my hand at laying out how they work.

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Function Currying

22 Wednesday Apr 2020

Posted by Wyrd Smythe in CS101

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

computer code, computer programming, function currying, software design, software development

I saw a video recently about function currying, and it triggered the realization that currying might solve a problem I’ve been pondering in the context of language parsing. The problem involves knowing how many arguments an operator expects, what’s called the arity of an operation or function. It can vary from zero to many.

But it occurred to me that, with currying, there could be a language where operations always take just one argument. And that would solve a challenge for a mathematical expression language I have in mind.

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The Posts

  • Thinking Ahead
  • Brian Kernighan: Successful Language Design
  • My Python App Framework
  • Multiplication Visualized
  • Square Root of 2
  • Life With Class
  • John Conway’s Life
  • Python Decorators, part 2
  • Python Decorators, part 1
  • Function Currying

The Topics

  • Blog (4)
  • CS101 (29)
  • Fun (22)
  • Interesting (1)
  • Opinion (12)
  • Stories (12)
  • Uncategorized (1)

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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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