Tag Archives: computer code

The Synchronization Problem

29 Monday Nov 2021

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One of the great battles programmers fight involves synchronization between two different parts of the code. The most common example of this is what the comments say versus what the code really does. Another common example is the structure of data stored somewhere (like a database) and the code that manipulates it.

A lot of the programmer’s effort and technique is devoted to managing, if not preventing, synchronization issues. The rules encouraging encapsulation, or against global objects, have a lot to do with this goal.

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Abusing #define in C

19 Friday Nov 2021

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When I was a callow young programmer learning the ropes and enjoying the sheer power of the C language, I got a bit carried away with the macro pre-processor’s ability to let you redefine the language.

As much fun as that is, and as much as it can make your source code look cool, it’s a really bad idea. At some point the folks in comp.lang.c read me the riot act about it, and they were right.

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A Simple DL Parser

10 Wednesday Nov 2021

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Last time I introduced a general Definition Language (DL) I created for defining structured information. The end goal was an extension of DL, called Data Definition Language (DDL), intended for defining memory and file formats. It was intended for tools that examine that data, allowing them more knowledgeable output than a raw hex dump.

I mentioned that DL has been on my mind lately, and as it turns out I spent the day yesterday writing a DL parser in Python.

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Always Implement toString

02 Tuesday Nov 2021

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Although I’m categorizing this one as really good advice, rather than as a rule, I think it should be viewed as basically a rule. I think it should be a rule in any object-oriented language that supports it natively (Java and Python, for example).

The advice (rule of thumb, say) is to always create a useful implementation of toString when you create a class. It makes your development and maintenance life ever so much better.

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Playing with Polynomials

01 Monday Nov 2021

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I haven’t put nearly the energy into this blog as I have my main blog, Logos Con Carne. My intentions are good, but somehow I never seem to get around to posting here. (It’s certainly not due to lack of interest.)

In an attempt to get more in the habit, I thought I’d write about some simple fun I had recently with a class for calculating polynomials. It was inspired by a lesson from a set of really fun Python tutorial YouTube videos.

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Tabs or Spaces?

19 Tuesday Oct 2021

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There are many issues that divide programmers: operating systems and editors being two huge ones. I’ve worked on too many platforms to care much about the first one, but I’m a lifelong gvim user.

One of the lesser dividing issues involves the crucial source coding choice: Tabs or Spaces? The issue is both less and more important these days. Less because editors are very capable; more because Python is popular.

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Multiplication Visualized

01 Tuesday Sep 2020

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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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Life With Class

07 Thursday May 2020

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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

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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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