Tag Archives: computer code

Anyone Can Code?

14 Friday Sep 2018

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There’s a general ethic these days — that anyone can code — and like a lot of things, there’s some truth to it, but also some silliness. As usual, it really depends on what we mean by “anyone can code.”

If we mean it in the same way we might say, “anyone can drive,” I think it’s silly. But if we mean in the same way we might say, “anyone can doctor (or lawyer),” well, then I still think it’s silly.

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State Engines, part 3

25 Wednesday Nov 2015

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In the first two parts of this series I’ve introduced state engines and taken apart a specific instance of an engine. Now it’s time to tie together the design idea with approaches to building a variety of such engines.

Because the programming logic is in the state table, the engine can be fairly generic. That means it’s possible to create a state engine framework you can reuse for a variety of applications.

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State Engines, part 2

11 Wednesday Nov 2015

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Last time I introduced state engines and state tables. I showed parts of a simple implementation of one in Python. It parsed the language introduced in Little Programming Languages. This post continues that, so be sure you’ve read that first article.

I got as far as the state table implementing the process, and that’s where this post picks up. I’ll also get into the SourceReader class that does the heavy lifting.

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State Engines, part 1

08 Sunday Nov 2015

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At one point in my career, the state engine (SE) was one of my favorite AWK hammers. At the time much of the work involved text processing or, in some cases, serial byte processing (which is not quite the same thing). That sort of thing is right in the wheelhouse for a state engine.

They are a very useful tool and an important part of any programmer’s toolkit.

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Rule #4: Comment As You Go!

05 Monday Oct 2015

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There is a common tendency, as we crank out code, to think that we’ll come back later and write some really good comments — comments that future reviewers will view with admiration for their clarity, completeness, and humor. But if we’re honest we have to admit: Later never comes. We never go back and write those great comments. Often we don’t write any comments at all other than some placeholder we might dash off at the time.

Which is why Rule #4: Comment As You Go!

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HTML is not a programming language!

22 Monday Dec 2014

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A webpage is a text document written in HTML. This document may also contain CSS and/or JavaScript, but it’s basically an HTML text document. You could write one — including the CSS and JavaScript — using just a pencil and paper.

Despite not needing a computer to write, all three are computer languages — they are languages used by, understood by, computers (and trained humans). However only one of those (JavaScript) is a programming language.

This is a brief explanation of which is which and why.

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