23 Thursday Jun 2022
There are many general skills a programmer should have to be effective and valuable. Some are very general — for instance, the ability to learn and to think abstractly — but some are more specific — various tools and tricks of skilled programming.
Among those tools are several non-programming languages all programmers should know. Those include HTML, XML, SQL, and an old one whose name doesn’t end with “L” — Regular Expressions (aka REs, aka RegEx or RegExp).
07 Sunday Nov 2021
Posted in Stories
A long, long time ago I came up with a simple something I called Definition Language (DL) and an extension of that I called Data Definition Language (DDL). This was before XML (let alone JSON) became popular, and DL and DDL turned out to be somewhat akin to those.
My intention was a configuration language that would allow a data-dumping tool that knew the structure of the data it was dumping. Debuggers can sometimes do that in context. I wanted a tool that could do that with any file format given some DDL config file. (These days I’d probably just use XML.)
02 Tuesday Nov 2021
Posted in CS101
Tags
code clarity, computer code, computer languages, computer programming, Java, Python code, readable code, toString, __str__
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.
25 Tuesday Jun 2019
Posted in Opinion
Tags
computer code, computer language, computer languages, computer programming, computer science, imperative programming language, language design, Object-Oriented Programming, OOP, programming language
This is another note for a friend: a followup to a discussion about how some programmers really hate Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) languages.
Most of those who hate OOP hold up Imperative Programming (IP) as the One True Way to write code. The key difference is the IP is function (or verb) oriented whereas OOP is object (or noun) oriented.
I’ve never really understood that active dislike. It’s just another way to organize the same code you’d write anyway.
20 Thursday Jul 2017
Tags
computer languages, computer programmer, data, Matplotlib, NOAA, programming language, Pythonista, SQL, SQLite, xkcd
In the unlikely event anyone is reading this, and, more in the original spirit of “web logs“, as much a diary entry to record both the passing of time and the moment, after a long period of quiet, and in the long-winded run-on way that I sometimes have, a post.
19 Monday Dec 2016
Posted in CS101
Tags
computer language, computer languages, computer programming, computer science, GOTO statement, iteration, language design, loop statements, programming language, recursion
When it comes to what makes a computer (or any other) language a programming language, there are three characteristics usually required:
This post is just a brief note (for a friend) about the third item and why it allows three distinct options.
06 Saturday Aug 2016
Posted in CS101
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…
26 Tuesday Jul 2016
Posted in Fun
Tags
Algol, BASIC, C++, computer humor, computer languages, Forth, humor, Lisp, programming language, valley girl
Cleaning out some old boxes of papers, I came across one of those humor bits that circulate in any profession. Back in the day, it was usually by fax. Then it was email, and now Tweets and other social platforms. (The song remains the same.)
This one concerned “rare” (i.e. made up) languages loosely based on existing languages. The humor depends, mostly, on recognizing parodied languages and certain other topical references (like “Valley Girls”).
In other words, a lot of the funny has sailed, but I found parts of it cute enough to record here…
22 Monday Dec 2014
Posted in CS101
Tags
computer code, computer language, computer languages, CSS, data, data type, HTML, Java, JavaScript, programming language, variables
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.
15 Tuesday Apr 2014
Posted in Opinion
Tags
computer languages, computer programming, computer science, data, data type, data types, strings, text, text file
The Strings and Text are not the same post on Musing Mortoray discusses the difference between “text” and “strings” and got me thinking. Rather than weigh down his (or her) comment section with a very long comment, I thought I’d go on a bit about it here.
I agree totally with the basic premise: that “text” and “strings” are different beasts. I also agree that text-handling depends on the text. There might be some difference in how we define text and string, and thinking about how I define them turned up a lot of thoughts on the matter. This isn’t intended as an opposition post (except on one point with regard to HTML). What follows is just one programmer’s opinion.
The Hard-Core Coder 