Tag Archives: programming language

Little Programming Languages

06 Tuesday Oct 2015

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One characteristic of the hard-core coder is a love of computer languages, programming languages in particular. Programmers of that ilk — of my ilk — collect new languages like merit badges. (I get a kick out of saying that I’ve programmed “from Ada to the Z-80!”)

The especially far gone of us also enjoy creating new languages (or in some cases, new dialects of XML). Lately I’ve been playing with a language design that follows a favorite theme: the single-syntax construction language.

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Rule #4: Comment As You Go!

05 Monday Oct 2015

Posted by in CS101

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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

Posted by in CS101

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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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Python & Baseball

19 Monday May 2014

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One of the cool things about being a carpenter is that you can make your own shelves and dog houses. One of the cool things about being a computer programmer is that you can make your own computer apps!

In an era when computers are so much a part of life, that’s a useful skill. And the nice thing about doing it yourself is that things turn out exactly as you want them. You can make things that are perfect just for you.

Case in point: using Python to create custom charts of baseball stats!

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