Dear Programmers: Google is your friend

By Jim, on November 28th, 2011%

Stack Overflow is the best programmers’ resource to hit the Internet in quite some time. Online help forums for programmers are nothing new, but this one works better than anything else I’ve seen. I’m continually impressed by the variety and quality of the content there.

I’m also amazed by some of the questions. For example, . . . → Read More: Dear Programmers: Google is your friend

One comment - (Comments are closed)   Programming

Paco

By Jim, on November 20th, 2011%

Paco is from a pattern created by a wood carver named Javo Sinta. (Alternate link, which might work better: Javo Sinta Woodcarving.) This carving is five inches tall, including the base.

My version is carved from mesquite.

I cut this out on the band saw a few months ago and started carving it with a . . . → Read More: Paco

Comments are closed   Carving

Christmas ornaments

By Jim, on November 14th, 2011%

I finally finished the ornaments for the annual carving swap. This year I elected to participate in the smaller group of 12, rather than in the larger group (20 to 25). Here’s the whole batch:

Clicking on the picture will give you a much better (larger) view.

I think they’re all cute, but this one’s . . . → Read More: Christmas ornaments

Comments are closed   Carving

Installing Windows 8 Developer Preview

By Jim, on November 11th, 2011%

I’m setting up a computer that I can use to do some work from home. I’m still running Windows Server 2008 at the office because I’m slow to embrace change on my main development machine. But this new machine is going home and I want to explore what’s new in Windows.

I figured I’d skip . . . → Read More: Installing Windows 8 Developer Preview

Comments are closed   Computers

The white board inquisition

By Jim, on November 5th, 2011%

A lot of interviewers will have a prospective developer do a code writing exercise in which the candidate is given a series of increasingly difficult small problems to solve in code. Often, this exercise is done on a white board, although with projectors and desktop sharing widely available now, many companies are moving to having . . . → Read More: The white board inquisition

Comments are closed   Programming

First rule of optimization: Don’t

By Jim, on November 2nd, 2011%

A recent question on Stack Overflow reads:

Working with legacy code, I’ve found a lot of statements (more than 500) like this:

bool isAEqualsB = (a == b) ? true : false;

Does it make any sense to rewrite it like this?

bool isAEqualsB = (a == b)

Or will it be optimized?

When you . . . → Read More: First rule of optimization: Don’t

Comments are closed   Programming