Sneak Attack: Code Critique as an Interview Tool

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Words to code by

More generally, complicated code is a sign that you don't understand your program well enough to make it simple. — Code Complete, Second Edition

I don't think I've ever seen a better, more succinct rule of thumb for programmers. If you ever find yourself looking at a chunk of code and wondering what it does, you should ask yourself if there is any possible way to simplify it. Almost every time I've ever had a feeling that a block of code is too complicated but left it as is (for whatever reason), I've regretted that decision later.

P.S. I haven't forgotten about the updates I promised in The Education of a Programmer, but it turns out that writing a post that does justice to the source material is non-trivial. I've spent at least three times as much time writing and erasing and rewriting the first update as I did on the reading/exercises I was going to post about.

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Sneak Attack: Continuous Integration—What Should I Automate?

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Sneak Attack: Software Secret Weapons—The Last Java Garbage Collection Guide You Will Ever Need

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Why Ninja Always Beat Samurai

Ninja don't have an alias for seppuku.

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G-Client and Special Sauce

I'm posting this from the friendly confines of G-Client, a suite of emacs clients for accessing Google Services. It's quite nifty, although you should pay attention to the comments if you are using it independently of its parent project, emacspeak; there is a gotcha with the stand-alone package, although I hear it has been resolved with the latest in svn.

Actually, ignore that last paragraph. I wrote this post 4 times in G-Client, and never once managed to post it successfully. Once, I made the mistake of saving a draft version, and emacs switched modes on me. The other three times, I finished writing and used C-c C-c to (supposedly) submit the post for publication, but emacs seemed to just spin out into infinity or something. So combining the fact that the distributed tarball didn't work out of the box with the fact that even after I fixed that problem the editing and submission process is flaky, I can't recommend G-Client to anyone right now. The idea is fascinating, though, so I'll continue to follow developments, and if it does work out, I'll be sure to let you know. Until then, it looks like it's back to FF + It's All Text! for now.

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The Education of a Programmer

In a previous post, Picking Your Next Programming Language, I discussed my plans to begin learning a new programming language. Now it's time for the big reveal: Scheme.

I picked Scheme for a variety of reasons: I don't know any functional languages, I don't know any LISP dialects, etc. By far the most important reason, though, is that it is the language used in SICP, and that's the textbook for CS 6.001 - Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs at MIT. I'll be posting periodic progress updates and interesting tidbits as I work through the material available through the incredible OCW program.

Since there is more to being a programmer than the computer languages you know, I'll also be working through the course material for 21F.101 / 21F.151 Chinese I. If I can figure out how to make Blogger work with Chinese characters, I'll post progress updates as I work through this class as well.

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