Archive for May, 2007
Monday, May 28th, 2007
If you're not already an initiate to programming, you may not be clear what you're getting into when you set out to learn to program, so here's an overview.
Most obviously, you must learn a programming language, which comes down to learning four things:
a syntax: The syntax of a language is ...
Posted in Learn Programming | 4 Comments »
Sunday, May 27th, 2007
Glenn Greenwald
This unbelievably irrational, even stupid, concept has arisen and has now taken root --- that to cut off funds for the war means that, one day, our troops are going to be in the middle of a vicious fire-fight and suddenly they will run out of bullets --- or ...
Posted in Politics | No Comments »
Saturday, May 26th, 2007
Why natural language in programming languages is a fool's game.
The main purpose of a formal language is that it is free of the ambiguities found in natural human languages.
While naturalistic language may give off signals of familiarity and thereby boost a programming language's approachability, the gain is more than offset ...
Posted in Learn Programming, Tech | No Comments »
Monday, May 21st, 2007
This last week I've been getting familiar with Vim. I've dabbled a few times in the past, but this time I'm finally feeling comfortable enough to stick with it. I was quite annoyed with having to hit ESC all the time, but a neat tip is to set this in ...
Posted in Desktop UI, Interfaces, Learn Programming, Tech | No Comments »
Sunday, May 20th, 2007
A while ago, I proposed a website for funneling donations from 'content consumers' to 'content producers', and it turns out others have a similar idea and are doing something about it but framing the idea as 'tipping' rather than 'donating'. Nick Szabo, who wrote the best early assessment of why ...
Posted in Free culture, Tech | 2 Comments »
Friday, May 4th, 2007
From the creator of JSLint, Douglas Crockford, here's a series of Javascript video lectures. It just so happens I've been spending the last four months working in Javascript for the first time, and I wish I'd seen these lectures before I started.
The first thing Crockford tells you is that all ...
Posted in Learn Programming, Tech | No Comments »
Friday, May 4th, 2007
Title translation: 'Don't tell me you find this difficult to understand purple monkey dishwasher (version 3)'.
Preston Gralla on O'Reilly Net complains that Linux package names are preventing wider Linux desktop adoption. While I find his claim that Linux will never get there extreme, I do agree this is a significant ...
Posted in Desktop UI, Interfaces, Tech | No Comments »
