A mixture of Computer Science and Software engineering related writings, study notes, book reviews and general ramblings. Opinions are my own - enjoy!
See the first post in The Pragmatic Programmer 20th Anniversary Edition series for an introduction. Challenge 1 Time for a little quantum mechanics with Schrödinger’s cat. Suppose you have a cat in a closed box, along with a radioactive particle. The particle has exactly a 50% chance of fissioning into two. If it does, the cat will be killed. If it doesn’t, the cat will be okay. So, is the cat dead or alive?
See the first post in The Pragmatic Programmer 20th Anniversary Edition series for an introduction. Challenge 1 Consider the difference between tools which have a graphical user interface and small but combinable command-line utilities used at shell prompts. Which set is more orthogonal, and why? Which is easier to use for exactly the purpose for which it was intended? Which set is easier to combine with other tools to meet new challenges?
See the first post in The Pragmatic Programmer 20th Anniversary Edition series for an introduction. Challenge 1 Think about a design principle you use regularly. Is it intended to make things easy-to-change? Pure functions! Outside of Functional Programming, this is perhaps a lesser used/considered design principle - often superseded by principles such as SOLID and DRY. However, I have found it to be a very effective principle to follow no matter the programming paradigm being used.
See the first post in The Pragmatic Programmer 20th Anniversary Edition series for an introduction. Challenge 1 Start learning a new language this week. Always programmed in the same old language? Try Clojure, Elixir, Elm, F#, Go, Haskell, Python, R, ReasonML, Ruby, Rust, Scala, Swift, TypeScript, or anything else that appeals and/or looks as if you might like it. Not long after reading this chapter for the first time, I started learning Clojure using Daniel Higginbothams excellent book Clojure for the Brave and True.
See the first post in The Pragmatic Programmer 20th Anniversary Edition series for an introduction. Challenge 1 Look at the software tools and operating systems that you use regularly. Can you find any evidence that these organizations and/or developers are comfortable shipping software they know is not perfect? As a user, would you rather (1) wait for them to get all the bugs out, (2) have complex software and accept some bugs, or (3) opt for simpler software with fewer defects?