When I was a physics student one of the things that I learned to do was "unit analysis". That's where you simply consider what units an answer has: is it in meters, or meters squared? Surprisingly, there is an enormous amount that can be learned just by doing unit analysis …
Posted Sun 30 March 2008 by mcherm in Programming
I've been interviewing lately for "senior programmer"
positions. I find it outright astonishing how many applicants for
these positions lack what I would consider the most fundamental of
programming skills. Some people have suggested using
FizzBuzz
(a trivial programming exercise) as a filter; what I use is a discussion
of …
Posted Sun 17 February 2008 by mcherm in Programming
I'm beginning to wonder whether I'm turning into an "old fogey" of a computer programmer. You know, the elderly fellow who has an office near the server room; the one who always objects to the use of any new technology and goes on at length about "the good old days …
Posted Sat 02 February 2008 by mcherm in Programming
In part 1 I introduced immutable trees, this time I will talk about threading evil. If you haven't yet read part 1, go back and do so now.
We will start by recapping the argument showing that there cannot be a loop. This argument went as follows:
The RandomTreeBuilder and …
Posted Wed 19 December 2007 by mcherm in Programming
I was reading a post in Eric Lippert's Blog and started to post a reply, but when I realized just how much I needed to say, I decided it should be it's own post, nay: series of posts on my blog. Let me take you on an interesting tour of …
Posted Wed 19 December 2007 by mcherm in Programming