Declarative programming is a paradigm that expresses the desired result, not how to achieve it. It uses rules and constraints to describe a user interface, the layout of a network, the structure […]
What is declarative programming?
What is event programming?
Communicating between components with events is one of the fundamental programming paradigms. One module publishes an event, and other modules respond via listeners. It’s an asynchronous model that provides an excellent separation […]
What is functional programming?
Three key concepts comprise the essence of functional programming: first-class functions, pure functions, and immutable data. Together they express a fundamental architectural paradigm on how units of code interact with each other. […]
What is imperative programming?
Imperative programming is a paradigm that explicitly tells the computer what to do and how to do it. Unlike most other approaches it is a relatively concrete view on data and execution […]
What is orthogonality?
The flexibility and usefulness of an API relate directly to its orthogonality. But what does “orthogonal” mean? It’s a term that’s tossed around a lot in programming, with varying degrees of clarity. […]
The exceptional myth of non-local flow
“Exceptions are bad because they introduce non-local flow into a program.” It’s an argument I’ve seen often and it even came up in the comments in my previous article. It’s nonsense though. […]
Robot journalist predicts programmers will be obsoleted
Am I, as a programmer, in danger of being obsoleted by a program of my own creation? A recent BBC article gives programmers an 8% chance of being automated, whereas an NPR […]
A real cost of low performing applications
The platform as a service model adds new importance to the performance of our software. Despite ever decreasing hardware costs, metered services make every bit count. My previous article on performance touched […]
Where the wild code grows
Sometimes I just like to sit back and code something. Free from deadlines. Free from requirements. Free from issue systems and planning teams. It’s so liberating to free ourselves from the shackles […]
Nobody cares about your code
Nobody cares about your code. It was quite a shocking moment when I learned this in my programming career. I would take great care in polishing my code only to find out […]
Using a hack, stifling the perfectionist, and moving on
The code works, but it smells funny. A simple if statement makes the bug go away, but we know somehow we’re just masking a bigger problem. Should we take the time to […]
Complexity theory isn’t required to be a programmer
Complexity is sometimes portrayed as a corner stone to the theory of computation. What good would algorithm analysis be if we had no way to communicate our results? Theory has a role […]
An unpleasant visit from the refactoring demon
In the middle of a major change to the Leaf type system I encountered the refactoring demon. It reared it’s ugly little head chanting, “you’re doing it wrong, all wrong!” It was […]
Blocking JavaScript seems like a good idea
My fancy new website is broken due to a script blocking extension. I found this out when I showed a friend the Radial Blitz website. He complained that something was lacking. He […]
