Any time we are waiting for something to happen, from reading the disk to locking a mutex, we need to have a timeout. Without a timeout we run the risk of that […]
Blocking and asynchronous operations without timeout are broken
Debugging by binary searching through code revisions
What do you do when all normal debugging means fail? You can reproduce a bug, but the debugger just doesn’t seem to pinpoint it. Print statements have helped narrow it down, but […]
A bug, an error, or fault, and the irrelevance of classification
There’s a lot of confusion about how to classify software issues. Is something a programmer error, or is it an design defect? Is a misbehaviour a failure or is it an unsupported […]
A swipingly good time with edge gestures
I’ve been working a lot lately on gestures and am currently working on a swipe-in panel class. Mostly we take these controls and behaviours for granted. When I started looking closely however, […]
How HTTP cache headers betray your privacy
I recently implemented Etag caching support only to learn its a privacy breach. Internet scum have coopted yet another technology to track us as we browse. In this article I’ll look briefly […]
Fast build turnaround time is essential
Being able to make a code change and quickly see the result is critical. The longer we have to wait, the more code quality suffers, and the more productivity drops. Though often […]
Cohesion and coupling: good measures of quality
What is good code? Even if I say nobody cares about your code the quality nonetheless does influence a project. Functional correctness reigns supreme, but if we put that aside what should […]
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 […]
Measuring finger / mouse velocity at release time
Any interface involving touch will inevitably need to know how fast the user is moving their finger. They touch the screen, drag their finger, release and expect motion to continue at that […]
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 […]
Visions of generics and templates: How parametrics are compiled
In the world of parametric programming our languages often seem quite varied and unique. At the core however are two primary approaches, let’s call them templates and generics. In this article I’ll […]
What a compiler does: Parsing
Parsing is where the story of compilation begins. While it may mean something wonderful to us, our source code is merely a stream of character data. It’s the role of a parser […]
Bringing blurry device independent pixels into focus
Device independent pixels, or points, are a convenient way to design for multiple devices. They allow a consistent layout without worrying about exact pixel densities. It’s quite convenient, but it can lead […]
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