Thoughts on Programming

Beauty and the beast (on elegance versus performance)

2010-01-17T22:07:00.004+02:00

When you are programming you have to choose between code elegance, clean code, versus code performance.It starts with the programming language itself which you choose. Pick a low abstraction programming language, like C, and you'll have a lot of performance. You could go even further and write in assembler, for even more performance. But consequently the code will be large and hard to read. The

Programmer profitability

2009-09-06T19:49:00.004+02:00

How profitable are you as a programmer? Have you ever asked yourself that question? This is a tricky question, so let me give you a hint: it would be more profitable for you as a programmer to be better at what you do? I don't say if it would be good for you to be better programmer, but it would be more profitable? OK, enough with the questions.It is accepted by everyone that programmer

On Java EE complexity

2009-02-02T11:33:00.003+02:00

Reading an article I remembered the words of one of my friends (Doru Girba) about the increasing complexity of Java, the language and technologies. And I must agree with him: EJB it's a nightmare (at least version 2), Java enterprise application start to add more and more complicated technologies, which add more complexity rather than to simplify things. I start to feel all this complexity myself

The perfect definition for "Meta"

2008-02-16T22:12:00.006+02:00

Defining the word "meta" is always hard, this includes programming.Following is the Wikipedia definitions for "meta":Meta is a prefix used in English in order to indicate a concept which is an abstraction from another concept, used to complete or add to the latter.This way too abstract and hard to understand. A better definition for the word "meta" is given by Guy Steele in his OOPSLA'98 talk "

Software Visualization

2007-10-05T11:39:00.000+02:00

Software visualization is defined as “the use of the crafts of typography, graphic design, animation, and cinematography with modern human-computer interaction and computer graphics technology to facilitate both the human understanding and effective use of computer software.”(John T. Stasko et. al.). It is a specialization of information visualization, whose goal is to visualize any kind of

Going META!

2007-03-16T14:17:00.000+02:00

Recently i am interested metaobject protocols.Reading "The Art of the Metaobject Protocol" by Gregor Kiczales, Jim Des Rivieres, Daniel G. Bobrow (MIT Press) was a wonderful experience for me.Like Alan Kay said: "The Art of the Metaobject Protocol is the best book written in computing in ten years" (Keynote OOPSLA 1997).In a language based upon metaobject protocols, the language implementation

Stratified design

2007-02-03T02:09:00.000+02:00

This is an idea from the book "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs" by Hal Abelson, Jerry Sussman and Julie Sussman (an excellent computer science text used in introductory courses at MIT - a must read book).They come with the idea of Stratified design (programming in a sequence of levels, one level based on another), giving the example of The picture language."We have obtained a

Static vs. Dynamic Languages

2007-01-21T00:35:00.000+02:00

In static typing all expressions have their types determined prior to the program being run (typically at compile-time).Dynamic typing, also called latent typing, determines the type-safety of operations at runtime; in other words, types are associated with runtime values rather than textual expressions.There's a lot of debate around dynamic vs. static typing.The advantage to static typing is

Languages are software too!

2007-01-20T21:27:00.000+02:00

Most people focus their attention on the software engineering, and always neglect the language. They think that languages are something static, with no evolution.This idea is pointed out by Jean-Marie Favre in "Languages evolve too! Changing the Software Time Scale":"However, most academics still consider languages as immutable artefacts. Language/software coevolution issues are still neglected.

Patterns... what they really are?

2007-01-20T19:53:00.000+02:00

There's a lot of talking around patterns in the last years. What patterns really are?wikipedia.com says: "In software engineering, a design pattern is a general repeatable solution to a commonly occurring problem in software design. A design pattern is not a finished design that can be transformed directly into code. It is a description or template for how to solve a problem that can be used in

Why Lisp?

2007-01-20T19:43:00.000+02:00

I am big fan of the Lisp programming language. And everybody when hears this asks me "Why Lisp?". This is why, or better said, this is where you can find out why. The best description of Lisp lies in the following quotes: "Lisp has jokingly been called "the most intelligent way to misuse a computer". I think that description is a great compliment because it transmits the full flavor of

Generative programming

2007-01-20T19:26:00.000+02:00

In the present i am interested in a way new of doing programming. This is widely known as Generative Programming but there are a lot of similar ideas. Here is a list of those similar ideas:Domain Specific LanguagesModel-Driven EngineeringGenerative ProgrammingLanguage Oriented Programming (Sergey Dmitriev)Intentional Programming (Charles Simonyi)Language workbenches (Martin Fowler)Little

Maxwell’s equations of programming

2007-01-20T19:20:00.000+02:00

Alan Kay – „How Simply and Understandably Could The "Personal Computing Experience" Be Programmed?” at The Intel Research Berkeley Programming Systems Seminar Series (November 27th 2006)This are „Maxwell’s equations of programming”:from John McCarthy – „LISP 1.5 Programmer's Manual”Now we have to discover „The theory of relativity of programming” ...

Who's more important: the programmer or the machine?

2007-01-20T19:14:00.000+02:00

This is a very important question you have to put to yourself before doing anything, because this will have a great influence on the way we program and think. Most of today's people are focusing on the machine: run faster, optimize, performance. This was a good idea back in the 60's-70's when machines were slow and the price of hardware was bigger than the price of programmers, but today (and

The Feyerabend Project

2007-01-20T18:58:00.000+02:00

The Feyerabend Project is Richard P. Gabriel's attempt to repair the arena of software development and practice."Fifty years into the First Computing Era some of us in the computing arena have come to realize we’ve made a false start that can’t be fixed, and for us to finally be able to produce lasting, correct, beautiful, usable, scalable, enjoyable software that stands the tests of time and

What's next?

2007-01-20T18:23:00.000+02:00

Were is the programming world of today? To a new paradigm shift (personal opinion). The current programming paradigm (object-oriented) is fading. Programmers need something more (you'll see this need more in the research area, not in the commercial area). But which will be the new paradigm? AOP, MDA? There's a lot attention to models this days; a lot of people would bet on that. The problem is

State of purpose

2007-01-20T17:53:00.000+02:00

This blog will be a way of expressing my thoughts on programming. This will be something different, you will not see mainstream ideas here, but instead you will get new ideas, new way of looking at programming. As the subtitle says this is about the programming world of tomorrow. I will try to gather here some ideas from a lots of people i consider appealing and off course some of my ideas. I