Robert A. Uhl

Religion and programming languages

It’s often said that one’s choice of computer languages is at heart a religious matter (I tend to disagree, but that’s another matter): now there’s a survey of religions and programming languages which is attempting to see if there’s any connexion. It was difficult for me to choose the languages I prefer. Common Lisp was a no-brainer, as was Python. But what about C? I decided against it — while it was a neat & cool language once upon a time, it’s hardly a sane choice today. Read more →

Religion and programming languages

It’s often said that one’s choice of computer languages is at heart a religious matter (I tend to disagree, but that’s another matter): now there’s a survey of religions and programming languages which is attempting to see if there’s any connexion. It was difficult for me to choose the languages I prefer. Common Lisp was a no-brainer, as was Python. But what about C? I decided against it — while it was a neat & cool language once upon a time, it’s hardly a sane choice today. Read more →

Internet ’96

A voyage back in time, to when the internet was in its infancy and web design’s parents hadn’t met yet. 4 February 2018: updated URL (amusingly, using the same archive that the article uses) Read more →

Internet ’96

A voyage back in time, to when the internet was in its infancy and web design’s parents hadn’t met yet. 4 February 2018: updated URL (amusingly, using the same archive that the article uses) Read more →

The programmer’s pyramid

Oliver Steele proposes a programmer’s pyramid based on the ideas in the food pyramid from the Department of Agriculture. Basically, a programmer should spend most of his time reading code, particularly exemplary code, then his own code, then code that he’s using which other people wrote. He should spend somewhat less time revising code. He should spend a bit less time writing code. He should spend even less time reading about code. Read more →

The programmer’s pyramid

Oliver Steele proposes a programmer’s pyramid based on the ideas in the food pyramid from the Department of Agriculture. Basically, a programmer should spend most of his time reading code, particularly exemplary code, then his own code, then code that he’s using which other people wrote. He should spend somewhat less time revising code. He should spend a bit less time writing code. He should spend even less time reading about code. Read more →

Quit overloading names!

Trademark law exists for a simple reason: to prevent confusion between similar product. It is a violation of Microsoft’s trademark to sell a word processor called Word; it is a violation of Ford’s trademark to sell a car called a Ford. It’s perfectly okay to sell a word processor called Ford or a car named Word, though: trademarks only apply to a certain field of endeavour. The computer world can have name collisions too, sometimes imaginary and sometimes quite real. Read more →

Quit overloading names!

Trademark law exists for a simple reason: to prevent confusion between similar product. It is a violation of Microsoft’s trademark to sell a word processor called Word; it is a violation of Ford’s trademark to sell a car called a Ford. It’s perfectly okay to sell a word processor called Ford or a car named Word, though: trademarks only apply to a certain field of endeavour. The computer world can have name collisions too, sometimes imaginary and sometimes quite real. Read more →

How three guys restaged D-Days

Technology has advanced to the point that three guys were able to re-enact the landings at Omaha Beach. Three guys, three uniforms, one rope, two rifles, a video camera and movie-editing software — that was enough. Over four days of filming they got lots of footage of the three of them on the beach; then they were able to clone themselves over and over again, finally resulting in a D-Day landing which is reminiscent of Spielberg’s in Saving Private Ryan. Read more →

How three guys restaged D-Days

Technology has advanced to the point that three guys were able to re-enact the landings at Omaha Beach. Three guys, three uniforms, one rope, two rifles, a video camera and movie-editing software — that was enough. Over four days of filming they got lots of footage of the three of them on the beach; then they were able to clone themselves over and over again, finally resulting in a D-Day landing which is reminiscent of Spielberg’s in Saving Private Ryan. Read more →

The genius of Donald Knuth

Mark Chu-Carroll explains just why Donald Knuth’s TeX is so cool. To this day, I write all my correspondence in LaTeX; it’s a wonderful tool (for one thing, the LaTeX logo actually looks good when properly typeset). 07 February 2018: updated URL Read more →

The genius of Donald Knuth

Mark Chu-Carroll explains just why Donald Knuth’s TeX is so cool. To this day, I write all my correspondence in LaTeX; it’s a wonderful tool (for one thing, the LaTeX logo actually looks good when properly typeset). 07 February 2018: updated URL Read more →