Robert A. Uhl

An introduction to REST

My fellow web programming geeks will have heard a lot of buzz about Representational State Transfer (REST). It’s definitely an improvement on the Ozymandian Web Services stack. But what is it really? How is it used? How does one adapt a design to it? Stefan Tilkov has a top-notch brief introduction to rest. If you write or design web-consumed services, or plan to, or manage those who do, check it out. 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 →

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 →

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 →

Effective emacs

Jacob Gabrielson wrote a nice blog post giving some tips for effective use of emacs. I’ve managed to reduce my emacs start-up time from six seconds to one, which ain’t too shabby. Read more →

Effective emacs

Jacob Gabrielson wrote a nice blog post giving some tips for effective use of emacs. I’ve managed to reduce my emacs start-up time from six seconds to one, which ain’t too shabby. Read more →

Size: code’s worst enemy

Steve Yegge blogs about size being code’s worst enemy. He mentions how more advanced languages offer mechanisms to compress code size and announces what he believes the Next Big Language will be: JavaScript running atop the Java Virtual Machine. I’ve just recently been learning some JavaScript; it’s a cool language with some neat features. I don’t know if I’d go so far as to call it ‘Lisp in sheep’s clothing’ as some have done, but it is definitely nicer than a lot of languages. Read more →

Size: code’s worst enemy

Steve Yegge blogs about size being code’s worst enemy. He mentions how more advanced languages offer mechanisms to compress code size and announces what he believes the Next Big Language will be: JavaScript running atop the Java Virtual Machine. I’ve just recently been learning some JavaScript; it’s a cool language with some neat features. I don’t know if I’d go so far as to call it ‘Lisp in sheep’s clothing’ as some have done, but it is definitely nicer than a lot of languages. Read more →

Python is not java

From dirtSimple, an article about a Java programmer’s reflexes and instincts lead to errors in writing Python. If you come from the big-and-ugly world of Java (or heaven forbid, C++), read this before writing a line of Python. Read more →

Python is not java

From dirtSimple, an article about a Java programmer’s reflexes and instincts lead to errors in writing Python. If you come from the big-and-ugly world of Java (or heaven forbid, C++), read this before writing a line of Python. Read more →