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  • Are some data structures more suitable for functional programming than others?

    - by Rob Lachlan
    In Real World Haskell, there is a section titled "Life without arrays or hash tables" where the authors suggest that list and trees are preferred in functional programming, whereas an array or a hash table might be used instead in an imperative program. This makes sense, since it's much easier to reuse part of an (immutable) list or tree when creating a new one than to do so with an array. So my questions are: Are there really significantly different usage patterns for data structures between functional and imperative programming? If so, is this a problem? What if you really do need a hash table for some application? Do you simply swallow the extra expense incurred for modifications?

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  • How do you find time for improving your programming skills?

    - by Snehal
    I'm a Java/J2ee programmer working in India. I'm very passionate about programming and I constantly strive to hone my programming skills by reading blogs, solving Project euler questions, learning new technologies, developing small apps etc;. But I find it very difficult to manage my time. Working for 12 hrs a day in office leaves me stressed out and spend my weekends with my family. So i hardly have like 5-6 hrs per week to actually work on something of my interest which will help me improve. How do you manage time so that you find time to improve your current standing? EDIT: 12 hours includes 1hour of travel & 1 hr of break(lunch/coffee). Effectively I work for 10 hours per day in office which is mandated by my organization. -Snehal

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  • What features are important in a programming language for young beginners?

    - by NoMoreZealots
    I was talking with some of the mentors in a local robotics competition for 7th and 8th level kids. The robot was using PBASIC and the parallax Basic Stamp. One of the major issues was this was short term project that required building the robot, teaching them to program in PBASIC and having them program the robot. All in only 2 hours or so a week over a couple months. PBASIC is kinda nice in that it has built in features to do everything, but information overload is possible to due this. My thought are simplicity is key. When you have kids struggling to grasp: if X>10 then <DOSOMETHING> There is not much point in throwing "proper" object oriented programming at them. What are the essentials needed to foster an interest in programming?

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  • What's the best way to do literate programming in Python on Windows?

    - by JasonFruit
    I've been playing with various ways of doing literate programming in Python. I like noweb, but I have two main problems with it: first, it is hard to build on Windows, where I spend about half my development time; and second, it requires me to indent each chunk of code as it will be in the final program --- which I don't necessarily know when I write it. I don't want to use Leo, because I'm very attached to Emacs. Is there a good literate programming tool that: Runs on Windows Allows me to set the indentation of the chunks when they're used, not when they're written Still lets me work in Emacs Thanks! Correction: noweb does allow me to indent later --- I misread the paper I found on it. By default, notangle preserves whitespace and maintains indentation when expanding chunks. It can therefore be used with languages like Miranda and Haskell, in which indentation is significant That leaves me with only the "Runs on Windows" problem.

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  • GDB hardware watchpoint very slow - why?

    - by Laurynas Biveinis
    On a large C application, I have set a hardware watchpoint on a memory address as follows: (gdb) watch *((int*)0x12F5D58) Hardware watchpoint 3: *((int*)0x12F5D58) As you can see, it's a hardware watchpoint, not software, which would explain the slowness. Now the application running time under debugger has changed from less than ten seconds to one hour and counting. The watchpoint has triggered three times so far, the first time after 15 minutes when the memory page containing the address was made readable by sbrk. Surely during those 15 minutes the watchpoint should have been efficient since the memory page was inaccessible? And that still does not explain, why it's so slow afterwards. The GDB is $ gdb --version GNU gdb (GDB) 7.0-ubuntu [...] Thanks in advance for any ideas as what might be the cause or how to fix/work around it.

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  • What features are important in a programming language for beginners?

    - by NoMoreZealots
    I was talking with some of the mentors in a local robotics competition for 7th and 8th level kids. The robot was using PBASIC and the parallax Basic Stamp. One of the major issues was this was short term project that required building the robot, teaching them to program in PBASIC and having them program the robot. All in only 2 hours or so a week over a couple months. PBASIC is kinda nice in that it has built in features to do everything, but information overload is possible to due this. My thought are simplicity is key. When you have kids struggling to grasp: if X10 then There is not much point in throwing "proper" object oriented programming at them. What are the essentials needed to foster an interest in programming?

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  • What are the best uses for each programming language?

    - by VirtuosiMedia
    I come from a web developer background, so I'm fairly familiar with PHP and JavaScript, but I'd eventually like to branch out into other languages. At this point, I don't have a particular direction or platform that I'm leaning toward as far as learning a new language or what I would use it for, but I would like to learn a little bit more about programming languages in general and what each one is used for. I've often heard (and I agree) that you should use the right tool for the job, so what jobs are each programming language best suited for? Edit: If you've worked with some of the newer or more obscure languages, please share for those as well.

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  • What is a good programming language for testers who are not great programmers?

    - by Brian T Hannan
    We would like to create some simple automated tests that will be created and maintained by testers. Right now we have a tester who can code in any language, but in the future we might want any tester with a limited knowledge of programming to be able to add or modify the tests. What is a good programming language for testers who are not great programmers, or programmers at all? Someone suggested LUA, but I looked into LUA and it might be more complicated that another language would be. Preferably, the language will be interpreted and not be compiled. Let me know what you think.

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  • Would the world be a better place if there were only one programming language?

    - by Simon
    Well, perhaps not the world, but would it encourage more-re-use, less replication of basic code, or at least an uplift in what is considered basic code, more time advancing the application science and a greater encouragement to share, a more advanced base of understanding for new programmers, since the language could be taught ubiquitously and patterns of teaching would have emerged which were optimised for students learning etc etc? I think all of those things would make the programming world better and would probably have significant commercial benefit too. This is definitely not a religious debate about which language is best, and is predicated on the notion of some super-being having designed the perfect language to start with, which was improbable, but it strikes me that if, from the beginning, there were only a single programming language we may be further along in terms of the evolution of the software industry and software science. And although it is now impossible, if you buy some or all of these assertions is there an argument for standardising on a single language for the future so we can accelerate our collective progress rather than all of us re-inventing some part of the same wheel and consigning our children to the same fate?

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  • New or not so well-known paradigms, syntax features and behaviours of programming languages?

    - by George B
    I've designed some educational programming languages and interpreters for them, but my problem always was that they ended up "normal" and "boring", mostly similar to some kind of existing language (ASM and BASIC). I find it really hard to come up with new ideas for syntax features, "neat things" and new or very modified programming paradigms for it. I always thought that it was hard to come up with good new things not fun/useless new things for this case. I wondered if you could help me out with your creativity: What features in terms of language syntax and built-in functions as well as maybe even new paradigms can I work into my language to keep it useless but more fun, enjoyable, interesting and/or different to program in?

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  • Google Chrome hardware acceleration making game run slow

    - by powerc9000
    So I have been working on a game in HTML5 canvas and noticed that the games lags and performs much slower when hardware acceleration is turned on in Google Chrome then when it is turned off. You can try for yourself here From doing some profiling I see that the problem lies in drawImage. More specifically drawing one canvas onto another. I do a lot of this. Hardware Acceleration on. Hardware Acceleration off. Is there something fundamental I am missing with one canvas to another? Why would the difference be that profound?

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  • First PC Build (Part 1)

    - by Anthony Trudeau
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/tonyt/archive/2014/08/05/157959.aspxA couple of months ago I made the decision to build myself a new computer. The intended use is gaming and for using the last real version of Photoshop. I was motivated by the poor state of console gaming and a simple desire to do something I haven’t done before – build a PC from the ground up. I’ve been using PCs for more than two decades. I’ve replaced a component hear and there, but for the last 10 years or so I’ve only used laptops. Therefore, this article will be written from the perspective of someone familiar with PCs, but completely new at building. I’m not an expert and this is not a definitive guide for building a PC, but I do hope that it encourages you to try it yourself. Component List Research There was a lot of research necessary, because building a PC is completely new to me, and I haven’t kept up with what’s out there. The first thing you want to do is nail down what your goals are. Your goals are going to be driven by what you want to do with your computer and personal choice. Don’t neglect the second one, because if you’re doing this for fun you want to get what you want. In my case, I focused on three things: performance, longevity, and aesthetics. The performance aspect is important for gaming and Photoshop. This will drive what components you get. For example, heavy gaming use is going to drive your choice of graphics card. Longevity is relevant to me, because I don’t want to be changing things out anytime soon for the next hot game. The consequence of performance and longevity is cost. Finally, aesthetics was my next consideration. I could have just built a box, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as fun for me. Aesthetics might not be important to you. They are for me. I also like gadgets and that played into at least one purchase for this build. I used PC Part Picker to put together my component list. I found it invaluable during the process and I’d recommend it to everyone. One caveat is that I wouldn’t trust the compatibility aspects. It does a pretty good job of not steering you wrong, but do your own research. The rest of it isn’t really sexy. I started out with what appealed to me and then I made changes and additions as I dived deep into researching each component and interaction I could find. The resources I used are innumerable. I used reviews, product descriptions, forum posts (praises and problems), et al. to assist me. I also asked friends into gaming what they thought about my component list. And when I got near the end I posted my list to the Reddit /r/buildapc forum. I cannot stress the value of extra sets of eyeballs and first hand experiences. Some of the resources I used: PC Part Picker Tom’s Hardware bit-tech Reddit Purchase PC Part Picker favors certain vendors. You should look at others too. In my case I found their favorites to be the best. My priorities were out-the-door price and shipping time. I knew that once I started getting parts I’d want to start building. Luckily, I timed it well and everything arrived within the span of a few days. Here are my opinions on the vendors I ended up using in alphabetical order. Amazon.com is a good, reliable choice. They have excellent customer service in my experience, and I knew I wouldn’t have trouble with them. However, shipping time is often a problem when you use their free shipping unless you order expensive items (I’ve found items over $100 ship quickly). Ultimately though, price wasn’t always the best and their collection of sales tax in my state turned me off them. I did purchase my case from them. I ordered the mouse as well, but I cancelled after it was stuck four days in a “shipping soon” state. I purchased the mouse locally. Best Buy is not my favorite place to do business. There’s a lot of history with poor, uninterested sales representatives and they used to have a lot of bad anti-consumer policies. That’s a lot better now, but the bad taste is still in my mouth. I ended up purchasing the accessories from them including mouse (locally) and headphones. NCIX is a company that I’ve never heard of before. It popped up as a recommendation for my CPU cooler on PC Part Picker. I didn’t do a lot of research on the company, because their policy on you buying insurance for your orders turned me off. That policy makes it clear to me that the company finds me responsible for the shipment once it leaves their dock. That’s not right, and may run afoul of state laws. Regardless they shipped my CPU cooler quickly and I didn’t have a problem. NewEgg.com is a well known company. I had never done business with them, but I’m glad I did. They shipped quickly and provided good visibility over everything. The prices were also the best in most cases. My main complaint is that they have a lot of exchange only return policies on components. To their credit those policies are listed in the cart underneath each item. The visibility tells me that they’re not playing any shenanigans and made me comfortable dealing with that risk. The vast majority of what I ordered came from them. Coming Next In the next part I’ll tackle my build experience.

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  • How to Reuse Your Old Wi-Fi Router as a Network Switch

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    Just because your old Wi-Fi router has been replaced by a newer model doesn’t mean it needs to gather dust in the closet. Read on as we show you how to take an old and underpowered Wi-Fi router and turn it into a respectable network switch (saving your $20 in the process). Image by mmgallan. Why Do I Want To Do This? Wi-Fi technology has changed significantly in the last ten years but Ethernet-based networking has changed very little. As such, a Wi-Fi router with 2006-era guts is lagging significantly behind current Wi-Fi router technology, but the Ethernet networking component of the device is just as useful as ever; aside from potentially being only 100Mbs instead of 1000Mbs capable (which for 99% of home applications is irrelevant) Ethernet is Ethernet. What does this matter to you, the consumer? It means that even though your old router doesn’t hack it for your Wi-Fi needs any longer the device is still a perfectly serviceable (and high quality) network switch. When do you need a network switch? Any time you want to share an Ethernet cable among multiple devices, you need a switch. For example, let’s say you have a single Ethernet wall jack behind your entertainment center. Unfortunately you have four devices that you want to link to your local network via hardline including your smart HDTV, DVR, Xbox, and a little Raspberry Pi running XBMC. Instead of spending $20-30 to purchase a brand new switch of comparable build quality to your old Wi-Fi router it makes financial sense (and is environmentally friendly) to invest five minutes of your time tweaking the settings on the old router to turn it from a Wi-Fi access point and routing tool into a network switch–perfect for dropping behind your entertainment center so that your DVR, Xbox, and media center computer can all share an Ethernet connection. What Do I Need? For this tutorial you’ll need a few things, all of which you likely have readily on hand or are free for download. To follow the basic portion of the tutorial, you’ll need the following: 1 Wi-Fi router with Ethernet ports 1 Computer with Ethernet jack 1 Ethernet cable For the advanced tutorial you’ll need all of those things, plus: 1 copy of DD-WRT firmware for your Wi-Fi router We’re conducting the experiment with a Linksys WRT54GL Wi-Fi router. The WRT54 series is one of the best selling Wi-Fi router series of all time and there’s a good chance a significant number of readers have one (or more) of them stuffed in an office closet. Even if you don’t have one of the WRT54 series routers, however, the principles we’re outlining here apply to all Wi-Fi routers; as long as your router administration panel allows the necessary changes you can follow right along with us. A quick note on the difference between the basic and advanced versions of this tutorial before we proceed. Your typical Wi-Fi router has 5 Ethernet ports on the back: 1 labeled “Internet”, “WAN”, or a variation thereof and intended to be connected to your DSL/Cable modem, and 4 labeled 1-4 intended to connect Ethernet devices like computers, printers, and game consoles directly to the Wi-Fi router. When you convert a Wi-Fi router to a switch, in most situations, you’ll lose two port as the “Internet” port cannot be used as a normal switch port and one of the switch ports becomes the input port for the Ethernet cable linking the switch to the main network. This means, referencing the diagram above, you’d lose the WAN port and LAN port 1, but retain LAN ports 2, 3, and 4 for use. If you only need to switch for 2-3 devices this may be satisfactory. However, for those of you that would prefer a more traditional switch setup where there is a dedicated WAN port and the rest of the ports are accessible, you’ll need to flash a third-party router firmware like the powerful DD-WRT onto your device. Doing so opens up the router to a greater degree of modification and allows you to assign the previously reserved WAN port to the switch, thus opening up LAN ports 1-4. Even if you don’t intend to use that extra port, DD-WRT offers you so many more options that it’s worth the extra few steps. Preparing Your Router for Life as a Switch Before we jump right in to shutting down the Wi-Fi functionality and repurposing your device as a network switch, there are a few important prep steps to attend to. First, you want to reset the router (if you just flashed a new firmware to your router, skip this step). Following the reset procedures for your particular router or go with what is known as the “Peacock Method” wherein you hold down the reset button for thirty seconds, unplug the router and wait (while still holding the reset button) for thirty seconds, and then plug it in while, again, continuing to hold down the rest button. Over the life of a router there are a variety of changes made, big and small, so it’s best to wipe them all back to the factory default before repurposing the router as a switch. Second, after resetting, we need to change the IP address of the device on the local network to an address which does not directly conflict with the new router. The typical default IP address for a home router is 192.168.1.1; if you ever need to get back into the administration panel of the router-turned-switch to check on things or make changes it will be a real hassle if the IP address of the device conflicts with the new home router. The simplest way to deal with this is to assign an address close to the actual router address but outside the range of addresses that your router will assign via the DHCP client; a good pick then is 192.168.1.2. Once the router is reset (or re-flashed) and has been assigned a new IP address, it’s time to configure it as a switch. Basic Router to Switch Configuration If you don’t want to (or need to) flash new firmware onto your device to open up that extra port, this is the section of the tutorial for you: we’ll cover how to take a stock router, our previously mentioned WRT54 series Linksys, and convert it to a switch. Hook the Wi-Fi router up to the network via one of the LAN ports (consider the WAN port as good as dead from this point forward, unless you start using the router in its traditional function again or later flash a more advanced firmware to the device, the port is officially retired at this point). Open the administration control panel via  web browser on a connected computer. Before we get started two things: first,  anything we don’t explicitly instruct you to change should be left in the default factory-reset setting as you find it, and two, change the settings in the order we list them as some settings can’t be changed after certain features are disabled. To start, let’s navigate to Setup ->Basic Setup. Here you need to change the following things: Local IP Address: [different than the primary router, e.g. 192.168.1.2] Subnet Mask: [same as the primary router, e.g. 255.255.255.0] DHCP Server: Disable Save with the “Save Settings” button and then navigate to Setup -> Advanced Routing: Operating Mode: Router This particular setting is very counterintuitive. The “Operating Mode” toggle tells the device whether or not it should enable the Network Address Translation (NAT)  feature. Because we’re turning a smart piece of networking hardware into a relatively dumb one, we don’t need this feature so we switch from Gateway mode (NAT on) to Router mode (NAT off). Our next stop is Wireless -> Basic Wireless Settings: Wireless SSID Broadcast: Disable Wireless Network Mode: Disabled After disabling the wireless we’re going to, again, do something counterintuitive. Navigate to Wireless -> Wireless Security and set the following parameters: Security Mode: WPA2 Personal WPA Algorithms: TKIP+AES WPA Shared Key: [select some random string of letters, numbers, and symbols like JF#d$di!Hdgio890] Now you may be asking yourself, why on Earth are we setting a rather secure Wi-Fi configuration on a Wi-Fi router we’re not going to use as a Wi-Fi node? On the off chance that something strange happens after, say, a power outage when your router-turned-switch cycles on and off a bunch of times and the Wi-Fi functionality is activated we don’t want to be running the Wi-Fi node wide open and granting unfettered access to your network. While the chances of this are next-to-nonexistent, it takes only a few seconds to apply the security measure so there’s little reason not to. Save your changes and navigate to Security ->Firewall. Uncheck everything but Filter Multicast Firewall Protect: Disable At this point you can save your changes again, review the changes you’ve made to ensure they all stuck, and then deploy your “new” switch wherever it is needed. Advanced Router to Switch Configuration For the advanced configuration, you’ll need a copy of DD-WRT installed on your router. Although doing so is an extra few steps, it gives you a lot more control over the process and liberates an extra port on the device. Hook the Wi-Fi router up to the network via one of the LAN ports (later you can switch the cable to the WAN port). Open the administration control panel via web browser on the connected computer. Navigate to the Setup -> Basic Setup tab to get started. In the Basic Setup tab, ensure the following settings are adjusted. The setting changes are not optional and are required to turn the Wi-Fi router into a switch. WAN Connection Type: Disabled Local IP Address: [different than the primary router, e.g. 192.168.1.2] Subnet Mask: [same as the primary router, e.g. 255.255.255.0] DHCP Server: Disable In addition to disabling the DHCP server, also uncheck all the DNSMasq boxes as the bottom of the DHCP sub-menu. If you want to activate the extra port (and why wouldn’t you), in the WAN port section: Assign WAN Port to Switch [X] At this point the router has become a switch and you have access to the WAN port so the LAN ports are all free. Since we’re already in the control panel, however, we might as well flip a few optional toggles that further lock down the switch and prevent something odd from happening. The optional settings are arranged via the menu you find them in. Remember to save your settings with the save button before moving onto a new tab. While still in the Setup -> Basic Setup menu, change the following: Gateway/Local DNS : [IP address of primary router, e.g. 192.168.1.1] NTP Client : Disable The next step is to turn off the radio completely (which not only kills the Wi-Fi but actually powers the physical radio chip off). Navigate to Wireless -> Advanced Settings -> Radio Time Restrictions: Radio Scheduling: Enable Select “Always Off” There’s no need to create a potential security problem by leaving the Wi-Fi radio on, the above toggle turns it completely off. Under Services -> Services: DNSMasq : Disable ttraff Daemon : Disable Under the Security -> Firewall tab, uncheck every box except “Filter Multicast”, as seen in the screenshot above, and then disable SPI Firewall. Once you’re done here save and move on to the Administration tab. Under Administration -> Management:  Info Site Password Protection : Enable Info Site MAC Masking : Disable CRON : Disable 802.1x : Disable Routing : Disable After this final round of tweaks, save and then apply your settings. Your router has now been, strategically, dumbed down enough to plod along as a very dependable little switch. Time to stuff it behind your desk or entertainment center and streamline your cabling.     

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  • Why is C++ backward compatibility important / necessary?

    - by Giorgio
    As far as understand it is a well-established opinion within the C++ community that C is an obsolete language that was useful 20 years ago but cannot support many modern good programming practices, or even encourages bad practices; certain features that were typical of C++ (C with classes) during the nineties are also obsolete and considered bad practice in modern C++ (e.g., new and delete should be replaced by smart pointer primitives). In view of this, I often wonder why backward compatibility with C and obsolete C++ features is still considered important: to my knowledge there is no 100% compatibility, but most of C and C++ are contained in C++11 as a subset. Of course, there is a lot of legacy code and libraries (possibly containing templates) that are written using a previous standard of the language and which still need to be maintained or used in connection with new code. Nevertheless, maybe it would still be possible to drop obsolete C and C++ features (e.g. the mentioned new / delete) from a future C++ standard so that it is impossible to use them in new code. In this way, old and dangerous programming practices would be quickly banned from new code, and modern, better programming practices would be enforced by the compiler. Legacy code could still be maintained using separate compilation (having C alongside C++ source files is already a common practice). Developers would have to choose between one compiler supporting the old-style C++ that was common during the nineties and a compiler supporting the modern C++? style (the question mark indicates a future, hypothetical revision). Only mixing the two styles would be forbidden. Would this be a viable strategy for encouraging the adoption of modern C++ practices? Are there conceptual reasons or technical problems (e.g. compiling existing templates) that make such a change undesirable or even impossible? Has such a development been proposed in the C++ community. If there has been some extended discussion on the topic, is there any material on-line?

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  • Do you think natively compiled languages have reached their EOL?

    - by Yuval A
    If we look at the major programming languages in use today it is pretty noticeable that the vast majority of them are, in fact, interpreted. Looking at the largest piece of the pie we have Java and C# which are both enterprise-ready, heavy-duty, serious programming languages which are basically compiled to byte-code only to be interpreted by their respective VMs (the JVM and the CLR). If we look at scripting languages, we have Perl, Python, Ruby and Lua which are all interpreted (either from code or from bytecode - and yes, it should be noted that they are absolutely not the same). Looking at compiled languages we have C which is nowadays used in embedded and low-level, real-time environments, and C++ which is still alive and kicking, when you want to get down to serious programming as close to the hardware as you can, but still have some nice abstractions to help you with day to day tasks. Basically, there is no real runner-up compiled language in the distance. Do you feel that languages which are natively compiled to executable, binary code are a thing of the past, taken over by interpreted languages which are much more portable and compatible? Does C++ mark an end of an era? Why don't we see any new compiled languages anymore? I think I should clarify: I do not want this to turn into a "which language is better" discussion, because that is not the issue at hand. The languages I gave as example are only examples. Please focus on the question I raised, and if you disagree with my statement that compiled languages are less frequent these days, that is totally fine, I am more than happy to be proved mistaken.

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  • Unit testing statically typed functional code

    - by back2dos
    I wanted to ask you people, in which cases it makes sense to unit test statically typed functional code, as written in haskell, scala, ocaml, nemerle, f# or haXe (the last is what I am really interested in, but I wanted to tap into the knowledge of the bigger communities). I ask this because from my understanding: One aspect of unit tests is to have the specs in runnable form. However when employing a declarative style, that directly maps the formalized specs to language semantics, is it even actually possible to express the specs in runnable form in a separate way, that adds value? The more obvious aspect of unit tests is to track down errors that cannot be revealed through static analysis. Given that type safe functional code is a good tool to code extremely close to what your static analyzer understands. However a simple mistake like using x instead of y (both being coordinates) in your code cannot be covered. However such a mistake could also arise while writing the test code, so I am not sure whether its worth the effort. Unit tests do introduce redundancy, which means that when requirements change, the code implementing them and the tests covering this code must both be changed. This overhead of course is about constant, so one could argue, that it doesn't really matter. In fact, in languages like Ruby it really doesn't compared to the benefits, but given how statically typed functional programming covers a lot of the ground unit tests are intended for, it feels like it's a constant overhead one can simply reduce without penalty. From this I'd deduce that unit tests are somewhat obsolete in this programming style. Of course such a claim can only lead to religious wars, so let me boil this down to a simple question: When you use such a programming style, to which extents do you use unit tests and why (what quality is it you hope to gain for your code)? Or the other way round: do you have criteria by which you can qualify a unit of statically typed functional code as covered by the static analyzer and hence needs no unit test coverage?

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  • I don't know C. And why should I learn it?

    - by Stephen
    My first programming language was PHP (gasp). After that I started working with JavaScript. I've recently done work in C#. I've never once looked at low or mid level languages like C. The general consensus in the programming-community-at-large is that "a programmer who hasn't learned something like C, frankly, just can't handle programming concepts like pointers, data types, passing values by reference, etc." I do not agree. I argue that: Because high level languages are easily accessible, more "non-programmers" dive in and make a mess, and In order to really get anything done in a high level language, one needs to understand the same similar concepts that most proponents of "learn-low-level-first" evangelize about. Some people need to know C. Those people have jobs that require them to write low to mid-level code. I'm sure C is awesome. I'm sure there are a few bad programmers who know C. My question is, why the bias? As a good, honest, hungry programmer, if I had to learn C (for some unforeseen reason), I would learn C. Considering the multitude of languages out there, shouldn't good programmers focus on learning what advances us? Shouldn't we learn what interests us? Should we not utilize our finite time moving forward? Why do some programmers disagree with this? I believe that striving for excellence in what you do is the fundamental deterministic trait between good programmers and bad ones. Does anyone have any real world examples of how something written in a high level language--say Java, Pascal, PHP, or Javascript--truely benefitted from a prior knowledge of C? Examples would be most appreciated. (revised to better coincide with the six guidelines.)

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  • How can I make sense of the word "Functor" from a semantic standpoint?

    - by guillaume31
    When facing new programming jargon words, I first try to reason about them from an semantic and etymological standpoint when possible (that is, when they aren't obscure acronyms). For instance, you can get the beginning of a hint of what things like Polymorphism or even Monad are about with the help of a little Greek/Latin. At the very least, once you've learned the concept, the word itself appears to go along with it well. I guess that's part of why we name things names, to make mental representations and associations more fluent. I found Functor to be a tougher nut to crack. Not so much the C++ meaning -- an object that acts (-or) as a function (funct-), but the various functional meanings (in ML, Haskell) definitely left me puzzled. From the (mathematics) Functor Wikipedia article, it seems the word was borrowed from linguistics. I think I get what a "function word" or "functor" means in that context - a word that "makes function" as opposed to a word that "makes sense". But I can't really relate that to the notion of Functor in category theory, let alone functional programming. I imagined a Functor to be something that creates functions, or behaves like a function, or short for "functional constructor", but none of those seems to fit... How do experienced functional programmers reason about this ? Do they just need any label to put in front of a concept and be fine with it ? Generally speaking, isn't it partly why advanced functional programming is hard to grasp for mere mortals compared to, say, OO -- very abstract in that you can't relate it to anything familiar ? Note that I don't need a definition of Functor, only an explanation that would allow me to relate it to something more tangible, if there is any.

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  • I don't know C. And why should I learn it?

    - by Stephen
    My first programming language was PHP (gasp). After that I started working with JavaScript. I've recently done work in C#. I've never once looked at low or mid level languages like C. The general consensus in the programming-community-at-large is that "a programmer who hasn't learned something like C, frankly, just can't handle programming concepts like pointers, data types, passing values by reference, etc." I do not agree. I argue that: Because high level languages are easily accessible, more "non-programmers" dive in and make a mess In order to really get anything done in a high level language, one needs to understand the same similar concepts that most proponents of "learn-low-level-first" evangelize about. Some people need to know C; those people have jobs that require them to write low to mid-level code. I'm sure C is awesome, and I'm sure there are a few bad programmers who know C. Why the bias? As a good, honest, hungry programmer, if I had to learn C (for some unforeseen reason), I would learn C. Considering the multitude of languages out there, shouldn't good programmers focus on learning what advances us? Shouldn't we learn what interests us? Should we not utilize our finite time moving forward? Why do some programmers disagree with this? I believe that striving for excellence in what you do is the fundamental deterministic trait between good programmers and bad ones. Does anyone have any real world examples of how something written in a high level language—say Java, Pascal, PHP, or Javascript—truely benefitted from a prior knowledge of C? Examples would be most appreciated.

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