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  • What is "elegant" code?

    - by Breton
    I see a lot of lip service and talk about the most "elegant" way to do this or that. I think if you spend enough time programming you begin to obtain a sort of intuitive feel for what it is we call "elegance". But I'm curious. Even if we can look at a bit of code, and say instinctively "That's elegant", or "That's messy", I wonder if any of us really understands what that means. Is there a precise definition for this "elegance" we keep referring to? If there is, what is it? Now, what I mean by a precise definition, is a series of statements which can be used to derive questions about a peice of code, or a program as a whole, and determine objectively, or as objectively as possible, whether that code is "elegant" or not. May I assert, that perhaps no such definition exists, and it's all just personal preference. In this case, I ask you a slightly different question: Is there a better word for "elegance", or a better set of attributes to use for judging code quality that is perhaps more objective than merely appealing to individual intuition and taste? Perhaps code quality is a matter of taste, and the answer to both of my questions is "no". But I can't help but feel that we could be doing better than just expressing wishy washy feelings about our code quality. For example, user interface design is something that to a broad range of people looks for all the world like a field of study that oughtta be 100% subjective matter of taste. But this is shockingly and brutally not the case, and there are in fact many objective measures that can be applied to a user interface to determine its quality. A series of tests could be written to give a definitive and repeatable score to user interface quality. (See GOMS, for instance). Now, okay. is Elegance simply "code quality" or is it something more? Is it something that can be measured? Or is it a matter of taste? Does our profession have room for taste? Maybe I'm asking the wrong questions altogether. Help me out here. Bonus Round If there is such a thing as elegance in code, and that concept is useful, do you think that justifies classifying the field of programming as an "Art" capital A, or merely a "craft". Or is it just an engineering field populated by a bunch of wishful thinking humans? Consider this question in the light of your thoughts about the elegance question. Please note that there is a distinction between code which is considered "art" in itself, and code that was written merely in the service of creating an artful program. When I ask this question, I ask if the code itself justifies calling programming an art. Bounty Note I liked the answers to this question so much, I think I'd like to make a photographic essay book from it. Released as a free PDF, and published on some kind of on demand printing service of course, such as "zazz" or "tiggle" or "printley" or something . I'd like some more answers, please!

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  • Naming convention for non-virtual and abstract methods

    - by eagle
    I frequently find myself creating classes which use this form (A): abstract class Animal { public void Walk() { // TODO: do something before walking // custom logic implemented by each subclass WalkInternal(); // TODO: do something after walking } protected abstract void WalkInternal(); } class Dog : Animal { protected override void WalkInternal() { // TODO: walk with 4 legs } } class Bird : Animal { protected override void WalkInternal() { // TODO: walk with 2 legs } } Rather than this form (B): abstract class Animal { public abstract void Walk(); } class Dog : Animal { public override void Walk() { // TODO: do something before walking // custom logic implemented by each subclass // TODO: walk with 4 legs // TODO: do something after walking } } class Bird : Animal { public override void Walk() { // TODO: do something before walking // custom logic implemented by each subclass // TODO: walk with 2 legs // TODO: do something after walking } } As you can see, the nice thing about form A is that every time you implement a subclass, you don't need to remember to include the initialization and finalization logic. This is much less error prone than form B. What's a standard convention for naming these methods? I like naming the public method Walk since then I can call Dog.Walk() which looks better than something like Dog.WalkExternal(). However, I don't like my solution of adding the suffix "Internal" for the protected method. I'm looking for a more standardized name. Btw, is there a name for this design pattern?

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  • Why did Matz choose to make Strings mutable by default in Ruby?

    - by Seth Tisue
    It's the reverse of this question: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/93091/why-cant-strings-be-mutable-in-java-and-net Was this choice made in Ruby only because operations (appends and such) are efficient on mutable strings, or was there some other reason? (If it's only efficiency, that would seem peculiar, since the design of Ruby seems otherwise to not put a high premium on faciliating efficient implementation.)

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  • ildasm and dynamic exe files

    - by TonyNeallon
    Hi There, I am trying to create an application can modify properties in IL to create a slightly different executable. E.g Client A runs app and a label on the WinForm label Reads "Client A:". Client B runs the app and Label Says "Client B". Easy I know using config files or resource files but thats not an option for this project. The Main program needs to be able to generate .exe file dynamically based on some form fields entered by user. My solution was to create a standalone executable that contained all the elements which I needed to make dynamic. I then used ildasm to generate the IL and thought that I could use this IL and substitute tags for the elements i wanted to make dynamic. I could then replace those tags at runtime after user filled the form using regex etc. The problem is, the if i re save the IL file generated by ILDASM as an exe and try to run it. I just launches console and does nothing. Am I going about this the wrong way? I didnt want to delve into Reflection as the dynamic .exe is a really simple one and I thought reverse engineering IL with ildasm would be the quickest way. You thoughts and pointers are much appreciated. Tony

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  • Idiom vs. pattern

    - by Roger Pate
    In the context of programming, how do idioms differ from patterns? I use the terms interchangeably and normally follow the most popular way I've heard something called, or the way it was called most recently in the current conversation, e.g. "the copy-swap idiom" and "singleton pattern". The best difference I can come up with is code which is meant to be copied almost literally is more often called pattern while code meant to be taken less literally is more often called idiom, but such isn't even always true. This doesn't seem to be more than a stylistic or buzzword difference. Does that match your perception of how the terms are used? Is there a semantic difference?

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  • Code Golf: Banknote calculator

    - by paxdiablo
    This question was posted by a C beginner and it was an exercise to calculate, given a dollar value input by the user, the minimum number of bills (or banknotes, depending on your locale) needed to reach that dollar value. So, if the user entered 93, the output would be: $20 bills = 4 $10 bills = 1 $5 bills = 0 $1 bills = 3 Finally succumbing to the phenomenon (it's a slow day here), I thought this would be ripe for a game of Code Golf. For fairness, the input prompt needs to be (note the "_" at the end is a space): Enter a dollar amount:_ I think I've covered all the bases: no identical question, community wiki. I won't be offended if it gets shut down though - of course, I'll never be able to complain about these types of questions again, for fear of being labelled a hypocrite :-) Okay, let's see what you can come up with. Here's a sample run: Enter a dollar amount: 127 $20 bills = 6 $10 bills = 0 $5 bills = 1 $1 bills = 2

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  • Is C# fast enough for games

    - by Matt
    Will a game written in C# have any speed issues after long periods of play, like for 24 hours at a time? I'm specifically talking about a 2D RPG similar to old Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest games. I know that languages like Python will slow down too much, curious how C# would stand.

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  • UK Postcode search

    - by Imran
    I want to build a website where you can search by entering the postcode (UK). I know that RoyalMail owns the Database to do this (it's only very expensive, $100K). What are my options?

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  • What is the worst programming mistake you have made?

    - by George Edison
    Most of us are not perfect. (Well, except Jon Skeet) Have you made a terrible mistake that you would like to share? The idea is that we could all learn from our mistakes and by collecting them together here, we can avoid some common ones and discover some no-so-common ones we may have overlooked. Oh, and this question is CW, of course. Edit: This question is different than http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1928002/what-is-the-worst-programming-mistake-you-have-ever-seen because we are sharing our own mistakes. Edit again: And this one http://stackoverflow.com/questions/130965/what-is-the-worst-code-youve-ever-written is different too - it asks for code. My question does not have that restriction!

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  • Custom UITableviewcell shows "fatal error: Can't unwrap Optional.None" issue in swift

    - by user1656286
    I need to load a custom cell in a UITableView. I created a custom subclass of UITableViewCell named "CustomTableViewCell". I have added a UITabelViewCell to the tableview (using drag and drop) as shown in figure. Then in file inspector I set the class of that UITabelViewCell to be "CustomTableViewCell". Here is my code: class ViewController: UIViewController,UITableViewDelegate,UITableViewDataSource { @IBOutlet var tableView : UITableView var items = String[]() override func viewDidLoad() { super.viewDidLoad() items = ["Hi","Hello","How"] self.tableView.registerClass(CustomTableViewCell.self, forCellReuseIdentifier: "CusTomCell") // Do any additional setup after loading the view, typically from a nib. } func tableView(tableView: UITableView!, numberOfRowsInSection section: Int) -> Int{ return items.count } func tableView(tableView: UITableView!, cellForRowAtIndexPath indexPath: NSIndexPath!) -> UITableViewCell!{ var cell:CustomTableViewCell = self.tableView.dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier("CusTomCell") as CustomTableViewCell cell.labelTitle.text = items[indexPath.row] return cell; } override func didReceiveMemoryWarning() { super.didReceiveMemoryWarning() // Dispose of any resources that can be recreated. } } When I run my code, I get the following error: "fatal error: Can't unwrap Optional.None" as seen in the image.

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  • Better languages than SQL for stored procedures

    - by Ken Paul
    I'm getting increasingly frustrated with the limitations and verbosity required to actually commit some business logic to stored procedures, using languages such as Transact-SQL or PL/SQL. I would love to convert some current databases to Oracle and take advantage of its support for Java stored procedures, but that option is not available at the moment. What alternatives would you recommend in the way of databases that support stored procedures in other languages?

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  • Rot13 for numbers.

    - by dreeves
    EDIT: Now a Major Motion Blog Post at http://messymatters.com/sealedbids The idea of rot13 is to obscure text, for example to prevent spoilers. It's not meant to be cryptographically secure but to simply make sure that only people who are sure they want to read it will read it. I'd like to do something similar for numbers, for an application involving sealed bids. Roughly I want to send someone my number and trust them to pick their own number, uninfluenced by mine, but then they should be able to reveal mine (purely client-side) when they're ready. They should not require further input from me or any third party. (Added: Note the assumption that the recipient is being trusted not to cheat.) It's not as simple as rot13 because certain numbers, like 1 and 2, will recur often enough that you might remember that, say, 34.2 is really 1. Here's what I'm looking for specifically: A function seal() that maps a real number to a real number (or a string). It should not be deterministic -- seal(7) should not map to the same thing every time. But the corresponding function unseal() should be deterministic -- unseal(seal(x)) should equal x for all x. I don't want seal or unseal to call any webservices or even get the system time (because I don't want to assume synchronized clocks). (Added: It's fine to assume that all bids will be less than some maximum, known to everyone, say a million.) Sanity check: > seal(7) 482.2382 # some random-seeming number or string. > seal(7) 71.9217 # a completely different random-seeming number or string. > unseal(seal(7)) 7 # we always recover the original number by unsealing.

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  • Is Polyglot programming important?

    - by Kb
    Trying to learn more about Polyglot programming. What is it exactly and is it important? Look like it is cross platform coding and interoperability across platforms... I found this article by Ted Neward (Thoughtworks) interesting.

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  • Code Golf: Morse code

    - by LiraNuna
    The challenge The shortest code by character count, that will input a string using only alphabetical characters (upper and lower case), numbers, commas, periods and question mark, and returns a representation of the string in Morse code. The Morse code output should consist of a dash (-, ascii 0x2D) for a long beep (aka 'dah') and a dot (., ascii 0x2E) for short beep (aka 'dit'). Each letter should be separated by a space (' ', ascii 0x20), and each word should be separated by a forward slash (/, ascii 0x2F). Morse code table: Test cases: Input: Hello world Output: .... . .-.. .-.. --- / .-- --- .-. .-.. -.. Input: Hello, Stackoverflow. Output: .... . .-.. .-.. --- --..-- / ... - .- -.-. -.- --- ...- . .-. ..-. .-.. --- .-- .-.-.- Code count includes input/output (i.e full program).

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  • Is there an equivalent in Scala to Python's more general map function?

    - by wheaties
    I know that Scala's Lists have a map implementation with signature (f: (A) => B):List[B] and a foreach implementation with signature (f: (A) => Unit):Unit but I'm looking for something that accepts multiple iterables the same way that the Python map accepts multiple iterables. I'm looking for something with a signature of (f: (A,B) => C, Iterable[A], Iterable[B] ):Iterable[C] or equivalent. Is there a library where this exists or a comparable way of doing similar?

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  • If I'm using a 1d array to represent a square board, how can I take my index and check the sqaures a

    - by FrankTheTank
    If I have a 4x4 gameboard which I'm representing in my program as a 1d integer array of size 16. How can I get the indexs of the squares above, below, to the left and to the right any given index? So, for example: A = { 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 } Which represents this board 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Lets say I am currently on index #8 in the board (value = 7). How can I get the index for 4 (value = 3) , 5 (value = 6), 10 (value = 11) and realize that there is no right square because it is on the right hand edge of the board. I know I need to use some modulus math but I'm failing to come up with the right way to get the indexes for adjacent squares. I'm thinking something like... if ((i % 4) + 1 < 3) right = i + 1; if ((i % 4) - 1 > 0) left = i - 1; if ((i % 4) + 4 < 15) bottom = i + 4; if ((i % 4) - 4 > 0 ) top = i - 4; Does this seem like it is the right approach?

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  • How is dynamic memory allocation handled when extreme reliability is required?

    - by sharptooth
    Looks like dynamic memory allocation without garbage collection is a way to disaster. Dangling pointers there, memory leaks here. Very easy to plant an error that is sometimes hard to find and that has severe consequences. How are these problems addressed when mission-critical programs are written? I mean if I write a program that controls a spaceship like Voyager 1 that has to run for years and leave a smallest leak that leak can accumulate and halt the program sooner or later and when that happens it translates into epic fail. How is dynamic memory allocation handled when a program needs to be extremely reliable?

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  • data structure algorithms for database searching

    - by Ygam
    I was used to the traditional way of doing database searching with the following using wildcards for term searches using where clause for specific data like addresses and names but at other times, I found these common methods to produce code that is so bloated, especially when it comes to complex searches. Are there algorithms out there that you use for complex database searching? I tried to look for some but had a hard time doing so. I stumbled accross the binary search but I can't find a use for it :(

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  • Am I immoral for using a variable name that differs from its type only by case?

    - by Jason Baker
    For instance, take this piece of code: var person = new Person(); or for you Pythonistas: person = Person() I'm told constantly how bad this is, but have yet to see an example of the immorality of these two lines of code. To me, person is a Person and trying to give it another name is a waste of time. I suppose in the days before syntax highlighting, this would have been a big deal. But these days, it's pretty easy to tell a type name apart from a variable name. Heck, it's even easy to see the difference here on SO. Or is there something I'm missing? If so, it would be helpful if you could provide an example of code that causes problems.

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