Software & Engineering

Object Interfaces versus Concrete Code

coliveira — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 02:42:38 +0000

Although lots of people design object oriented systems, few notice the reason why them sometimes don’t work as planed. While such systems were created to reduce complexity, several object oriented design become extremely complicated. Especially when we start to add design patterns to solve even simple problems. Frequently, OO systems are the right solution for [...]

Top Reasons To Use Lisp

coliveira — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 02:40:15 +0000

There several reasons to learn a new language. Lisp is on the languages that I like a lot, although I haven’t been lucky to use it for work. Here is what I believe are some good reasons to give Lisp a chance: It has a very regular syntax: everything is an s-expression (expression with parenthesis), [...]

When Frameworks Are Useful

coliveira — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 02:37:18 +0000

One of the things that can make the life of programmers harder is the use of a bad framework. The worst thing about frameworks is that they start as an easy way to do your job quickly. However, after a few months of using that piece of software, we encounter more and more situations where [...]

Top Software for Programmers

coliveira — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 02:53:42 +0000

As a software developer, I came to realize that one of the most important things (after being paid) is to create software that we really enjoy. During those years, it has become really easy to see the kind of software valued by programmers: editors, compilers, interpreters, and all kinds of little tools that are useful [...]

Why you will never write the perfect software

coliveira — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 02:37:47 +0000

While there is a lot of sloppy programmers out there, these are not the only ones that have trouble finishing something. Some programmers strive for perfection in the software they create, and in the process end up spending precious time. Anything less than perfection feels like it is a waste for such programmers. It is [...]

The Most Common Debugging Styles

coliveira — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 01:16:20 +0000

Debugging code is an activity that shows a lot of the developer’s personality. It is a process that looks a lot like an investigation, leading to the detection of a failure in an application. During the investigation, a programmer has to employ some techniques, like information gathering, testing of hypothesis, performing quick instrumentation, etc. When [...]

Updating Code Easily with UNIX ed

coliveira — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 22:17:18 +0000

Modern IDEs have very sofisticated interfaces to allow code navigation and editing. Although these facilities are very useful (specially when working with external libraries), there are somethings that are just easier to do in more traditional editors, such as UNIX ed. One of these things is keeping the context of several parts of your code. [...]

Advanced C++ Idioms

coliveira — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 02:23:35 +0000

C++ is a multi-paradigm programming language. This means that there is no single style that is always the right one to use on C++ programs. It all depends on the task at hand. For example, it is completely fine to use C++ only as a structured language, since it has all elements of C and [...]

Using ed, the standard UNIX editor

coliveira — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 01:33:40 +0000

Some time ago I wrote about the sam text editor, a UNIX text editor that incorporates many features that are cherished by UNIX users, such as regular expressions and programmability. It turns out that many of these features were already present on the standard UNIX editor: ed. For many, it seems crazy that one might [...]

Using power point as a text editor

coliveira — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 01:59:33 +0000

When I am writing, one of my constant quests has been to find a good editor where I can not only write but also organize my ideas. As strange as it might think, my best solution up to now has been not a text editor, but a presentation software. Yes, that is true, I use [...]