Dave ThomasJust what is a modem?Modems connect digital devices. In the old days that made lots of strange noises; today they’re thousands of times faster and (thankfully)…Aug 10, 2021Aug 10, 2021
Dave ThomasWCF #10: Call-By-Name May Give You NightmaresLook at how call-by-name works in an old program, and you’ll marvel at how dangerous it is. But, we’re still doing something similar today.Aug 4, 20212Aug 4, 20212
Dave ThomasWCF#9: State Machines and Web AppsIt turns our that state machines have a lot in common with reducers, and reducers are an important element when managing immutable data…Aug 3, 20212Aug 3, 20212
Dave ThomasWCF#8: Untangle Spaghetti Code With This Simple, But Old,TechniqueBreaking code down into self-contained chunks that respond to events sounds difficult. It needn’t be…Aug 2, 2021Aug 2, 2021
Dave ThomasWCF#7: Fractions and FloatsComputers represent all numbers as fractions. No exceptions. This can make them inaccurate.Jul 30, 2021Jul 30, 2021
Dave ThomasWCF#6: Just How Do Computers Add?We’re told that computers are just fast, programmable adding machines. OK. But just how does a machine add 42 and 75, or subtract 5 from 3?Jul 29, 20212Jul 29, 20212
Dave ThomasWCF #5: A Most Elegant Data StructureA data structure from the 1960’s is still pretty cool today.Jul 28, 20211Jul 28, 20211
Dave ThomasWCF #4: What’s The Deal With ++ and ––?Why do some programming languages have the strange (and side-effect laden) auto-increment and -decrement operators? And what do they have…Jul 27, 20215Jul 27, 20215
Dave ThomasWCF #3: Where does all the colored text in my terminal come from?Why (and how) your computer can emulate a 40 year old CRT terminal.Jul 26, 20211Jul 26, 20211