Programming

Is Having a CS Education Useful?

Is a computer science degree worth pursuing? Well, okay, this might be the wrong question to ask. How…

If-Else Shark Jumping

You are hiking in a forest. You see a sign that says

is_black_bear_seen ? is_bear_approaching ? act large, make noise : back off slowly : keep walking

Heck, this is so much better and easier to understand than

Design Patterns for the Win

It was the middle of 2000’s. Our only working developer had just quit. I, as the only software person left…

“Software is not Just Coding”

I was going to reply to an article about why software is not just about coding. My reaction was this.

Well, duh?

That is why I don’t use the word ‘coding’, as it has the connotation of the act of typing the actual program in a…

How I do “ORM”, Part 1

Well, I guess it might be interesting to talk about one specific way I have been using for years, ever since I discovered jOOQ, to bridge Java and Postgres databases I use in quite few projects I wrote by now.

Methods

Age and Programming

I used to work for a large bank, in the treasury department. That is where the bank trades with house money. That means they are trading with their own money. There are many reasons for that, hedging, for instance. Banks deal with interest-bearing instruments a lot. So, they tend to trade…

A Matter of Degrees

I have a PhD in computer science. I got it like 31 years ago. It was a personal achievement. I don’t believe it is more than that, as I think education is a personal thing.

Over the years, I have had interesting reactions when people found out I had a doctorate. One…

My Programming Language is More Terse Than Yours

Developers! Developers! Developers!

The old cry: “We need more coders.”, then “Let’s train more coders.” Well, okay, we did train a…

Null Pointer, Oh No!

Well, maybe?

Tony Hoare was said to have said that he invented the null pointer, and that it was…