30 May 2007 - ''The shape of your mind''
Eric Merrit wrote an interesting post on his blog
"The shape of your mind" on how knowing different programming languages shapes your mind and the way you think to problems.
This reminded me of the
Sapir-Whorf hypotesis taken from linguistic.
This hypotesis has many formulations, some weak and some strong. The strong formulation, stating that language determines thought, is thought to be incorrect in linguistic.
I think a lot of programmers would instead agree with the strong formulation.
And now I know I have to add Forth to the list of languages to learn :-).
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25 September 2006 - Math for programmers
Recently on reddit I found an iteresting article on math.
Math Every DaySome links in the article are broken.
The author says he wants to start studying some math every day.
Math for Programmers is the sequel: after 15 months the author reports the results of his studies.
Here's a quote from the article:
"The right way to learn math is breadth-first, not depth-first.
You need to survey the space, learn the names of things, figure out what's what."
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1 September 2006 - Godel and the limits of logic
An article on Godel's life and work.
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22 May 2006 - On Continuations
Gilad Bracha recently
posted an article on continuations and why they won't be implemented in the JVM yet.
Among other things he says that continuations are difficult to implement in Java and that they are mainly useful for a particular type of web development.
Avi Bryant the creator of the continuations based web framework Seaside
replies with considerations on the various architectures for web based applications (REST, continuations/closures based and Ajax based) and why a developer should know each one and learn which is the best approach to use.
A more interesting reply is this:
Sapir-Whorf is not a Klingon where Curtis Poe uses the
Sapir-Whorf hypotesis to answer Gilad Bracha.
The Saphir-Whorf hypotesis is taken from linguistic. Simplifying it states that language shapes thougth, so some concepts can't be understood if the language hasn't the words to express them. The hypotesis is quite controversial, though recently
a study introduced new elements in support of the hypotesis.
My humble opinion, based on my experience on different programming languages with different paradigms is that the language used shapes thoughts and so the way we code in different languages.
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10 November 2005 - Don Knuth: Musings and More
Musings, lectures and selected classes given by Donald E. Knuth,
Stanford University's Professor Emeritus of the Art of Computer
Programming.
Look here
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21 September 2005 - Lambda the Ultimate
Lambda the Ultimate deals with issues directly related to programming languages, and programming language research.
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10 November 2003 - The Demand for Software Quality
Bertrand Meyer
talks with Bill Venners about the increasing importance of software quality, the commercial forces on quality, and the challenges of complexity.
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21 September 2003 - The Google File System
Design and implementation (PDF paper) of a distributed file system for data-intensive applications. The file system proposed is the base storage platform of
Google services and applicatons
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