Tag: computer programming
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Coming soon: RISCYFORTH
When I was much younger FORTH fascinated me as an alternative interpreted language for the Z80 eight-bit processor machines I was typically using. Compared to BASIC – the language that the Sinclair ZX80, ZX81 and Spectrum came with – FORTH was reputedly lightening fast and very powerful. My brother and I even obtained a tape…
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Programmatic adventures in the hyperbolic plane
Recursion is dangerous. So dangerous that in my professional life I’m explicitly banned from using it in code. After all who would want their aeroplane to stall, their car to crash or their fridge to defrost because of a stack overflow. But it is also, most (but not all) programmers would agree, beautiful and more…
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The death of Dr Dobb’s
It seems that Dr Dobb’s has come to the end of its useful life – and is to be, in effect, placed in an online casket. To be honest it is some time since I read it – I used to like the magazines as they were something that you could take out at any…
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My start up idea
I was travelling on a train today when someone sat opposite me wearing a tee-shirt that purported to show the cover of a 1950s motoring magazine and for some reason – perhaps the typeface used – I immediately thought of the much loved “Practical Computing” magazine. I then entertained the fantasy that – with programming…
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Three steps forward, but one step back?
The new English ICT/computer science curriculum promises to be a huge step forward and, in my experience, a chance to teach children something for which their enthusiasm promises to be close to unlimited. One thing puzzles me, though. Speaking about it today the education secretary, Michael Gove – who deserves some praise for listening to the arguments…
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Going on a bug(?) hunt
I now have some code that is meant to parse an XML file of approximately 5 billion lines. Unfortunately it fails, every time (it seems), on line 4,295,025,275. This is something of a nightmare to debug – but it looks like an overflow bug (in the xerces-c parser) of some sort. Do I try to…
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Writing a book…
…maybe, anyway. Programming is being (re-)introduced in English primary schools as part of the reformulated National Curriculum and this is certainly A Good Thing. One worry, though, is whether there are enough teachers with the basic skills in programming needed to teach. I am pretty certain there are not: hence the importance of volunteer schemes…
cartesian product ... stuff about computing mostly 