An earlier weblog entry, Programmer Musings: Paradigms limit possible solutions, spent some time on what paradigms do for programming. Now, I’d like to consider a slightly different take on programming paradigms. Why do programming paradigms seem to take on the force of religion for so many in the software field?
Isn’t it interesting how some ideas will surface in different unrelated places at close to the same time. O’Reilly Network: On the importance of names [Feb. 15, 2004] talks about how important the right name is for the success of a project. I think it may be more important not only for recognition but to… Read More »
The Design of Everyday Things Donald A. Norman Doubleday, 1988 I know this isn’t a book on programming, but it is a very good book on design. Norman shows design mistakes in everyday items like door handles and stoves, as well as nuclear power plants and trains. He also introduces design principles that you can… Read More »
Software Craftsmanship Pete McBreen Addison-Wesley, 2002 This book is clearly written by someone who gets programming. I’m not sure how well the current business climate would accept his idea of Software Craftsmen, but I’m certain programmers (good and bad) will see an idea they like. The main premise of the book is that programming is… Read More »
XML.com: Opening Open Formats with XSLT [Feb. 04, 2004] This article by Bob DuCharme is a great example of something we don’t see enough of. He takes data from a defined XML application (OpenOffice.org Impress format). He uses standard tools (XSLT) to extract and format data useful to him. This is not the normal If… Read More »
What does it mean for an object to die? In C++, there are several distinct and well-defined stages in the death of an object. Other languages do this a little differently, but the general concepts remain the same. This is the basic chain of events for an item on the stack. Object becomes inaccessible Object… Read More »
Questioning Extreme Programming Pete McBreen Addison-Wesley, 2003 This book starts off with the premise that XP is really not appropriate for many projects. However, far from being a bash XP session, it turns into a very hard-nosed look at many methodologies. He compares many of the strengths and weaknesses of the major development methodologies in… Read More »
When talking about Object Oriented Programming, there are several principles that are normally associated with the paradigm: polymorphism, inheritance, encapsulation, etc. I feel that people tend to forget the first, most important principle of OOP: object lifetime. One of the first things that struck me when I was learning OOP in the C++ programming language… Read More »
I had an interesting thought during an email conversation with a friend yesterday. One problem many people have when using XML for data is a misunderstanding of what the XML is. (If you don’t believe in the data in XML approach, feel free to ignore me.<grin/>) It’s easy to make the mistake of treating the… Read More »
Java Cookbook Ian F. Darwin O’Reilly, 2001 In spite of the fact that it is supposedly written in the style of the Perl Cookbook, this book was a real disappointment. The cookbook format is intended for showing solutions to common problems. However, the author of this book appeared to be trying to force a tutorial… Read More »