Back in February, I ran across the post robkinyon on Perl: How useful is a debugger, really? and was again reminded of the great debugging debate. I thought about commenting on it at the time, but I got distracted. Well, Matt Trout reminded me of it again today with his post Simple Debugging. So, I… Read More »
There has been a lot of talk lately about projects moving to git. So far I the write-ups from people converting to git have all been glowing endorsements of the new one, true way. There’s almost a religious fervor related to the subject. Since my experience has not been quite that good, I thought it… Read More »
The Productive Programmer Neal Ford O’Reilly, 2008 When I found out about this book, I knew I had to read it. I have been a programmer for a long time and I’m always on the lookout for tips about how to become more productive. I expected a list of tricks that would make individual development… Read More »
Maybe it’s a reflection of when I started programming, but I’ve always had problems with frameworks. I prefer having a sharp set of tools to having a do everything framework. For me, the framework breaks down if I need to do something that does not match exactly what the framework designers wanted to do. A… Read More »
Last week, I wrote about a technique for debugging without using a debugger in Debugging Without a Debugger. I talked a bit about the advantages of instrumenting code and how it can be used to supplement the use of a debugger. Those of you who have always used a debugger might consider this vaguely interesting,… Read More »
I’ve noticed something about the programmers I have dealt with in the last few years. Many of them seem to equate debugging skill with ability to use a debugger. In fact, in some instances, the concept of being able to troubleshoot a problem outside a debugger is so foreign it would never occur to them.… Read More »
Software Configuration Management Patterns Stephen P. Berczuk and Brad Appleton Addison-Wesley, 2003 The first three chapters define the problem space. We get a solid description of Software Configuration Management (SCM) and an introduction to patterns and pattern languages. This section of the book sets up the context that you will need to understand the rest.… Read More »
I don’t often write about something quite this geeky, but it is just too cool not to share. First Several months ago, I read about an interesting module for Linux called SSHFS. This module allows you to mount a file system over SSH. This gives a way to access files on another server that you… Read More »
I’ve been seeing a lot of comments in various forums similar to this comment by Christopher Diggins: XML down a slippery slope. In most of them, there is the implied belief that XML is the solution to all problems and that anything that violates the spirit of XML is to be condemned. I have personally… Read More »
I find that I have a different viewpoint about programming languages than many programmers I’ve met. I feel that a programming language embodies three different things: a tool for solving problems an approach to thinking about solutions a notation I don’t believe that there is any language that is the best or most powerful in… Read More »