Linked by Amjith Ramanujam on Tue 29th Jul 2008 06:39 UTC, submitted by snydeq
InfoWorld has put together a 20-question test of your programming knowledge. Questions range from 'What is the best way to preserve type safety in assembly language?' to 'Why are race conditions a problem in modern software development?' and they touch on your knowledge of the history of programming languages, how best to develop easily maintainable and secure code, and your game plan for overcoming a lack of energy drinks, Jolt Cola, and Mountain Dew at the local supermarket - in other words, your commitment to programming as a way of life. Editor's Note: Think of it as your midnight distraction (*cough* Grad Students) rather than news, you might actually enjoy it ;).
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Member since:2005-07-06
The key is that javascript is NOT a lite version of Java. This is probably one of the most ANNOYING misconceptions ever in the IT world. I don't know how many times I have heard hiring managers, developers - eople who should know better confuse the two. I cringe when I hear people say something like "yeah we need a Java developer to help with some of our web pages", when they really mean a Javascript developer. The languages share nothing except a "c-like" syntax (braces, semi-colons). Javascript really has far more in common with the functional languages.
So personally, I was glad to see that question. It really was a marketing decision to include the word "java" in javascript. However, it was a very poor decision. It created a lot of unnecessary confusion.
It actually reminds me of the word "Basic" in Visual Basic. While VB is actually a derivative of Basic, unfortunately the word "Basic" confuses many adminsitrative folks. They see the word and think that it must be easy. I have seen this played out such that non-programmers are hired as VB programmers, because, well, it's basic! How hard can it be? In fact, one job I interviewed actually called it "Visual Basics". I had to keep myself from laughing during the interview. In reality, enterprise applications of great complexity and depth can be created with VB (even before .NET). However there is a "pile" of VB guys out there that to a certain extent were created due to the word "basic" in the title.
Words are funny!
Member since:2005-07-06
The key is that javascript is NOT a lite version of Java.
*Sigh* you haven't read his post, he didn't say that..
What he said is that both Java and Javascript has some heavy link with Self a project made by Sun:
for Java it's not the language but the JVM's JIT compiler which benefited from Self research
and for Javascript it's because it is a prototype based language like Self.
So I was a bit annoyed by the incorrect "solution" IMHO..
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:15 UTC
"This is my NeXTstation Turbo Color booting the Mac System 7.1 Operating System using a hardware add-on called 'Daydream'. The Daydream has a Mac ROM and a few custom ICs in it and hooked up to the NeXTs DSP port. Turns your NeXT into a full fledged 68k powered Mac." So cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:11 UTC, submitted by Drumhellar
"The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce NetBSD 6.1, the first feature update of the NetBSD 6 release branch. It represents a selected subset of fixes deemed important for security or stability reasons, as well as new features and enhancements. Please note that all fixes in the prior security/bugfix updates (NetBSD 6.0.1 and 6.0.2) are also in 6.1."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 21:06 UTC
"At the end of a week in which Electronic Arts confirmed it wasn't developing a thing for the Wii U, one of the software engineers in EA Sports' Canada studio, in a series of since-deleted tweets, disparaged the console as 'crap' and suggested Nintendo should give up on hardware altogether. 'The Wii U is crap. Less powerful than an Xbox 360. Poor online/store. Weird tablet', tweeted Bob Summerwill, listed as a senior software engineer at EA Canada, in a reply to a tweet posting a link about EA's no-Wii U news. 'Nintendo are walking dead at this point'." The Wii U is turning into the 21st century's Virtual Boy.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 7:37 UTC
"In NixOS, the entire operating system - the kernel, applications, system packages, configuration files, and so on - is built by the Nix package manager from a description in a purely functional build language. The fact that it's purely functional essentially means that building a new configuration cannot overwrite previous configurations. Most of the other features follow from this." Interesting approach. A Linux distribution, sure, but with some very refreshing ideas about system configuration.
Linked by fran on 05/18/13 1:38 UTC
Appfour added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 23:35 UTC, submitted by kragil
Ars nails it: "The answer is that Google did announce what amounts to a fairly substantial Android update yesterday. They simply did it without adding to the update fragmentation problems that continue to plague the platform. By focusing on these changes and not the apparently-waiting-in-the-wings update to the core software, Google is showing us one of the ways in which it's trying to fix the update problem."
Linked by MOS6510 on 05/17/13 22:22 UTC
"It is good for programmers to understand what goes on inside a processor. The CPU is at the heart of our career. What goes on inside the CPU? How long does it take for one instruction to run? What does it mean when a new CPU has a 12-stage pipeline, or 18-stage pipeline, or even a 'deep' 31-stage pipeline? Programs generally treat the CPU as a black box. Instructions go into the box in order, instructions come out of the box in order, and some processing magic happens inside. As a programmer, it is useful to learn what happens inside the box. This is especially true if you will be working on tasks like program optimization. If you don't know what is going on inside the CPU, how can you optimize for it? This article is about what goes on inside the x86 processor's deep pipeline."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 22:15 UTC, submitted by Tom
"It was the only moment I heard regret slip into Otellini's voice during the several hours of conversations I had with him. 'The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut,' he said. 'My gut told me to say yes.'" The world would've been a much different place - Apple would have been less dependant on Samsung for its chips, which probably would've meant less money for Samsung to develop its Galaxy business.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 21:41 UTC
Glass is getting some love at Google I/O as well. New applications have been released - Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Elle, Tumblr, and CNN. Perhaps more interesting: the newly announced Google Glass Developer Kit will allow offline applications and direct hardware access - great for hacking and expanding Glass' potential. This kit will really allow hackers to put Glass through its paces.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 17:04 UTC
"But Beck and Merrill decided that simply banning toxic players wasn't an acceptable solution for their game. Riot Games began experimenting with more constructive modes of player management through a formal player behavior initiative that actually conducts controlled experiments on its player base to see what helps reduce bad behavior. The results of that initiative have been shared at a lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and on panels at the Penny Arcade Expo East and the Game Developers Conference." Absolutely fascinating stuff. I'm a League of Legends player, and to be honest, the community isn't nearly as bad as some make it out to be. I'm happy Riot games has the guts to employ science to address the issue.More News »
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Member since:
2008-07-29
I believe that both JavaScript and Java originate from Self programming language developed by Sun to some extent. So the answer for the first question is - questionable