Most developers don’t really know any computer language
What does it mean to know a language? I can count to ten in half a dozen human languages, say please and thank you, tell people I’m English and a few other phrases that will probably help me get by; I...
View ArticleProposal for a change of approach to programming language teaching
In a previous post I explained why I think developers don’t really know any computer language and in this post I want to outline how I think we should adapt to this reality and radically change the...
View Article2013 in the programming language standards’ world
Yesterday I was at the British Standards Institute for a meeting of IST/5, the committee responsible for programming languages. Things have been rather quiet since I last wrote about IST/5, 18 months...
View ArticleA prediction for 2014
When I first started writing this blog I used to make prediction for the coming year. After a couple of years I stopped doing this, the world of computer languages changes very slowly, i.e., I was...
View ArticleHack, a template for improving code reliability
My sole prediction for 2014 has come true, Facebook have announced the Hack language (if you don’t know that HHVM is the Hip Hop Virtual Machine you are obviously not a trendy developer). This language...
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First language taught to undergraduates in the 1990s
The average new graduate is likely to do more programming during the first month of a software engineering job, than they did during a year as an undergraduate. Programming courses for undergraduates...
View ArticleA study, a replication, and a rebuttal; SE research is starting to become...
tldr; A paper makes various claims based on suspect data. A replication finds serious problems with the data extraction and analysis. A rebuttal paper spins the replication issues as being nothing...
View ArticleResearching programming languages
What useful things might be learned from evidence-based research into programming languages? A common answer is researching how to design a programming language having a collection of desirable...
View ArticleA new career in software development: advice for non-youngsters
Lately I have been encountering non-young people looking to switch careers, into software development. My suggestions have centered around the ageism culture and how they can take advantage of fashions...
View ArticleC++ deprecates some operations on volatile objects
Programming do-gooders sometimes fall into the trap of thinking that banning the use of a problematic language construct removes the possibility of the problems associated with that construct’s usage...
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