You know how it goes, every other day you'll find someone whether it be at an internet forum or on a spec doc whose literary efforts can be described as abysmal. These kind of people try to write something intelligently but often come off as a complete jerk. These kind of people could be kick-ass coders but fail to write any comment ...
Do you think that writing about software (i.e. having a blog) and speaking on software (and concepts) make you a better programmer? ...
I read Richard P. Gabriel's book "Patterns of Software" (pdf) which contains an essay called "Writing Broadside" in which he contends that programmers should develop their ability to write clearly. I have found that his suggestions have definitely improved my ability to write tech. spec's and design documents. One of his suggestions is ...
I just realized that the ability to express ideas in writing is an important skill as a programmer. With a good writing ability, we can write blogs, technical paper, comments, or documentation better. I have poor writing skill, limiting me in expressing my ideas clearly. Is there any book which can help improve my writing skill? Edit: ...
The last couple months I've started keeping a journal relating to my software development. I've found that's it's been helpful for keeping track of software requests and the changes and discoveries necessary in fixing an issue or keeping track of system infrastructure changes. I've also found that it's a nice way to slow down for a mom...
I can't find anything other than closed-source web applications. Are there any active projects? I'd be interested in using the software in something I'm developing and getting involved. ...
I've noticed (is it just me?), that the really, really good programmers seem to be good at writing. Like their code flows, so does their written language. To me, I suppose that makes sense: programming is writing programming languages. One writes code. Different code is written in different languages. In your opinion, subjectively, doe...
I'm writing a novel at the moment and, while programming will not be receiving a great deal of focus, I do want to at least get it into the reader's head that a character's coding background could cause them to be the way there are about various things. So, my question is this: what d'you reckon is the best way to talk about the art in ...
The question may sound silly and it might not even be a programming question. At least it's a programming meta question (about talking about programming). What I want to know is if there is a generic, widely understood term for GUI elements. I have programmed so many GUI toolkits, I couldn't tell if Windows-only programmers know what th...
I am taking a writing class, and my professor spent 10 plus minutes extolling the virtues of a good bound dictionary. He named quite a few user interface features that satisfied his requirements more completely in a book. However, I don't desire to limit this question to the bound copy. He went on to dismiss many online editions due t...
My default setup is to put the tex source in a subversion repository and insert notes to each other as comments in the source when making changes to other people's content. It all feels pretty sub-optimal, especially when there are subversion conflicts where all it tells you is "these two versions of this huge paragraph are in conflict....
Hi, I have a simple program and I get access violation at *(str + start). why? i should be able to change it. Right? void fn() { char *str = "Hello wordl!"; int end = strlen(str); int start = 0; end--; while(start < end) { *(str + start) = *(str + end); <--- Access violation writing location *(st...
Is there a predefined or "easy" method of writing a datatable to a text file or TextBox Control (With monospace font) such as DataTable.Print(): Column1| Column2| --------|--------| v1| v2| v3| v4| v5| v6| Edit Here's an initial version (vb.net) - in case anyone is interested or wants to build their...
I know this is not a stricly programming-related question, but does anyone know any good web application able to provide the following features: full Textile markup support a way to organize multiple documents, i.e. as a wiki or just categorization/searching HTML preview Public and private pages Free Hosted remotely [bonus] Export to H...
When you read a "howto"-style article with a code sample, which do you prefer: All the code off to the side with very few comments, and a complete line-by-line breakdown in the article OR All the code off to the side with LOTS of comments, and a complete line-by-line breakdown in the article The moral of my question: Can too many...
I have a Flex application I’m writing (Learning exercise) that I’d like to run of a network drive for many users to access. I’d like users to be able to save high scores on the network. Users have read write to the network location it's on. I don’t want to change anything on the computers that might use it (IE install AIR) or IE/Firefo...
Writing documentation is part of programming, and writing well is part of what makes the documentation useful. So, what are some hints or guidelines for good writing in the technical realm? What are some resources (on-line or on dead trees) which might help me to improve my documentation? ...
What would it take to write my own database system? I would want to make it a server type system. Have any successful database systems been written by one person? ...
I just spent some time at Bart de Smet's online blog and found it to be not only useful information for developers but at the same time interesting, fun, reading. The author obviously not only knows his subject matter, but has a talent for making his writing enjoyable to read: ...80 centimeters behind me lies the answer in dead tre...
Hi, I'm trying to write a small application that simply reads data from a socket, extracts some information (two integers) from the data and sends the extracted information off on a serial port. The idea is that it should start and just keep going. In short, it works, but not for long. After a consistently short period I start to recei...