Month: February 2009

Current book project: Real World Functional Programming

By jonskeet

Now that it’s all official, I can reveal that since the tail end of last year I’ve been helping out with Real World Functional Programming by Tomáš Petříček (and me, ish). I’m doing the same kinds of things I did with Groovy in Action, coming to the text with fresh eyes: I’m technically competent but don’t have any expertise in the subject matter. This means I can see it as a “real” reader would, challenge the assumptions, point out places which need more explanation etc. I’m also polishing the language a bit and adding a few informative notes. I suspect … Continue reading Current book project: Real World Functional Programming

What’s in a name?

By jonskeet

T.S. Eliot had the right idea when he wrote “The naming of cats”: The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,It isn’t just one of your holiday games…When you notice a cat in profound meditation,The reason, I tell you, is always the same:His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplationOf the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:His ineffable effableEffanineffableDeep and inscrutable singular Name. Okay, so developers may not contemplate their own names much, but I know I’ve certainly spent a significant amount of time recently trying to work out the right name for various types and … Continue reading What’s in a name?

Answering technical questions helpfully

By jonskeet

I’m unsure of whether this should be a blog post or an article, so I’ll probably make it both. I’ve probably written most of it before in Stack Overflow answers, but as I couldn’t find anything when I was looking earlier (to answer a question about Stack Overflow answers) I figured it was time to write something in a medium I had more control over. This is not a guide to getting huge amounts of reputation on Stack Overflow. As it happens, following the guidelines here is likely to result in decent rep,  but I’m sure there are various somewhat … Continue reading Answering technical questions helpfully

Benchmarking: designing an API with unusual goals

By jonskeet

In a couple of recent posts I’ve written about a benchmarking framework and the results it produced for using for vs foreach in loops. I’m pleased with what I’ve done so far, but I don’t think I’ve gone far enough yet. In particular, while it’s good at testing multiple algorithms against a single input, it’s not good at trying several different inputs to demonstrate the complexity vs input size. I wanted to rethink the design at three levels – what the framework would be capable of, how developers would use it, and then the fine-grained level of what the API … Continue reading Benchmarking: designing an API with unusual goals