Tag: Programming Languages

Categories
Technology

Google Programming Contest

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I’ve had a chance to look at the source and the data files for the Google Programming contest. In the last several years, I’ve spent so much of my time tweaking sites for business use — better use of the database, better security, better architectural design, better use of Internet technologies, or using other new technologies.

With the contest I’m faced with the type of challenge I haven’t had in a while — pure algorithmic programming. This is a great reason to give the contest a shot, if for no other. Developers should stop and work on pure programming challenges from time to time, to keep these down to the metal programming skills at peak.

Sure, the whole thing is a cheap way for Google to get programming expertise and buzz, but participants also get something in return — an interesting problem, and a chance to exercise the little gray cells, to quote a mystery figure.

Besides, who else is going to work the buzz better than the greatest buzz meister of all — Google?

Categories
Technology

Mixing Violence and Tech

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

This is fun: O’Reilly’s PHP DevCenter picked up my quote from Scripting News  for the PHP Digest:

“I will continue to beat you about the head on this issue until you ultimately bow to my superior knowledge on this subject.”

I must remember to mix threats of physical violence and technology more often.

Categories
JavaScript Web

Programming the web

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Dave is still talking about web versus C programming language. He mentions that scripting is what holds the web together.

Dave, someone has to write the base. You can’t create full applications with Javascript, without something taking the script and translating it into machine understandable bits. And that translation is accomplished through programming languages such as C.

As with proprietary and open source code, scripting and programming with a language such as C are not exclusive – they’re complimentary.

Now, if you’re saying that providing scripting capability gives people who aren’t programmers a chance to have a control over their content, I agree 100%. This is a win/win for both the scripting users and the professional developers — the former has more control over their environment, the latter can focus on the larger and more complex tasks we thrive on. And, yes, we have this increased flexibility due to the web … and to browsers that are enablers.

Perhaps Dave and I do agree on this issue but say things — or read things — differently.