Programming languages are more about people and less about machines. Programming languages are about staying inside the limitations of people’s minds and their ability to keep track of and work with abstractions. If people had no such limitations, they could code in assembly language all the time. Programming languages and supporting tools and environments are […]
The Guardian reports that a new government panel will henceforth judge what research is worthy of funding in the UK. Universities will have to make the case for their research projects in order to receive money. Reuters UK, perhaps keen to draw attention, blurt out that “‘Mickey Mouse’ degrees face [a] funding battle”. Examples cited by […]
Following a comment on my previous foray into bibliography management systems, I had a look at the product known as Mendeley. In order to evaluate Mendeley, let’s ask ourselves what we want from a bibliography management system in the modern research environment. At a bare minimum, we want an easy way to catalogue and search […]
Programming with actors was a new concept to me until I tried it out in Scala. It’s appears to be one of Scala’s most celebrated features, judging by the official blurb. Actors was a daunting word at first but it really ends up being a very simple concept. Actors are a programming model for concurrent […]
I’m currently in Sweden, enjoying the Scandinavian nature, catching up with family and a few old friends. This time, some quick notes on a few ideas that have been brewing. Orthopraxy is when people do things the same way: “correct” action/praxis. On Artima developer spotlight, there was a lively discussion on this in the Ruby […]