Eric.Weblog()Thoughts about software from yet another person who invented the InternetC and Morse Code- May 23, 2008 Darren Stokes sides with Joel over Jeff on whether programmers should know C. This whole debate reminds me of amateur radio operators bickering over whether newbies should be allowed to get a license without learning Morse code. Morse Code So Eric, tell us about your experience as an amateur "ham" radio operator My call sign is KA9KEF. To get my General class license, I had to pass a written exam as well as a Morse code test at 13 words per minute. Really, you know...http://software.ericsink.com/entries/c_morse_code.html My Favorite Books- May 22, 2008 People often ask me for a list of my favorite books. So here it is. I reserve the right to update this list from time to time. I tend to read a lot of stuff. The fact that I recommend a book here does not mean that I agree with everything in it. Coding I think it's out of print, but I really liked Writing Solid Code. It's very oriented toward CC++, so if you're mostly in CJavaRubyPythonPerlVB, it may not be worth your time. Still, it's...http://software.ericsink.com/articles/books.html Yesterday's entry: A comment and a correction- May 21, 2008 The Comment I've received a lot of feedback on yesterday's blog entry. The two most common questions are: Eric, why did you think that working on your Scrabble project was wrong It doesn't seem all that bad. And since you thought it was so awful, can we assume that you would go ballistic if someone in your company was working on a pet project at the office I sort of figured that if I wrote an article about a software manager that I really admire,..http://software.ericsink.com/entries/ethics.html Choose Your Manager- May 20, 2008 The Context: Being a slacker In the early months of 1994 I wrote a program to play Scrabble. It was a magnificent piece of code, easily the fastest Scrabble program I had ever seen. The implementation (in C) was based on the GADDAG data structure and algorithm explained in a paper by Steven Gordon. The resulting program was so fast that computer moves were instantaneous. Unfortunately I had to keep my software a secret. The lawyers at Hasbro love to send...http://software.ericsink.com/entries/scrabble_1994.html Upcoming Gigs- May 12, 2008 In July I will be giving a keynote address at GUADEC, the annual GNOME conference, being held this year in Istanbul. In September I will be speaking again at the Business of Software conference, being held this year in Boston. And finally, for something completely different, don't miss the Jam Session at Tech-Ed on June 3rd. Several of us minions from SourceGear are planning to take the stage and give our rendition of Pinball Wizard. It'll be me on acoustic guitar, our...http://software.ericsink.com/entries/guadec_bos.html Three Personal Highlights- May 9, 2008 It's Friday afternoon, so I hope my readers will indulge me a bit of gloating over three recent moments of personal triumph: Playing the 12th hole at my regular course, I made a shot from about 80 yards out. Unfortunately, it was for par. :-( This past Saturday I walked the Indianapolis half marathon in a personal record time of 14:57 per mile. After setting up my new subwoofer, I put in the Return of the King DVD and zoomed...http://software.ericsink.com/entries/Gloat_20080509.html |