> Check out the following link too:> http://www.cs.sunysb.edu/~algorith/Yes.The Algorithm Design Manual is really useful.

> I will be giving a seminar on human/computer interface> design in the Winter term here at North Central College.> Don Norman's stuff is cool, and fun, but if you want> something profound, thought-provoking and a bit more> directly applicable to everyday software design tasks,> read Jef Raskin's stuff.design with scenarios and personas Alan...

> The realization of functions and sub-functions can> conveniently be discussed with CRC cards. CRC cards are> all about what objects *do* rather than about what they> *are*. In fact, they look more like roles than like> classes! (In my book, I said that "The CRC technique> supports role modelling directly, since both focus on> object...

the original recursive implementation is a ridiculous way to evaluate the value of a languageIndeed, it would be ridiculous to use one micro-benchmark to evaluate the value of a language.However including recursive implementations as part of a benchmark suite seems reasonable - the Hennessy benchmarks in Bench++ include recursive...

> > The Java platform has capabilities that provide a wide> > range of capabilities for a wide range of applications.So it's nice to be able to use the platform as a library, and program in some more expressive language.>I do - its called Smalltalk - I find it annoying that the>new developers of languages have yet to equal the>Smalltalk...

>Generics work for strongly-typed collections, not>heterogeneous ones. I suppose in C++ you could always have>a collection of void pointers, which amounts to the same>thing but somehow seems uglier to me.> > Absolutely. I didn't consider heterogeneous collections;> usually when I hear this line of thinking it's referring> to homogeneous...

Seemed to me like a combination of Objects and ADTs- simple class (representation and invariant)- ADT (functions that act on the object)

> The C++ examples seem to be C style. To contrast, here is> a Fibonachi classPlease email it to dada@perl.it (Aldo can only post code that he receives direct from the author)He'll be so overwhelmed that he might actually get around to updating the website ;-)

> It's just a metaphor... > that requirements have shelf life and costas does every work-product> you can end up with> different versions of the same requirement (what the team> talked about last month and what they talked about last> week, for instance) and that can be just as confusing and> error prone as having subtly different material on...

> For example the Fibonacci example> seems to only test which language is best at recursionThat was his intention - to test how well languages handle recursion. Other micro-benchmarks were intended to test array access... etc More reasonable to complain that they don't test what they were intended to - for example hash. > some implementations...

There seems to be a risk that folk might get to wrapped-up trying to apply manufacturing analogies (should we really try to find a meaning for manufacturings obsession with inventory control mean in software development?) and forget the Deming Cycle.> I think it all maps, but the relative importance of things> may be different. Inventory, for...

> See how big the difference is in matrix multiplication:> http://www.bagley.org/~doug/shootout/bench/matrix/A more up-to-date version is available at:http://dada.perl.it/shootout/> Java is just at a different place> on the performance/ease-of-development continuum from> C/C++ or Ruby/Python/Smalltalk. Smalltalk performance is more like Java...

The ideas that Agile are built on originally came from...Well, some of the ideas are-similar-to ideas that influenced the Kanban and Just-In-Time manufacturing (and Total Quality) movements of the 70s and 80s.Those influential ideas were based on the Deming Cycle (aka Shewart...

> Specifications are so passé.> Extreme Programming is the way to go:Au contraire XP is passé.Moderate Programming is the way to go!- some understanding (aka specification)- some coding - some testingrepeat> Also at any stage, you may "Discover Python""Discovered" Smalltalk 15 years ago...

Interesting to see folk trying to apply manufacturing practice to software development once more. Tom Gilb has often said that his consulting career has been based on telling computer literate audiences about the Deming cycle:Deliver something to a real end-user.Measure the added-value to the user in all critical dimensions.Adjust both design...