October 2011
2 posts
Leaking II
Kartik Agaram pointed out that I haven’t mentioned what happens during the assignment of pre-declared variables in scope.
Here are a few scenarios. This first example signals an error, because a has no binding when print a is called:
def foo (b):
a ← b
foo 15
print a
This example prints 15:
a ← 5
def foo (b):
a ← b
foo 15
print a
Which seems acceptable —- but this...
Leaking I
I’m designing a programming language called Tainted Oyster.
One thing I have to think about is how to set a variable in the current scope. The easy way is the straightforward way:
a ← 25
This pairs the value 25 with the symbol a, in the scope in which it’s written. (The cheap way to say that is, “Now a is 25.” Unfortunately, I’m kinda slow, and when I’m...
January 2011
2 posts
Programmers think differently than...
or
Singers think differently than non-singers
or
Stuffed animal enthusiasts think differently than non-enthusiasts
Jacques Mattehij wrote a post [here] about the way programmers think. He argues that programmers are analytical, but so are scientists; programmers are logical, but so are mathematicians; programmers are obsessive, but so are artists (he says scientists again, but I...
WhiteProxy
I get distracted very easily, and when I am looking up something important, I don’t like spending my willpower avoiding distractions: facebook, my email, comics, youtube, twitter —— all the ten-thousand things.
What could I do? I wrote a little proxy server that block all content unrelated to the task at hand. It even takes the time to look up related words, so that it...