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2016.09.13

Revision Control Smells

As software developers, we talk about code smells, design smells, and even configuration smells. While reviewing some code, it occurred to me that revision control smells are also distinguishable and important. Here are some obvious ones and my recommendations for avoiding them. An orderly revision control repository is a sign of professionalism.

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Last modified: Thursday, September 15, 2016 1:52 pm

2016.05.07

The Computer Tube

I've been reading the book ENIAC in Action, which details the fascinating ten-year history of the first general-purpose programmable electronic computer. In it I found a reference to 7AK7, the so-called computer tube, which improved the reliability of tube computers.

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Last modified: Saturday, May 7, 2016 10:49 pm

2016.03.18

Verifying the Substitution Cipher Folklore

A substitution cipher has each letter substituted with another. Cryptography folklore has it that simple substitution ciphers are trivial to break by looking at the letter frequencies of the encrypted text. I tested the folklore and the results were not quite what I was expecting.

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Last modified: Friday, March 18, 2016 11:30 am

2015.12.13

Raspberry Pi vs USB vs Mac Audio

The audio hardware of Raspberry Pi is known to produce relatively poor sound quality. I bought a cheap USB sound card to try as an alternative. Here is what I found.

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Last modified: Sunday, December 13, 2015 1:02 pm

2015.11.29

Raspberry Pi Zero vs Elliott 405

Twitter users @SadHappyAmazing and @HistoricalPics posted yesterday two photographs (copy) showing the Raspberry Pi Zero juxtaposed in front of the Norwich City Council Treasurer's Department building, where the delivery of the Elliott 405 computer was photographed in 1957. Here is how the two computers compare.

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Last modified: Sunday, November 29, 2015 3:23 am

2015.06.28

Impact Factor of Computer Science Journals 2014

The Thomson Reuters Web of Knowledge has published the 2014 Journal Citation Reports. Following similar studies I performed in the past eight years (2007, '08, '09, '10, '11, '12, '13, '14) here is my analysis of the current status and trends for the impact factor of computer science journals.

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Last modified: Sunday, June 28, 2015 11:49 am

2015.05.22

Grady Booch on the Future in Software Engineering

I was privileged to hear Grady Booch deliver a keynote on the Future in Software Engineering. Here are my notes of some important statements and interesting soundbytes.

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Last modified: Monday, May 25, 2015 7:35 am

2015.02.28

ABS's 2015 Academic Journal Guide

The UK-based Association of Business Schools recently published the 2015 Academic Journal Guide (AJG) as an update to its 2010 version, sparking controversy in its press coverage. Following a study I've been performing on the impact factor of computer science journals for the past eight years based on the yearly Thomson Reuters Web of Knowledge updates of its Journal Citation Reports, I decided to look at what has changed in the AJG from 2010 to 2015.

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Last modified: Saturday, February 28, 2015 9:00 pm

2015.01.13

What's the Best Time and Day to Tweet?

I've seen big variations in interactions of similarly interesting (to me at least) tweets that I send, and I think that a deciding factor is the day or the hour I send them. Although there's plenty of material on the web on this topic, as you will see below, personalized results can capture important factors associated with the realities of global interactions.

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Last modified: Wednesday, January 14, 2015 1:31 pm

2014.09.25

First, Do No Harm

Let’s face it: not all software developers are superstar programmers (and, trust me, not all luminary developers program in a sane way.) This means that when we maintain existing code, we must be very careful to avoid breaking or degrading the system we work on. Why? Because a failure of a running system can affect operations, people, profits, property, and sometimes even lives. Here are the rules.

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Last modified: Thursday, September 25, 2014 10:32 am