Again, this isn’t really restricted to Programming per se, but more generally “computer-related stuff”. Next time, I’ll pick a better name. Until then, here are a few interesting links I came across last month, in no particular order:
- The Handbook of Lisp Functions (cover page below): a technical report from 1961.
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- Digression on learning new languages: Ugh, I’m too embarassed to even write this. I keep changing my mind about what I like more. I thought this was going to be “the year of Clojure” for me, but then Gilad Bracha’s book came out and now I’m torn again (Can I have them both? Maybe, but I fear I don’t have that kind of time anymore :P)
- Various ways to make Clojure programming more productive: ”Pimp My REPL”
- I had a bunch of entertaining blog posts by Crista Lopez in the past (e.g. ”Jedi Masters”), but was blown away by this set of slides. You’re a programmer, you want to be a programmer for life, you have to read this: ”Exercises in Programming Style”. And if you really like it, get the book.
- Came across this intriguing indie film trailer (”TraceRoute”), though I haven’t gotten around to seeing the movie yet (the writer/protagonist navigates “… the ghosts of nerddom’s past present and future …”). Dunno, added it to my “to watch” list.
- Obviously, the X-Files is back. If you like this sort of stuff, the first episode is free to watch on Fox. Go watch it :)
- A couple of articles for “historical interest”. The first is the New York Times reporting on … the opening of its web site, in 1996!. But really, you skip ahead to the very last line for your dose of irony-or-tragedy: “The market is booming for newspapers on the World Wide Web”. Ouch.
- The second is hilarious, from even further back (”Value of Windowing is Questioned”, 1984!!), and here the Times speculates on the dubious value of a graphical user interface. The opening line asks: “Does anyone do windows any more?”, and the article concludes by predicting “doom” for the upcoming new OS by Microsoft. I thought I’d see if the author had time to reflect on his past predictions, so I looked through the newspaper’s archives, but it looks like he stopped writing technology articles in 1987 and switched to Food and Travel. Anyway.
Here’s a “quote of the month” for you:
Science is much more ‘sloppy’ and ‘irrational’ than its methodological image.
(Paul Feyerabend, Against Method, and I meant to refer to the so-called science of computers)