A crash course in modern hardware
If you have not reviewed lately how modern CPUs operate and how they differs from CPUs that you grew up with, you may want to watch this video. It is quite long but certainly instructive.
You will learn about what impacts performance today and how Donald Knuth was right all along. :-)
"We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: premature optimization is the root of all evil" — Donald Knuth
2009 Retrospective
I have learned a lot, traveled quite a bit, met with friends and family. I was thrilled with everything new I got to experience and it helped me grow some more. I stayed in touch with quite a few people and found new enriching relationships along the way.
I also, and very importantly, realized that some individuals, even though I am rarely in contact with them, were taking care of me in ways I was not expecting. I am so grateful.
I am looking forward to 2010, to see what this new year has in store for all of us. I also hope that 2009 was great for you, and I wish you the best in the new year.
James Bach is offering free testing lessons over Skype
James Bach is proposing to tutor testers via Skype for free. This is a very interesting concept and this is the first time I hear about such an experiment. I wish him success and I am looking forward to see how this develops.
As it should be, he has high expectations of his students.
Frequently Forgotten Fundamental Facts about Software Engineering
In this article, Robert L. Glass, list principles, facts related to software engineering. The list is organized onto the following categories:
- Complexity
- People
- Tools and Techniques
- Quality
- Reliability
- Efficiency
- Maintenance
- Requirements and design
- Reviews and inspections
- Reuse
- Estimation
- Research
I encourage you to read this article regardless if you are new to the field of software engineering or a long timer. Sometimes it is nice to be reminded of the "law of physics' regimenting our discipline.
[via IEEE]
Secret Perl Operators
I don't know about you, but I feel that Perl is a great scripting language. I have used it quite a bit in the past and it always helped me accomplish what I wanted to accomplish. I must also admit that Python now has my favor and one of the reason is the simpler syntax and object manipulation.
To illustrate my point regarding Perl syntax idiosyncrasies, here is an article describing some "secret" Perl operators that I have never heard of before:
- The Spaceship Operator
- The Eskimo Greeting Operator
- The Goatse Operator
- The Turtle Operator
- The Inchworm Operator
- The Inchworm-On-A-Stick Operator
- The Spacestation Operator
- The Venus Operator
Have you used those operators? What is your favorite scripting language? Leave a note in the comments.
