[Pdx-pm] Fwd: Programming Today: Ancient Hardware, Infinite Loops, Trillions in Gold, Cheat Sheets, + More

benh ben.hengst at gmail.com
Mon May 13 14:05:39 PDT 2013 

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: O'Reilly Media <oreilly at post.oreilly.com>
Date: Mon, May 13, 2013 at 1:46 PM
Subject: Programming Today: Ancient Hardware, Infinite Loops, Trillions in
Gold, Cheat Sheets, + More
To: bhengst at oreilly.com


**

View in browser<http://post.oreilly.com/rd/9z1zc5ke79a4e7s0tbtfd901hi2in4evv7c3cotrag0>.

 [image: O'Reilly Programming - Newsletter
Header]<http://post.oreilly.com/rd/9z1zeeftp5i3cqnuj1h8kgbvqr8domjtjo8k98v18v0>
 Sharpening
the Axe

[image: Sharpening the Axe]As *GI Joe* used to say, "Knowing is half the
battle." Certainly, *knowing is half the key* to keeping yourself employed
in an industry where new technologies emerge faster than rabbits can breed.
But how do you keep up to date? You can watch webcasts, attend training
classes, go to conferences, or just grab a book and plunge in. Obviously,
we here at O'Reilly are fans of all of the above, but what works best for
you, and why?

Do you have a favorite way to stay current? Let us know at
programming-newsletter at oreilly.com<programming-newsletter at oreilly.com?subject=Programming+Newsletter+-+Do+you+have+a+favorite+way+to+stay+current?>
.

Cheers,
The Programming newsletter team
------------------------------
O'Reilly Open Source Awards Nominations Due May 16

[image: 2012 Open Source Award Winners]If you know someone who should be
recognized for exceptional leadership, creativity, and collaboration in the
development of Open Source Software, nominate them for an *O'Reilly Open
Source Award*.
Get More Info →<http://post.oreilly.com/rd/9z1zeqr41s4t8ni78d2t43hqtsnhbpr9ed9a4on47pg>
------------------------------
Open Dialog What the Open Source Community Is Talking About

The Quality Goes in Before the Name Goes On
*450 million lines of code later*, the open source community is
achieving *defect
rates* comparable to proprietary software. That's the conclusion of the
latest Coverity Scan
Report<http://post.oreilly.com/rd/9z1zc6c12hnnc31em66it2sgotn1aaf0fklhggqk0tg>.
Linux garnered top marks, with only 0.59 defects per 1,000 lines of code.

Switch Your Switch
The *Open Compute<http://post.oreilly.com/rd/9z1z2oc78bh51bvgbghqed8ms30lj7bf6solejs8jco>project
* plans to develop an open source network switch from the ground up. While
many consumer-grade routers have had open source implementations developed
after the fact, such as
DD-WRT<http://post.oreilly.com/rd/9z1z01v8k63q6gkpe1d623dkp2t67ehcbucdvefdptg>,
this will be possibly the first switch designed from the hardware up to run
multiple open-source software implementations.

A Cheat Sheet for Your Next Interview
You may not have had to *implement a sort* since before dinosaurs coded
using ASR-33s, but job interviewers still dig out questions about them.
Here's a handy cheat-sheet<http://post.oreilly.com/rd/9z1z1hr1heiq698is8ng32s177vs0uug6gte0r3e00o>for
the next time you get an algorithmic complexity question.

[image: Gold coins]At Least Gold Coins Don't Have Bugs
It's all good and well to talk about moving to a fully digital economy, but
if the recent debacle with the *Diablo III virtual currency* is any
indication, you might need a bug check to go with your wallet. A software
error<http://post.oreilly.com/rd/9z1z6t67g4q69uela4g895bo2ikloaka6cn3gc3jqv0>devalued
the in-game currency overnight.
------------------------------
User-Centered Design Podcast

Travis Lowdermilk is a software developer, UX Designer for Visual Studio,
Microsoft, and host of the Windows Developer Show. He talks with Mary
Treseler about the concepts behind his book *User-Centered Design: A
Developer's Guide to Building User-Friendly Applications*.

[image: User-Centered Design
Podcast]<http://post.oreilly.com/rd/9z1z6qbeb7d51iefog2c0ee8n7lp7l67k9srnjtt9rg>
------------------------------
Pop! The Weekly Quiz

Abort, abort!

Time for a journey into the land of ancient hardware. Why was hitting the
emergency power off button on a *DECSYSTEM-20* costly?

Send your best guess to
programming-newsletter at oreilly.com<programming-newsletter at oreilly.com?subject=Programming+Newsletter+-+Why+was+hitting+the+emergency+power+off+button+on+a+DECSYSTEM-20+costly?>
.

Last week's puzzler asked about a classic science fiction short story. Lots
of avid fans easily identied Robert Heinlein's "The Roads Must Roll" as the
answer, but *Sara Porter* made it to the finish line first.
------------------------------
The Interactive Bit Crowdfunding

[image: Crowdfunding]Last week, we went in search of wisdom as to the
merits of using crowdfunding to finance new projects, as opposed to the
traditional venture route. *Alejandro Cabrera* is all for a KickStarter
round, saying, "It's a great way to build a nest of promoters before the
product is ever launched. In the case where your project doesn't meet its
crowdfunding goals, at least you've come out of it with a refined idea, a
wealth of data, and little to no principal lost."

*Ryan Dean* isn't so certain it's the right way to go. "I only want to fire
one arrow and have it hit the mark 'true' rather than dilute the potency
and subsequent impact of the invention. For various reasons it's better
that it remains a 'secret' until it's available for purchase. So
crowdfunding is less than ideal and would give the big players a chance to
swoop in and assert their dominance yet again."

*Andrew Idsinga* thinks that the key to a successful crowdfunded project is
to communicate its benefits clearly. "The amount of whiz bang in the video
isn't as important as clearly communicating how the product solves the job
to be done."
------------------------------
tail -f /dev/newsletter Do You Read the Code from Right to Left?

[image: Music Head]For years, people have been using Perl to write
poetry<http://post.oreilly.com/rd/9z1zdvij9p2g37d5si3i98ra1nrio304ibf8s5dm8pg>,
but now one enterprising Israeli songwriter has taken things to the next
level, with a *song<http://post.oreilly.com/rd/9z1z14ehsd0ujluh4tti58frbs5gne8s9qst14aqf1o>complete
with a companion Perl program
*. Somewhat reminiscent of the ending song to Portal, the code scrolls out
on the screen as the song progresses, complete with function calls such as
clap(2).

The logical next step is bioprograms that download directly into your mind
and play the music using your neurons. Then when you have a song stuck in
your head for days, it won't be an earworm; it will just be an infinite
loop.
  In This Issue:

   - Sharpening the Axe
   - O'Reilly Open Source Awards
   - Open Dialog
   - User-Centered Design Podcast
   - Pop! The Weekly Quiz

------------------------------
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------------------------------
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-- 
benh~

http://about.notbenh.info

Stability is not a Regression.
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