February 24, 2012

Favourite Programming Language

All the programmers love to promote their favourite language, or to hate on others. Now I read a post which claimes my favourite language is not good enough! But he's correct of course, there is no one language to rule them all. You should always choose the mest language for the job, be it C or Ruby, but most don't learn enough of them. Maybe he's right, maybe we're all just lazy?

Whatever the reason I certainly have a favourite language, or rather a few. If I would have to name one I would probably say Perl, just because I've had the most fun with it! I do enjoy C++ and as I've made most of my precious games in it that's a good candidate. Haskell is absolutely awesome and so is Lisp. There I've listed 4 favourites! But of course I don't care about that really, I tend to fall in love with most of the languages I use.

Well I don't particulary like Ada... But I do admit it has some nice features, and the error messages are great! But how about Java then? I've been joking around a lot with it but to be honest I don't really hate it. Sure there are better alternatives but there are good points. The JVM, the libraries and the simplicity of it appeals to me. Maybe it's not simple but I'm used to the thinking.

To echo his suggestion: learn new languages. I'll add that don't just learn them: use them for something real and learn to love them! And don't just learn similar languages (from C++ to Java isn't worth it) but try to switch it up a bit (try C++ to Haskell). You'll find you'll be a better programmer when the dust settles, and you can actually choose a language gwith the strengths for a particular prolem.

End rant.

February 24, 2012

Motivation is Valuable

It's funny how motivation can play such a huge role with my productivity. I'm currently having two math courses; one mandatory about analysis in multiple variables and vector analysis and one voluntary about advanced linear algebra. I don't like the analysis course, didn't like the previous ones and I don't like this one.I don't fall asleep on lectures ever and I always try my best to listen but this one is pretty horrible. Not sure if the teacher or the content is to blame?

On the other hand the linear algebra course is fun and intriguing. Every lecture I'm always surprised when it ends "already 2 hours?". This is so funny because I'm not really convinced why this is happening, are the courses or the teachers that different? Sure that's probably true, but mostly I think it's my motivation that's hurting me.

"Linear algebra seems fun! It's hard but I will manage it." vs "Pah analysis again. Damn the first lecture was boring, this course is boring". I do like linear algebra more and I think it'll be much more useful for me in my programming career but analysis isn't so bad, not this degree. I think my motivation blow ups my it into bigger proportions than it really is.

It's pretty bad, we have exam in two weeks and I have literary done nothing in the analysis course... Now I need to study hard if I want to complete it but the lack of motivation is just sooo hard to overcome. Sometimes I think I don't have the mentality to be a good student. Many of my class mates are in school the whole day, every day, while I try to be in school as little as possible.

February 12, 2012

Doing Stuff

The school and my life is trotting along. I'm handling the extra course fine, but instead I've left the standard math course behind a bit. Actually more than a bit but hopefully I'll correct things later.

No my life is going along just fine, it almost feels like my life is runing ahead and leaving me behind. What have I done lately? School work I guess? Can't think of anything else the last month to be completely honest, which is pretty far from optimal. I set out this school year with the goal of programming a lot more, but so far that has been pretty dead. Sure I made a lot of progress on the new site during the christmas break but since school started I have done nothing, nothing! So sad.

Yesterday I did something else though. I went and bought a bunch of stuff. I bought a birthday present for Veronica which I'm very happy with, and I bought some rubber bands for training the oblique muscles among others. I tried but I couldn't find a protective condom for my new phone, yes I have a new phone! A white, shining, wonderful Samsung Galaxy S2 which is blowing my mind. I can now surf, watch starcraft and read manga in bed, in the bathroom and in school! Yay! And umm... New boxers.

Apart from all that I also hung up Veronica's two paintings and a white shelf I've been meaning to a while. I realized I had no idea whatsoever how to hang up a painting! I bought a big box with screws and stuff but there where only one of them I knew how to use. Now I know how to hang up a painting like the leaning tower of Pisa!

You call that leaning? You should check out my paintings!

I finally got them sort-of straight, but it took a while.

You know your life is running fast if you're savouring hanging up paintings. But now I will do something about that: I will go to Taekwon-do practice and later maybe going to the children's practice, yay!

February 2, 2012

A Simple Thought

I wrote that we where doing some microprogramming, making the processor work etc. We had a lab about that yesterday and I was very, very nervous. The preparations weren't that hard, but they where very bothersome. Converting the instructions to binary/hex by hand is never nice. Turns out the lab was very easy! You also had the option to prepare everything before on their simulator, which dumb be didn't do.

When I thought about how to describe what microprogramming is I was going to write that it's what makes a processor work. This sounds a bit off though, couldn't you do the same with physical hardware instead of another programming step inside the processor? Well turns out that's what RISC is all about. Sometimes the qualms you have when facing something new are completely justified.