Tips for work-life balance
A colleague recently asked me for advice on work-life balance. My reply crossed the threshold for a blog post, so I'm posting it here to be consistent with my own principles on academic blogging. My high-level tips are to: Explicitly acknowledge priorities Avoid workaholism Avoid perfectionism Set and enforce boundaries Avoid over-commitment Use a work-flow system Communicate Keep hobbies Exploit
12 resolutions for programmers [2023 update]
It’s important for programmers to continuously challenge themselves in order to avoid creative and technical stagnation. In the spirit of the new year, back in 2012, I compiled twelve month-sized resolutions to help avoid that stagnation. I’ve updated that list for 2023. Each month is an annually renewable technical or personal challenge: Go analog. Stay healthy. Embrace the uncomfortable. Automat
Advanced programming languages
Students often ask for a recommendation on what language they should learn next. If you're looking for a job in industry, my reply is to learn whatever is hot right now: C++, Java and C#--and probably Python, Ruby, PHP and Perl too. If, on the other hand, you're interested in enlightenment, academic research or a start-up, the criterion by which you should choose your next language is not employab
Grammar: The language of languages (BNF, EBNF, ABNF and more)
Languages form the terrain of computing. Programming languages, protocol specifications, query languages, file formats, pattern languages, memory layouts, formal languages, config files, mark-up languages, formatting languages and meta-languages shape the way we compute. So, what shapes languages? Grammars do. Grammars are the language of languages. Behind every language, there is a grammar that d
7 lines of code, 3 minutes: Implement a programming language
7 lines of code, 3 minutes: Implement a programming language from scratch Implementing a programming language is an experience no programmer should go without; the process fosters a deep understanding of computation, and it's fun! In this article, I've boiled the entire process down to its essence: a 7-line interpreter for a functional (Turing-equivalent) programming language. It takes about 3 min
Coroutines, exceptions, time-traveling search, generators and threads: Continuations by example
Continuations by example: Exceptions, time-traveling search, generators, threads, and coroutines Continuations are the least understood of all control-flow constructs. This lack of understanding (or awareness) is unfortunate, given that continuations permit the programmer to implement powerful language features and algorithms, including exceptions, backtracking search, threads, generators and coro
Parsing regular expressions with recursive descent
Regular expressions are a powerful tool for describing, matching and extracting patterns in text. Every programmer ought to have the experience of implementing a tool for matching regular expressions from scratch. This article discusses the first phase in this process: parsing core regular expressions using a hand-written recursive descent parser. One could then proceed with a conventional impleme
Hunting down my son's killer
I found my son's killer. It took three years. But we did it. I should clarify one point: my son is very much alive. Yet, my wife Cristina and I have been found responsible for his death. My son Bertrand has a new genetic disorder. Patient 0. To find it, a team of scientists at Duke University used whole-exome sequencing (a protein-focused variant of whole-genome sequencing) on me, my wife and my s
Church encodings in JavaScript
Church encodings, the U combinator and the Y combinator in JavaScript The lambda-calculus is almost too small to be a Turing-complete language. Almost. Because it is Turing-complete. With just three expression forms -- variable references, function application and anonymous functions -- it is possible to express arbitrary computation. These core forms exist as a subset of many popular programming
JavaScript: Warts and workarounds
JavaScript is a Gestalt language. One's sentiment toward JavaScript flips between elegance and disgust without transiting intermediate states. The key to seeing JavaScript as elegant is understanding its warts, and knowing how to avoid, work around or even exploit them. I adopted this avoid/fix/exploit approach after reading Doug Crockford's JavaScript: The Good Parts: Doug has a slightly differen
SSH tricks
SSH is a protocol for authenticating and encrypting remote shell sessions. But, using SSH for just remote shell sessions ignores 90% of what it can do. This article covers less common SSH use cases, such as: using passwordless, key-based login; setting up local per-host configurations; exporting a local service through a firewall; accessing a remote service through a firewall; setting up a SOCKS p
Standalone lexers with lex: synopsis, examples, and pitfalls
Standalone lexers with lex: synopsis, examples, and pitfalls Lexical analysis is the first phase of compilation. During this phase, source code received character-by-character is transformed into a sequence of "tokens." For example, for the following Python expression: print (3 + x *2 ) # comment the resulting stream of tokens might be (encoded as S-Expressions as): (keyword "print") (delim "(") (
Sculpting text with regex, grep, sed and awk
Sculpting text with regex, grep, sed, awk, emacs and vim Unix is an alliance of loosely structured text files bound together and governed by scripts. Unix is the United Confederation of Strings: The string is a stark data structure and everywhere it is passed there is much duplication of process. It is a perfect vehicle for hiding information. --Alan Perlis Tools built in the Unix tradition excel
Relational shell programming
Relational algebra is a theory for manipulating relations whose power is equivalent to SQL and relational calculus. Remarkably, relational algebra has only six primitive operations. I define the six primitives below, but if you're looking for a comprehensive work on relational theory, particularly as it relates to modern databases, I recommend Date's SQL and Relational Theory: Relations in Unix Ma
Settling into Unix
Unix plays a supporting role in all of the classes I teach, but it is essential in my Scripting Language Design and Implementation course. Unix is an operating ecosystem for executing and composing scripts. It ranks high on my list of what every CS major should know. Unfortunately, students no longer arrive familiar with Unix-style computing, and most are not willing to learn it on their own. Some
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Boost your productivity: Cripple your technology
What is static analysis?
Implementing Java as a CESK machine, in Java
Multitouch remote for a robot: 200 lines of JavaScript & Python
12 resolutions for programmers [2023 update]