Journal Articles

CVu Journal Vol 16, #1 - Feb 2004 or Journal Editorial

Browse in :

All > Journals > CVu > 161 (8)
All > Journal Columns > Editorial (221)
All of these categories

Options:: View Article Map; View Archives

Note: when you create a new publication type, the articles module will automatically use the templates user-display-[publicationtype].xt and user-summary-[publicationtype].xt. If those templates do not exist when you try to preview or display a new article, you'll get this warning :-) Please place your own templates in themes/yourtheme/modules/articles . The templates will get the extension .xt there.

Editorial

Administrator

09 April 2005 13:16:11 +01:00

Editorial: "They" Have Their Reasons

Administrator

19 February 2005 16:35:57 +00:00

Editorial

Administrator

09 February 2005 13:16:10 +00:00

Editorial: A Glimpse Behind the Scenes

Administrator

19 December 2004 15:57:10 +00:00

Editorial

Administrator

09 December 2004 13:16:09 +00:00

Editorial: The Buzzword Adoption Pattern?

Administrator

09 October 2004 16:25:38 +01:00

Editorial

Administrator

09 October 2004 13:16:08 +01:00

Editorial: The Value of What You Know

Administrator

09 August 2004 22:52:10 +01:00

Editorial

Administrator

09 August 2004 13:16:06 +01:00

Editorial: New Things Under the Sun

Administrator

09 June 2004 14:26:10 +01:00

Editorial

Administrator

09 June 2004 13:16:04 +01:00

Editorial

Administrator

21 April 2004 22:54:59 +01:00

Editorial

Site Administrator

09 April 2004 22:53:48 +01:00

Rather than talk about programming or programming issues, the work of WG21 etc, I've decided to talk about something far closer to my heart; the state of computer programming courses in education at all levels.

Editorial

Site Administrator

07 March 2004 19:37:32 +00:00

Back in 2001, the then-editor of C Vu, Francis Glassborow, announced his intention to pass the editorship of this journal on to a new volunteer, and so at the start of 2002 I took the reins. In fairness I should say that Francis gave me considerable support in putting together my first few issues, and to this day continues to invest a lot of time in preparing various sections of C Vu. Since the time I took over, a lot has happened. I personally have moved from Bournemouth to Bristol, from Bristol to San Francisco, and from San Francisco to San Diego. The last two moves are not entirely unrelated to a spirited young lass by the name of Désirée, who was also closely involved when I became engaged and then married. Between those changes and others, it is now time for me to step aside and look for a new editor for C Vu; I can no longer give the job the time and energy it warrants.

Francis’ Scribbles

Site Administrator

07 March 2004 19:37:18 +00:00

Repository of Projects

We need to program in order to develop our programming skills. Anything more than the most trivial program takes time and effort. Most students (in the broadest sense of someone who is studying) find it hard to motivate themselves with projects whose end product is of little use or interest to them. It is much easier to put in the hours doing a job properly if the result is something we have a personal interest in.

Letter to the Editor

Site Administrator

07 March 2004 19:37:00 +00:00

James,

I thought it was about time I wrote and introduced myself to ACCU members – it’s probably long overdue given that I’ve been production editor for the journals for a couple of years now (just over two years for Overload and eighteen months for C Vu, to be exact).

Professionalism in Programming #24

Site Administrator

07 March 2004 19:36:44 +00:00

“There is more to life than increasing its speed” - Mahatma Gandhi

We live in a fast food culture. Not only must our dinner arrive yesterday, our car should be fast, and our entertainment instant. Our code should also run like lightning. I want my result. And I want it now.

Ironically, writing fast programs takes a long time.

Optimisation is a spectre hanging over software development, as W.A. Wulf observed. “More computing sins are committed in the name of efficiency (without necessarily achieving it) than for any other single reason – including blind stupidity”.

It’s a well-worn subject, with plenty of trite soundbites bounding around, and the same advice being served time and time again. But despite this, a lot of code is still not developed sensibly. Programmers get sidetracked by the lure of efficiency and write bad code in the name of performance.

In these articles we’ll address this. We’ll tread some familiar ground and wander well-worn paths, but look out for some new views on the way. Don’t worry – if the subject’s optimisation it shouldn’t take too long...

Editorial

Administrator

09 February 2004 21:55:34 +00:00

do...while

Site Administrator

07 February 2004 19:37:48 +00:00

What can be said about C’s everyday do...while loop? It just does something while some condition holds. End of story, right?

No, of course not. That would make the title of this small article silly, so let’s cover two topics.

Code in Comments

Site Administrator

01 February 2004 19:38:18 +00:00

We have all seen comments in source files which look more like executable code than documentation.

The first line in the body of the for loop below is such a comment: you might expect to be able to remove the leading slashes and have code which compiles and runs, but functions slightly differently.

What did the author of this comment intend?

Example 0

for (Surfaces::iterator sf = surfaces.begin();
     sf != surfaces.end();
     ++sf) {
  // std::cout << "Drawing: " << *sf << "\n";
  sf->draw();
}

OK, I’m being disingenuous. I’m aware that the comment isn’t really a comment, it’s commented-out code. And, like any tolerant and capable programmer, by examining the surrounding context I can guess why this code has been commented out.

This article examines how to comment out code, then describes various problems which lead to code being commented out, before finally arguing that there’s often a better solution to these problems.

Sort by Date Title