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09.05.2021
Besides a mathematical inclination, an exceptionally good mastery of one’s native tongue is the most vital asset of a competent programmer.
— Edsger W. Dijkstra, EWD 498
Sprache ist für mich sehr wichtig, und zwar nicht obwohl, sondern weil ich Informatiker bin. Obwohl ich ohne grössere Probleme in den mathematischen Fächern durch das …
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2021-05-02
In The Clean Coder, Chapter 7 (Acceptance Tests), Robert C. Martin writes (p. 109):
But the real reason these tests aren’t redundant is that their primary function is not testing. The fact that they are tests is incidental. […] The fact that they automatically verify the design, structure, and behaviour that they specify is wildly useful, but …
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27.09.2020
Neulich bin ich auf einer Webseite auf ein Angebot «für Benutzer*innen» gestossen. Dabei handelt es sich nicht etwa um ein Glob-Pattern, worauf der Asterisk schliessen lassen könnte, sondern wohl um ein Gendersternchen. (In der Linguistik wird dieses Zeichen zur Kenntlichmachung von ungrammatischen Konstrukten verwendet. Die Ironie dieses Zufalls …
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2020-09-26
I’ve been using Arch Linux since 2016. I got to understand the system better since then, and installing Arch nowadays is rather a strain on my fingers than on my brain. I automated my personal setup procedure to some extent with a couple of shell scripts, which I’m adjusting as time goes and hardware changes. I collect those scripts and …
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2020-09-20
I have a roughly ten year old Brother HL-5370DW printer on the shelf next to me. This printer is mostly used by my wife to print sewing patterns. When I was studying computer science, I sometimes printed documents I’ve written for proofreading. I often was able to find typos that I didn’t see on the screen even after proofreading the …
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2020-09-16
I’ve been using the Swiss keyboard layout for most of my life. Things changed when I first had to work on a Mac Book. If the Swiss keyboard layout is not great for programming on a usual keyboard, because it requires combinations with Alt-Gr to type in braces and brackets, I consider the Mac version of it outright horrible, because braces and …
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2020-09-12
A week ago, I’ve installed OpenBSD on my Thinkpad. I’ve been using it now and then, and already have changed a couple of things in respect to the original setup described in the article. I also installed OpenBSD on the Dell Optiplex on which I previously installed FreeBSD a month before. This means that I’m no longer using FreeBSD …
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2020-09-05
Let’s install OpenBSD on a Lenovo Thinkpad X270. I used this computer for my computer science studies. It has both Arch Linux and Windows 10 installed as dual boot. Now that I’m no longer required to run Windows, I can ditch the dual boot and install an operating system of my choice.
Preparation First, I grab my work Thinkpad running …
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2020-08-11
I’m a happy user of Arch Linux both on my private computers and on my work laptop. I even managed to get through four years of university with my setup, and only had to bring a Windows machine on some rare occasions, even though some professors are openly hostile towards a Linux setup. (It doesn’t run Microsoft Project and the real …
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2020-08-05
In my last article, I outlined the purpose of a stock program: a non-trivial coding exercise to be done in every new programming language somebody is learning. I also stated that «Four in a Row» is becoming my personal stock program, and that I’d like to implement it in Haskell.
The main challenge in Haskell is the functional programming …