|
If we want to use ECMAScript 6 as app developers, but still want to run our software on old browsers, we only have one option: compile ECMAScript 6 to ECMAScript 3 (possibly ECMAScript 5 in 1–2 years). The precedent is obvious: CoffeeScript has been doing this since December 2010. With source maps [3], you can even debug its code in the browser – the JavaScript it has been compiled to is hidden from you. Several ECMAScript 6 features have been influenced by CoffeeScript. Why not use CoffeeScript and be done with it?
|
|
|
|
|
I use CoffeeScript at work on a big enterprisey project for 3M.
What I find is, the language is not at all well thought out. They tried to jam Ruby concepts into JavaScript, and it often shows.
TypeScript, on the other hand, I'm really liking. And even though it was designed by Anders Hejlsberg (C#), they stayed true to JavaScript, rather than force C# concepts into JavaScript. It's really a well-done language.
|
|
|
|
|
This repository contains the core of NuclearWinter, featuring game state management, screen resolution handling, an input manager and an user interface library.... NuclearWinter development is led by Elisée Maurer. NuclearWinter powers both CraftStudio, a 3d real-time cooperative game-making platform and the 2D multiplayer arcade game QuadSmash. Feel free to use it in your own projects! Contributions are welcome too.
|
|
|
|
|
A growing trend in web and UI design lately has been the use of “flat design” and it’s clearly a hot topic at the moment – full of lively discussion and plenty to learn about. I’ve always been drawn to minimalism, so flat design is an aesthetic that has inspired me, especially while working on the recent redesign of QuoteRobot, the proposal writing app I co-founded back in 2010. In this article I’m going to talk about what flat design is, review what other designers are saying about it, and offer some tips on how to achieve it in your own designs. Or the design pattern formerly known as Metro...
|
|
|
|
|
Blaze is the next generation of NumPy, Python’s extremely popular array library. At Continuum Analytics we aim to tackle some of the hardest problems in large data analytics with our Python stack of Numba and Blaze, which together will form the basis of distributed computation and storage system which is simultaneously able to generate optimized machine code specialized to the data being operated on. Blaze aims to extend the structural properties of NumPy arrays to a wider variety of table and array-like structures that support commonly requested features such missing values, type heterogeneity, and labeled arrays. Let's graph all the ways this is useful...
|
|
|
|
|
Now you may be thinking: "baah, I know how to do gravity.." but there's a big flaw in the commonly used Euler's method to handle the gravity (or other forces). Even all the Quake games have this problem. Then what is it? If you have more frames per second in Quake, your player will run faster and jump higher. There are some places in Quake where you can't jump high enough if you don't have enough frames per second. Sounds odd, right? You should do all the accelerating forces like this, not just gravity.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Microsoft isn’t going to let Google’s move keep its clients from accessing Google services. All Microsoft clients already support IMAP, so mail isn’t really the problem. Microsoft has never supported CalDAV for calendaring or CardDAV for contacts, but these are open standards that Microsoft can easily support tactically. In other words, if Microsoft cares about Google’s move it would be easy for them to add support for this technology to those products where it feels they make sense. Windows Phone would be a likely case. This is more likely to do more harm to Google than to Microsoft.
|
|
|
|
|
The beginnings are rather simple, and maybe a little mundane; Larry Wall (Tim Toady) released version 1.0 to the newsgroup comp.sources.misc on the 18th December 1987 while working as a programmer at Unisys. Perl was intended, we believe, to be a Unix scripting language to make report processing easier borrowing from sh, Awk and Sed.... Perl 6 started its life cycle in 2000 with a different principle to other versions of Perl. It was a complete re-write of the language and would start as a language specification before a release leading to the now apocryphal 'released in time for Christmas' line. say "Happy Birthday!";
|
|
|
|
|
Markdown is a simple text-based markup language that can be used to produce clean HTML.... You can build your very own an efficient parser that can be extended with custom features and that allows you to process the document after parsing. In this article, based on chapter 11 of F# Deep Dives, author Tomas Petricek describes the key elements of such a project, in particular, the representation of a Markdown document. A functional Markdown parser in functional code.
|
|
|
|
|
This is the first of a two-part series that will tell the long story of the C# memory model. The first part explains the guarantees the C# memory model makes and shows the code patterns that motivate the guarantees.... One source of complexity in multithreaded programming is that the compiler and the hardware can subtly transform a program’s memory operations in ways that don’t affect the single-threaded behavior, but might affect the multithreaded behavior... This describes the ECMA C# specification... but how does it *really* work?
|
|
|
|
|
When one wants to understand the memory layout of structures and classes, the C/C++ operators sizeof and offsetof are very useful. However, when large C++ class hierarchies are involved, using these operators becomes tedious. Luckily, Clang has a very handly command-line flag to dump object layouts in a useful manner. When your classes get complicated, break out the pro tools.
|
|
|
|
|
I’ve noticed that the most mature and accomplished developers I’ve worked with are also those who most frequently say “I don’t understand” when they’re listening to a technical explanation.... In one way, it’s counterintuitive. Shouldn’t the senior devs already know everything? But it makes a lot of sense. Those who are most secure in their own abilities are the most comfortable to admit when they haven’t fully wrapped their minds around something. I'll take "Words I've never heard a dev say" for 500, Alex.
|
|
|
|
|
Code Writer is a free text and code editor app with active syntax highlighting that updates as you edit documents and has 20 supported file types. A tabbed document interface allows for quickly switching between open documents. 20 syntax-highlighted file types supported including HTML, CSS, JavaScript, XML, C#, VB, C++, PHP, Perl, Python, Ruby, SQL, and many other common languages. A free, Metro-style code editor.
|
|
|
|
|
Wow. I was using NotePad++ for sometime. Hope this is different.
|
|
|
|
|
When it comes to backing up and restoring your PC, Windows 8 took a few steps forward and a few steps back. Your settings and apps in the new tablet-y interface (yeah, we're still calling it Metro) are automatically backed up if you use a Microsoft account.... There's also a new backup tool on the desktop side of things, but this has its limits too.... One problem is neither File History nor the Metro restore feature are complete backup tools. The ability to clone and restore your whole PC, files, settings, and applications — by creating a System Image — is gone, or seemingly gone. Excellent backup tools are built in... you just need to know where to find them.
|
|
|
|
|
Microsoft's Xbox adventure in Japan began years before Bill Gates' 2001 keynote speech. When the Xbox was being created in Redmond, Bachus and Seamus Blackley, the two Xbox co-creators who spent the most time in Japan, always knew the market would be a challenge. At the turn of the century Japan dominated the console games industry with a whopping thirty per cent of the market. Here's what went wrong. Rules that apply to you as an outsider don't necessarily apply to insider products.
|
|
|
|
|
This project aims to allow any type of device to be controlled by a common web interface (IR, X10, etc.). Originally written by Daniel Myers, Alex Wilson, and Alex Zylman, this rewrite serves to improve extensibility by using a plugin architecture with a minimal core and plugins for features or protocols. Roll your own remote control for TVs, audio systems, lights... pretty much anything.
|
|
|
|
|
Computer processors are, for programmers, almost magical devices that do their commanded bidding. However, delving a bit deeper and figuring out what is really going on inside the processor can be an incredibly rewarding experience, and can help programmers write well-performing code as well as understand how the code they write actually gets executed. In this code, I'll go over how a program goes from human-readable form (i.e. assembly language) into a processor and how the processor executes a program. From Computing with Transistors, a series of blog posts describing how computers work from the ground up.
|
|
|
|
|
Today, the Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C) is announcing that it’s completed its three-year quest to finalize the HTML5 specification.... But despite the fact that the specification is now feature complete, meaning nothing more will be added to it, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done before HTML5 reaches the finish line in 2014, and there are unanswered questions about how the group plans to deal with video, an essential part of the web that has yet to see any clear resolution. Implementation is everything.
|
|
|
|
|
I'm building a startup on HTML5 (in particular, HTML5 audio), and the state of things is ugly for 1 reason:
Politics.
Here's a sample, just from the HTML5 <audio> element:
- IE refuses to implement open-standard codecs (e.g. OGG) because they are best served by making proprietary codecs popular in order to starve their non-commercial competition, Firefox. It becomes a check in the feature list, one that's missing from Firefox.
- Firefox refuses to implement MP3 audio and other commercial formats because they refuse to implement commercial codecs.
- Safari on iOS cripples HTML5 audio[^] because they would rather developers build native apps where Apple gets 30% purchase price.
- About the only one who is playing nice is Google. Their only fault is they lie: on Droid 2.2 devices, they lie reporting they support HTML5 audio when queried programmatically, but in reality they supported 0 audio formats. Reporting HTML5 audio support, but 0 audio formats, is useless and deceptive.
This is just a sample of the headaches I've had to deal with; the real state of HTML5 is much messier. Still better than the alternative, though.
|
|
|
|
|
You can also use the app for the requisite music playback, because no one wants to go in silence.
This could start a whole new genre of music and social media. What should they call a tweet from the loo?
CQ de W5ALT
Walt Fair, Jr., P. E.
Comport Computing
Specializing in Technical Engineering Software
|
|
|
|
|
The integrity of Windows Store applications is an important issue. It forms part of the value proposition to developers, of the store itself; not only does the store provide easy, reliable billing, distribution, and updating, it also provides at least some degree of protection against piracy and other kinds of exploitation. If Windows 8 can't provide this then competing platforms (such as iOS) and competing delivery mechanisms (such as the Web) become more appealing. Windows 8 apps can be hacked for piracy or ad removal. Should Microsoft do more?
|
|
|
|
|
Anyway, we have to follow Windows 8.
|
|
|
|
|
If computer programming languages are languages, then people who spoke one language and could programme to a high standard should be bilingual. Research has suggested that bilingual people perform faster than monolingual people at tasks requiring executive control – that is, tasks involving the ability to pay attention to important information and ignore irrelevant information. So, I set out to find out whether computer programmers were better at these tasks too. Berlitz Programming for Travelers, STEREO long-play recording...
|
|
|
|
|