On my last post, someone named Bob didn’t like that I’d said: “NYU did not have any sort of club for women interested in CS.” Did they have a general CS club? If so, they had a club for women interested in CS. Having special clubs just for women (or just for men) hurts womenContinue reading “Encouraging Female Programmers, Even the Redheads”
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Velocity 2013
I’m going to be signing books at Velocity Conference on Tuesday, October 15. You can find me at the O’Reilly booth from 10:50-11:50. Last time I did a conference signing, O’Reilly had a stack of free books I had written and they just gave them out down the line, although you had to have meContinue reading “Velocity 2013”
Using Visual “APIs”
I’ve worked on a couple of games in my free time now and each time I learn more about how to make the graphics look polished. Assuming that, dammit Jim, you’re a programmer, not an artist, here are some tips: Choose a Theme Come up with the concept of your game: is it going toContinue reading “Using Visual “APIs””
The Professor, the Interviewer, and the Coworker
I once interviewed a guy who was pretty good, but not a definite “yes-hire-him-now,” which was what 10gen was looking for. He was a bit careless and indifferent and I’ve noticed that when someone can’t keep their personality quirks down in an interview, they’re not going to suppress them once they’ve been hired. (Which isContinue reading “The Professor, the Interviewer, and the Coworker”
Smart Pointers and Heirloom Underpants
I’ve seen a lot of descriptions of scoped_ptr and unique_ptr, but often they don’t give clear examples of when to use one vs. the other. Hopefully this will clear things up. unique_ptr is like an heirloom ring: you might purchase it, have it all your life, and end up being buried with it. For example,Continue reading “Smart Pointers and Heirloom Underpants”
Edutainment
Bjarne Stroustrup gave a talk on C++ 14 and beyond at Google a few weeks ago. The part I remember best was: If you got Microsoft, Apple, and Google together in a room to discuss how to implement C++, that would be collusion and illegal. But if Microsoft, Apple, and Google are on a standardsContinue reading “Edutainment”
Ludum Dare
This weekend, I participated in Ludum Dare, a game programming competition where you make a game in 48 hours. Here’s the final result: And the source, including all images and music: https://github.com/kchodorow/ld27. Incidentally, it worked out to 48 commits over 48 hours. If you’re registered, please try it and rate my game. All in all,Continue reading “Ludum Dare”
Labeling Git Branches
I came across git branch descriptions today and it is so freakin useful that I wanted to share. My branches usually look like this: $ git branch add-feature feature-add * implement-foo implement-foo2 temp temp2 It is… not the clearest. Luckily, you can add descriptions to branches: $ git checkout implement-foo2 $ git branch –edit-description —PopsContinue reading “Labeling Git Branches”
Music Gremlins is Approved!
My iPad app is approved and going live on July 1st! Music Gremlins is an ear-training game where you beat gremlins by matching the notes that they play. Different types of gremlins demand different strategies. As a musician, I found it very difficult to practice relative pitch and this makes it easier and more fun.Continue reading “Music Gremlins is Approved!”
It’s turtles all the way down
“Turtles all the way down” is a concept that Java handles very nicely: public class Turtle { Turtle prevTurtle; public Turtle(Turtle prevTurtle) { if (prevTurtle == null) { throw new RuntimeException(“It’s turtles all the way down.”); } this.prevTurtle = prevTurtle; } } (Probably there should be a special FiniteTurtleException, but I wanted to keep theContinue reading “It’s turtles all the way down”
Kristina Chodorow's Blog 