Random Quote:
"Cole slaw, it's like salad's retarded cousin."
-Me
Random Word:
I'm thinking something with an "-esque" at the end. What do you think
about "Melonesque", in the manner of or resembling a melon?
Random Rant:
I don't usually write computer-related rants, but here's one for you. To
those in the field of computing, programming, at its core, seems very
similar no matter the subfield you go into. And it is. Certain things do
not change across the board. You always need those simple constructs like
loops and if-else chains and there are universal tricks of the trade to
increase performance and, above all, get things right.
However, there are differences, and programmers have to be aware of them.
Daemon and GUI programming should be interrupt-based (or at least make use
of signals, notifies, and the like) instead of polling because of the
constant need of the program to update. If you poll, you are going to
reduce speed to a crawl. OS programming really needs to be aware of
hardware quirks and resources, lest you have unexpected race conditions or
unaligned memory access killing performance. Database apps should
minimize the number of queries to improve efficiency. But the most
egregious errors I've found are when web applications do not take into
account the inherent statelessness of HTTP. State had to be hacked on in
the forms of hidden variables, GET arguments, cookies, sessions, etc. So,
state can easily be hacked, and you had better check every input. "But
it's less efficient..." others say. I hope they have fun finding those
very fast, very efficient attacks on the security holes you created.
Ultimately, my point is that every program has its own quirks, every
subfield has its own small rules, and every system is unique. It's not
necessarily better or worse, and it's usually some combination of the two.
I've found that almost nothing in the field of computing is black and
white, it's a subtle shade of gray (grey if you really want to go there).
Learn the rules, and you will become a better programmer.
Random Thought:
Security by obscurity, the best kind there is...
Back to main