Category: Programming

Day 14 – Blocks, Procs, and the Others I get it. Seven pages into Day 14 trying to figure out what other meant in Slagell’s examples and it clicks. In other languages I’m familiar with (Applescript, PHP, Perl, REALbasic) variables are passed through methods. Example if we have a method that’s friendly, function SayHiTo($name) { […]

Day 13 – Putting the Pieces together Alright, we’re back to Ruby. My apologies for slowing down, and with only 8 days to go. Let’s jump right into day 13. On the outset, Slagell explains the notion of Ruby being a ‘glue language’, like Perl. A language coordinating multiple programs or processes. Historically, AppleScript has […]

Day 12 – When repeating yourself is the preferred method is repeating yourself. Today’s topic is recursion – iteratively calling a function numerous times with a single minor change. On face value, it sounds like something computer technology should help us avoid. In addition, it seems to directly conflict the Ruby on Rails mantra Don’t […]

Day 11 – Program organization, Part 3 of 3. Today, Slagell clarifies the difference between classes and modules. As I mentioned back in my review of The Object-Oriented Thought Process, a ‘class’ in object-oriented programming is a noun, a Thing. Like a chair, a sweater, or Slartibartfast. Modules are like adjectives. All the nouns I […]

Day 10 – Program organization, Part 2 of 3. As an experienced information architect, I’m familiar with the challenges of declaring an organizational structure. Whether its for books, furniture, clothing, or software, every structure has it’s biases – somethings are easier, others more difficult. With this in mind, the goal is always to net a […]

Day 9 – Program organization, Part 1 of 3. Back in my review of The Object-Oriented Thought Process, I talked about the difference between is a and has a in programming world. Dave was then kind enough to clarify. Today’s chapter was that. In practical, We’re-Writing-Code terms, rather than the abstract, This-is-How-To-Think-About-It way of the […]

Day 8, What are regular expressions? If you don’t know about regular expression matching, or regex, it’s basically a language to find the useful needles in haystacks of text and code. Think ‘find and replace’ turned to 11. I do just enough regular expression matching to forget how it works. I always end up googling […]

Day 7, playing catch-up. I’m continually impressed with how concise the Ruby language is. As I mentioned in Day 4, Ruby frowns upon loops. I’m getting the impression Ruby also frowns upon taking up 2 or more lines to describe an action. Slagell’s examples of doing something a traditional way take up multiple lines, his […]

Day 6, How to deal with files and other data streams. What’s a reliable way to get the last item in an array? ask for the -1 item, i.e. array[-1]. Finally, a logical reason to start arrays at 0 rather than 1 – so we can count backwards. Looks like the “then” part of an […]