Posts Tagged "General Programming"

Functions Are Half the Battle

At this point I have been programming for nearly a quarter century. I have done multiple languages and worked with multiple platforms and technologies. Some of it can become quite complex and with that complexity comes extensive testing and solutions that just don't feel elegant at times. I often find myself asking the questions "How do I simplify this?" or "There has to be a simpler way, what is it?" ...

Exception Handling With A Level of Abstraction

One of the common topics you always see in programming articles is the one about proper use of exception handling and the try/catch mechanism (if supported by your language of choice). As you absorb the wisdom of the sacred text, looking for that nugget of information about how to do it properly, you almost always come across the idea of abstraction. The incantation often reads something like "Throw exceptions at ...

Building Shapes With Loops

From time to time it has been asked how to build standard 2D shapes with simple loops. It could be a rectangle of some sort or a right / equilateral triangle. Maybe even a triangle that is facing the left rather than facing the right. Even the diamond pattern is a good one asked by many instructors around. But why on Earth would instructors ask you to build these types ...

Waffle Matrices…Mmmm Where is the Syrup?

Have you ever sat at the kitchen table where you mom made you a big stack of waffles only to stare at the squares and realize it could be a matrix? Young child programmers do all the time! Heck you might have even written in random numbers using syrup into each square before eating it all up. Skyhawk133 wanted me to make a video on this very subject and while ...

Tips on Converting from Console to GUI

One of the most daunting tasks for any beginner programmer is building a great console application and wanting to put it into a GUI, but don't know how. Even experts have trouble at times doing this because the design for the console application assumes output would go to one screen unless directed elsewhere. In this entry I provide a few tips on migrating that great console app over to something ...