Greg Spurrier

General geekery

[Greg Spurrier @gregspurrier]

Smalltalk-80: The Language and its Implementation is probably the best example of technical documentation in my collection. It's a masterpiece!

[Greg Spurrier @gregspurrier]

@martinkl Martin, I agree the optics of this sign are bad, but that church isn't completely devoid of service to the underprivileged members of the surrounding community: https://t.co/TszbbH1bOv

[Tudor Girba @girba]

There is such a large difference between a prototype and a system. Yet, in a world of 15 seconds attention they look just the same.

[Greg Spurrier @gregspurrier]

Getting the itch to do some C (or maybe C++) programming for fun. It's been 17 years since I worked with C professionally and longer since I dabbled in C++.

Any recommendations of resources for coming up to speed with current language features and commonly accepted style?

[Greg Spurrier @gregspurrier]

Good food for thought and discussion here.

[Greg Spurrier @gregspurrier]

@SeanTAllen Smash was a great album.

[Greg Spurrier @gregspurrier]

@bbatsov Input. https://t.co/qYFZjZKSkT

[Greg Spurrier @gregspurrier]

Readable, evident tests are just as important as readable, evident production code.

[Greg Spurrier @gregspurrier]

@__mharrison__ A pen and a nice notebook for exploring ideas off screen.

[Greg Spurrier @gregspurrier]

@lynnlangit @redrapids That sounds fascinating!

[Kent Beck 🌻 @KentBeck]

I updated my take on "Accountability: The Good Parts" https://t.co/JRIfNmkX1T

[Greg Spurrier @gregspurrier]

@MaharajNirendra @Lispegistus I don't know whether it's the intended mnemonic, but I think of the 8 as being the 8 in UTF-8.

[Greg Spurrier @gregspurrier]

TIL: In Emacs, the C-x 8 prefix sequence can be used to enter multi-byte characters. E.g., `C-x 8 +` will produce ±.

`C-x 8 RET` allows the entering of arbitrary characters by name or hex. `C-x 8 C-h` shows all the available mappings.

[Greg Spurrier @gregspurrier]

One for me is "Accountability in Software Development" by @KentBeck. This essay and a similarly-themed keynote he gave at RailsConf 2008 had a big impact on how I approach my work as a software developer.

https://t.co/fPsYL3PC9V

[Greg Spurrier @gregspurrier]

Love this topic of lesser-known mind-blowing texts in computer science and software engineering. @marick mentions a few in this thread. I'd love to hear of others.

What have you read that left a lasting impression on you and you wish more people would discover?

[Greg Spurrier @gregspurrier]

@jeanqasaur Fair point. An understanding of how those abstractions are implemented, though, still feels relevant for using them effectively and dealing with the mess and poor documentation.

Is there a middle ground that can evaluate that as well?

[Greg Spurrier @gregspurrier]

@SeanTAllen Sounds like a good start. Who is BC?

[Greg Spurrier @gregspurrier]

@SeanTAllen Interesting, indeed! I expect that unikernals a la Mirage OS would also work well in their target application. I wonder what the pros and cons would be for each approach.

[Greg Spurrier @gregspurrier]

@marick Totally agree. The intuition I spoke of only comes from years of experience. I can appreciate how an apprenticeship model of training could help convey that. Or even convey the knowledge that there is a better way waiting to be discovered.

[Greg Spurrier @gregspurrier]

@marick Which is apt for a maze implementation... not every path attempted will take you to the exit.

[Greg Spurrier @gregspurrier]

@marick Intuition gained through experience? "This isn't working out... there must be a better way ... let's try again". Repeat as necessary.