Comic JK 311: A Fateful Choice

Comic JK 311: A Fateful Choice. At last a cartoon about inheritance!

If the comments are ugly, the code is ugly

If the comments are ugly, the code is ugly | ITworld. Programming, whether you're doing it as an open source enthusiast or because you're workin' for The Man, is an exercise in attention to detail. Someone who writes software must be a nit-picker, or the code won't work.

via Slashdot

Java String Concatenation and Performance

Java String Concatenation and Performance ~ Joey’s Scribble’s. “The quick and dirty way to concatenate strings in Java is to use the concatenation operator (+). This will yield a reasonable performance if you need to combine two or three strings (fixed-size). But if you want to concatenate n strings in a loop, the performance degrades in multiples of n.” An article that compares the speed of  4 different ways to concatenating Strings in Java.  Using  StringBuilder is clearly the fastest but it is interesting to see the range of differences. The comments to the article also mention when StringBuffer should be preferred.

via Dz0ne

DocWeb – Java API

DocWeb – Java API
“A Sun-sponsored community JavaDocs site where members: Translate JavaDocs, Offer Bug References, Contribute Notes, Provide Code Examples & Rate Community Contributions” — a new way to view JavaDocs, includes more code samples!

A trojan horse programmer speaks out

gulli: Bundestrojaner: A programmer speaks out  “His job there was to code malware that would allow to invade PCs of private users. ERA IT Solutions should in particular be involved in constructing trojans which allow the wiretapping of VoIP calls.”  A very interesting and enlightening interview.  (via slashdot)

Software Testing Tips

Software Testing Tips | ChoosyInfo A few good tips about testing. Here is one that novices don’t often ignore. “Prepare your test cases in requirement or design phase…” (via dzone)

A Career in Computing

A Career in Computing Some good advice from a well-known author in our field.

10 commandments for creating good code

10 commandments for creating good code « Making Good Software Good guidelines, succintly put. (via DZone)

25 Microchips That Shook the World

IEEE Spectrum: 25 Microchips That Shook the World An interesting read about the hardware side of things.

Effective Java NullPointerException Handling

Dustin’s Software Development Cogitations and Speculations: Effective Java NullPointerException Handling An excellent article on handling and avoiding NullPointer exceptions. (via dzone)