A better way to loop

As a very old C programmer, I find, sometimes, that I am writing C in whatever language I’m using. If you have this problem, you should look at other ways to more efficiently code in other languages like Python. …

And do some programming.

Imagine you want to learn how to bowl. You can read a lot about bowling. There’s a lot to know. What’s a split? What’s a spare? How do you hold the ball? You can watch bowling on TV. But at some point, you’ll go as far…

Have you ever noticed how little things are sometimes very convenient? Making coffee with grounds isn’t that hard, but we all like to pop in a pod. You can put your drink between your legs when you drive, but a nice car has cupholders. Some of the latest Python features…

It seems like everyone’s first program is the proverbial “Hello World” or — here in Texas — “Howdy World.” But it isn’t long until you want to add changing things to your output strings or any string, for that matter. There are lots of ways to do that, but my…

Just as there are stages of grief, there are stages of debugging. Stage 1 is just looking at your program trying to figure out what is wrong. Stage 2 is adding print statements in your code to print out key values. …

Threading can be easy, but not that easy…

Most modern computers have multiple processors or, at least, a fast context switch for a single processor. Even if you have one processor, there will be a lot of time it doesn’t have anything to do but wait for one program and…

Is there nowhere gdb can’t go?

Unless you are superhuman, you’ll have bugs in your program. Many times you can use print statements to figure it out, but that’s not the best idea. Instead, you want a debugger. If your IDE provides one, it is probably only a shell around…

There’s an old joke about a man who goes into a hardware store complaining he has to chop down dozens of trees in his back yard. The woman who owns the store tells him he needs a chainsaw. The man is resistant so she says, “Tell you what. You take…