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1500 questions
59
votes
17 answers
What programming problems are best solved by using pointers?
Well, I basically understand how to use pointers, but not how best to use them in order to do better programming.
What are good projects or problems to resolve involving the use of pointers so I can understand them better?
dsocolobsky
- 963
58
votes
17 answers
How can I make refactoring a priority for my team?
The codebase I work with daily has no automated tests, inconsistent naming and tons of comments like "Why is this here?", "Not sure if this is needed" or "This method isn't named right" and the code is littered with "Changelogs" despite the fact we…
Joseph Garland
- 431
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- 3
58
votes
19 answers
Does OOP fulfill the promise of code reuse? What alternatives are there to achieve code reuse?
Perhaps the greatest promise of using object-oriented paradigm is the code reuse. Some dispute that this was achieved. Why was it (not) achieved?
Does code reuse as OOP defines it, make projects more productive?
Or more manageable? Or easier to…
Maniero
- 10,806
58
votes
12 answers
What are the chances of Google's Go becoming a mainstream language?
Who here is learning Go? Are other companies looking at using it? Is it likely to become widely used?
interstar
- 1,449
58
votes
13 answers
When do you not give help to less experienced programmers?
Do you think that its a good idea when a junior programmer needs help to always jump in and try to educate them? Or will they ignore all the "teaching to fish" advice you give them and just focus on the "fish" you just brought them? Do you let them…
Doug T.
- 11,672
58
votes
3 answers
Why Python and not Lua?
Why has Python been backed by google and become so rapidly popular and Lua has not?
Do you know why Lua has stayed in background?
BenjaminB
- 1,706
58
votes
6 answers
Are DDD Aggregates really a good idea in a Web Application?
I'm diving in to Domain Driven Design and some of the concepts i'm coming across make a lot of sense on the surface, but when I think about them more I have to wonder if that's really a good idea.
The concept of Aggregates, for instance makes sense.…
Erik Funkenbusch
- 2,788
58
votes
11 answers
If two individual branches pass unit tests, once they're merged, is the result also guaranteed to pass unit tests?
Suppose we have two branches A and B which have been forked from master.
Both branches A and B make some changes and implement some unit tests. They pass all current and new tests, then are merged back into master. For simplicity, there are no merge…
kentrid
- 721
58
votes
8 answers
How do I ensure that interface implementations are implemented in the manner I expected?
Let's say there is a member SomeMethod in an interface ISomeInterface as follows:
public interface ISomeInterface
{
int SomeMethod(string a);
}
For the purposes of my program, all consumers of ISomeInterface act upon the assumption that the…
user4779
- 929
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58
votes
6 answers
Functions that simply call another function, bad design choice?
I have a setup of a class that represents a building. This building has a floor plan, which has bounds.
The way I have it setup is like this:
public struct Bounds {} // AABB bounding box stuff
//Floor contains bounds and mesh data to update…
WDUK
- 2,082
58
votes
2 answers
How would you implement Google Search?
Supposed you were asked in an interview "How would you implement Google Search?"
How would you answer such a question? There might be resources out there that explain how some pieces in Google are implemented (BigTable, MapReduce, PageRank, ...),…
ripper234
- 1,114
58
votes
16 answers
How should I store "unknown" and "missing" values in a variable, while still retaining the difference between "unknown" and "missing"?
Consider this an "academic" question. I have been wondering about about avoiding NULLs from time to time and this is an example where I can't come up with a satisfactory solution.
Let's assume I store measurements where on occasions the measurement…
exhuma
- 1,191
58
votes
8 answers
Is there a keyword or operator for "nor"?
Is there an operator equivalent of nor? For example, my favorite color is neither green nor blue.
And the code would be equivalent to:
// example one
if (color!="green" && color!="blue") {
}
// example two
if (x nor y) {
// x is false and y…
1.21 gigawatts
- 1,219
- 1
- 11
- 22
58
votes
5 answers
Should I really use all uppercase for my constants?
I am a Python programmer primarily who uses pylint for linting source code. I am able to eliminate all of the warnings except one: Invalid name for a constant. Changing the name to all caps fixes it, but am I really supposed to do that? If I do it,…
Abhishek Kumar
- 691
58
votes
7 answers
Why does the call stack have a static maximum size?
Having worked with a few programming languages, I've always wondered why the thread stack has a predefined maximum size, instead of expanding automatically as required.
In comparison, certain very common high level structures (lists, maps, etc.)…
Lynn
- 846