Andrew Binstock
Binstock on Software
I write the "Integration Watch" column for SD Times and I'm a senior contributing editor at InfoWorld where I review middleware and enterprise software development tools. For the past 16 years, I have also been a judge for the Jolt awards. My other work consists of being a technology analyst at my company, Pacific Data Works, where I write technology white papers for private clients. 
My Interview with Alexander Stepanov and Paul McJones
Submitted by Andrew Binstock on Tue, 08/04/2009 - 17:16.Tags:
InformIT.com has posted my interview with Alexander Stepanov (of STL fame) and his co-author Paul McJones. Their just-released book, Elements of Programming, tries to map algorithm implementations back to symbolic logic and algebraic theorems, thereby--in theory--improving their design and correctness.
Read more ...
Groovy Books
Submitted by Andrew Binstock on Sat, 07/25/2009 - 20:12.Tags:
I have been using Groovy to write functional tests for Platypus, the open-source typesetting project I work on. I am likely to make Groovy the default scripting language for Platypus in the next milestone. In the process, I've had to come up to speed on Groovy and I've been reading through and looking over the various Groovy titles on the market. Here's my take.
Read more ...
The Fan programming language: compile to Java and .NET
Submitted by Andrew Binstock on Wed, 05/20/2009 - 18:19.I have recently been playing with Fan, a programming language that reminds me a lot of Groovy, but has additional capabilities, such as actors. Its binaries run either on the JVM or .NET. Below is my recent column in SDTimes about the language.
The Agile Rules in HP's Original Garage
Submitted by Andrew Binstock on Mon, 01/05/2009 - 05:09.Tags:
According to a recent HP poster, these were the rules in Bill Hewett and Dave's Packard famous garage:
Read more ...
Bob Martin's "Clean Code" Reviewed
Submitted by Andrew Binstock on Fri, 11/14/2008 - 01:39.Tags:
I have gone through "Uncle Bob" Martin's new book, Clean Code,
Read more ...
Banishing Return Status Codes
Submitted by Andrew Binstock on Sun, 09/28/2008 - 21:34.The most enduringly popular post on this blog is Perfecting OO's Small Classes and Short Methods, which presents a short series of stringent guidelines to help an imperative-trained developer master OO.
Read more ...
A Parameter-Validation Smell and a Solution
Submitted by Andrew Binstock on Mon, 09/01/2008 - 21:14.Tags:
Last week, Jeff Fredrick and I did a day-long code review of Platypus. We used a pair-programming approach, with Jeff driving and I helping with the navigation. Eventually, we got into the input parser, which parses input lines into a series of tokens: text, commmands, macros, and comments. Macros can require a second parsing pass, and commands often require additional parsing of parameters.
Read more ...
Is the popularity of unit tests waning?
Submitted by Andrew Binstock on Fri, 05/23/2008 - 03:20.Tags:
Before getting into my concerns about whether unit testing's popularity has peaked, let me state that I think unit testing is the most important benefit wrought by the agile revolution. I agree that you can write perfectly good programs without unit tests (we did put man on the moon in 1969, after all), but for most programs of any size, you're likely to be far better off using unit tests than not.
Read more ...
Knuth Interview Posted
Submitted by Andrew Binstock on Fri, 04/25/2008 - 18:08.Tags:
My interview with Donald Knuth is now posted. It's a long piece, that has some unusually interesting points, including:
- why Knuth doesn't believe in designing code for reuse
- he's most unconvinced of multithreading and multicore on the desktop
- discussion of the tools he uses to program and write (including Ubuntu)
- etc.
A very fun read (and a fun interview to do).
Perfecting OO's Small Classes and Short Methods
Submitted by Andrew Binstock on Thu, 04/24/2008 - 02:12.Tags:
In The ThoughtWorks Anthology
a new book from the Pragmatic Programmers, there is a fascinating essay called “Obje Read more ...
Easy Does It With easyb
Submitted by Andrew Binstock on Tue, 04/08/2008 - 01:49.Tags:
I just got back from the CITcon conference, which is the thrice-yearly confab of agile developers who use continuous integration (the "CIT" in the conference name). This was my second time at CITcon. It's an open-space conference that is--surprise!--free, and chock-a-block full of good information. The principal reason it's so informative is that anyone committed enough to CI to go to a conference has probably spent a lot of time thinking about how to solve problems of build and test at his/her site.
Read more ...
Great Reference For Ruby
Submitted by Andrew Binstock on Mon, 03/31/2008 - 22:54.Tags:
Read more ...
Restarting the Platypus And the Lessons Learned
Submitted by Andrew Binstock on Wed, 02/20/2008 - 04:59.As many of you know, I have spent much of my free time during the last 24 months working on an open-source project called Platypus. The project's goal is to implement a command language like TeX, which enables users to embed formatting commands directly into text and generate documents of typeset quality in PDF, Microsoft Word, and HTML. The aims of Platypus are to be much easier to use than Tex and to provide many features of interest to developers, especially for printing code and listings.
Read more ...
Internal USB Ports: What do you think they're for?
Submitted by Andrew Binstock on Sat, 01/26/2008 - 03:26.Earlier this week, I was being briefed by HP about some recently released workstations. As we were moving through the slide-deck, a small item caught my attention: one workstation claimed to have 2 USB ports on the front panel, 6 on the back, and 2 marked "internal." Why, I asked, would anyone want an internal USB port on a PC? Care to guess?
The answer is: for dongle keys. Yeah, they're still around and they use USB form factors. The internal aspect is interesting. It's designed so you can insert the dongle, lock the PC and nobody walks off with the dongle key.
Read more ...
About Us | Advertise | Contact Us | Terms of Service/Privacy
Copyright, 2006-2008 Network World, Inc. All rights reserved.