http://programmersdiary.today.com thoughts of an obsessive programmer Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:17:28 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en I'm taking part in Al Zimmermann's latest programming contest, Son of Darts. The idea of the contest is to select values for the regions on a dartboard. The aim is for a number of darts to make as many consecutive values as possible.For example with 6 darts and two regions ... http://programmersdiary.today.com/2009/11/17/son-of-darts-programming-contest-2/ #songsincode is a trend which started on Twitter a few weeks ago. The idea is to express the title or lyrics of a song as a computer program. Here's an example by Roy van Rijn: for(Leaf leaf:leafs) {leaf.setColor(new Color(139,69,19));} sky.setColor(Color.GRAY); This is California Dreamin' by the Mamas and Papas, "All the leaves are brown ... http://programmersdiary.today.com/2009/09/26/songs-in-code/ I've just rediscovered a project I started in 1997 and have always intended to go back and complete one day. The project is a small operating system suitable for microcontrollers. The OS will provide the following functionality, similar to a MicroKernel: memory management (done) preemptive task switching (done) process management (done) inter process communication Memory Management Memory ... http://programmersdiary.today.com/2009/08/17/writing-a-small-operating-system/ At the moment I have two major projects on the go, but so far this week I've only written seven lines of code! Despite this I've managed to either read or skim through a variety of papers / articles about programming (listed below). It's got to stage where I need to ... http://programmersdiary.today.com/2009/07/21/stop-reading-and-get-some-programming-done/ Implementing my own Forth interpreter is taking a little longer than anticipated. Each Forth word is almost like a puzzle. What's the smallest number of words each can be written in? What's the most efficient implementation? For an example, take a look at Implementing MIN in Forth without Conditional Code. ... http://programmersdiary.today.com/2009/07/15/progress-report-my-forth-interpreter/ Over the past few weeks I've been taking a closer look at a few early programming games. It's disappointing to note there's very little information about most of them online. RobotWar by Silas Warner is the earliest example of a battle robot programming game, published by MUSE Software for the Apple ... http://programmersdiary.today.com/2009/06/04/programming-games-request-for-information/ Over the past few weeks I've been a pretty lazy programmer! First I spent a few days camping in Norfolk without access to a computer or any decent books. Luckily I found a copy of The Recursive Universe by William Poundstone in one of Holt's secondhand bookshops. It ... http://programmersdiary.today.com/2009/05/09/lazy-programmer/ After spending a week on the Isle of Wight, I've finally returned to the civilized world. Thanks to Lawrence for recommending Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, although in the end I didn't have enough time to finish reading it. Programming Report Most days I was up about an hour or ... http://programmersdiary.today.com/2009/04/12/holiday-is-over-programming-report/ First thing tomorrow I'll be heading south to spend a week in the great outdoors. Although my laptop is staying at home, I'm planning to program something worthwhile with a handful of scrap paper and a few hand-written notes. Since I didn't have time to order a book about Forth, there's ... http://programmersdiary.today.com/2009/04/02/when-a-programmer-goes-on-holiday/ URISC is an abstract computer designed to have a minimal instruction set, just one machine code instruction. The practical uses of URISC are debatable.URISC is an abbreviation of Ultimate RISC, although technically the machine doesn't meet the criteria for RISC. OISC is an acronym for One Instruction Set Computer, although ... http://programmersdiary.today.com/2009/03/30/urisc-oisc-one-instruction-computers/