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My company is planning to build a simulation tool for processing (beverage) and we're currently looking at a half-baked system written in Xojo. I had personally never heard of this language and would appreciate it if anyone could give a quick assessment.
We have no in-house Xojo competence at all and are of course reluctant to bring in a system that would require a big investment in know-how for just one system.
So, we're now looking at our options: Port it to a language we're good at (C# or Java) or continue development in Xojo while building internal skills for the language.
So, what are the big pro's and con's with Xojo?
Cheers
Xojo has been around since the late 1990s, then named RealBasic. Its strength lies in its ability to make native looking and behaving apps for many platforms, mainly OS X but also Win and even Linux. The dev community is fairly small, though. But the company managed to stay in business all this time and isn't looking to end it any time soon.
The language is fairly simple and easy to learn, using long known concepts (its design was based on Visual Basic).
Knowing Java, it should be easy to grasp the language. The bigger hurdle is probably getting familiar with its libary. Many things are much simpler to accomplish in Xojo vs Java, though.
Call me lazy, but that's what I like about Xojo. I also program ObjC in Xcode, but for those little tools that just need to work quickly, Xojo is superior for whipping out a program quickly that that has a decent UI and works on many platforms with little to no tweaks.
If you need x-platform support, give it a try, for sure. If you only need the app to run on a single platform, and if you have skills with other dev systems, I'd advise against starting out with Xojo, to avoid the risks you get when going with such a small company that's offering closed-source software.
In your particular case where you have already a half-working solution, I suggest you take a few days to familiarize yourself to get a feeling for it (you can use Xojo for free as long as you don't build standalone apps with it). It's overall fairly stable and I'm still using a 3-year old version most of the time to develop and build my apps. So, even if Xojo should go out of business suddenly, I'd not be too worried. As long as you stick with the simple functionality (e.g. not use unique features such as XojoScript), you can still convert the app to another language later, but there's also a fair chance you never have to.
If you are looking for someone to take a look at your Xojo project I'd recommend posting on the Xojo Find A Developer page at http://www.xojo.com/support/consultants.php where all Pro developers get it. The consultants that want to talk to you about it will then contact you. (Full disclosure: we, BKeeney Software, are on the list and would be happy to help you figure it all out).
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Its my last semester of college and I have to do a big presentation in December. I plan on designing a small language that not only works, but also has some nifty features to go with it. Does anyone have any interesting syntax ideas or features that would impress my professors?
Note: I do not want to just copy a language and reimplement it. Im looking to do a little research and try some new ideas out.
I have a crazy idea.
There are compilers that compile compilers. This is fun enough by itself.
You can implement one in the MetaII style (read this other SO answer:
Are there any "fun" ways to learn about Languages, Grammars, Parsing and Compilers?)
What makes this doable for a student project is that the MetaII compiler is remarkably small, and
the technical paper (read the other answer) has everything you need in 10 pages
except some sweat, which you supply. And this fits
well in the time frame you have available (which is frankly pretty short for as student
to just sit down and whack out a compiler by himself).
MetaII's own description of itself is remarkably terse: only some 50 lines(!).
And since it can compile itself, it can compile enhanced versions of itself... so
you can use it to bootstrap much more complicated compilers. Normally, that's the
direction most people want to take it, since MetaII by itself is fairly simple.
Here's the crazy idea: You can also use it to compile less capable versions of itself.
The question is, how much can you take out, and still be able to climb back up the
metacompiler ladder? How small a compiler can you build that is still bootstrappable?
I know for a fact that MetaII has 2 items are removable, since I've done
this in the long distant past. I'm not going to tell you what they are becuase
that spoils the discovery process. But its good in a student project to take
on something that is already known to be doable, so you don't go down alleys
that have real dead ends.
One of the people I'm knew long ago apparantly tried to do this seriously. His goal was to reduce this to a very short string of characters... think of this as "compiler DNA".
Whilst I might not be able to answer your question directly, I am sure this will give you some insights from my own experience - given, for a final year project I also attempted my own scripting language (in C++) - although I am aware you're attempting a compiler so there might not be similarities. Please learn from my mistakes.
From experience:
What you imagine the scripting language will do (you type in a command, does something nifty like it fixes windows or something) and what it actually does (you type in a command, but minutes later it crashes) can often be two different things. Keep it realistic.
Aside from the brain imagining this fantastic finished product (with no inbetween), it also has a tendency of deluding itself on it's own capabilities (like 'other programmers made that mistake but I won't!'). Chances are you do make the same mistakes, or if not the same, different mistakes.
The brain has a poor ability to assess time required (if it's thinking 'it's just a hack job that'll take a month' - think again), and time it thinks is required should be multiplied between 5 to 10 times (if not more) to get an accurate idea of real scope needed. Keep to the lengthy end of the scope - worse-case scenario.
Unexpected pitfalls. Like 'how do I implement multi-precedented logic statements' and 'it's taking longer than I expected (see 3.)'. Be willing to give up complicated matters.
Design. Don't just look for ideas, think about whether or not it's a viable project, and look at how you're going to implement the groundwork before jumping to the complicated stuff (see 1.). Laying the groundwork early on can save you time. And don't forget design documents.
Research. Chances are that function you plan to write out, has already been written before somewhere. Research for it. This will save you time. Do not reinvent the wheel and do not be concerned about efficiency (university is about learning).
As one commenter said, start simple, get it working, then expand.
Best way to develop useful ideas, is to see what really bothers you about a certain task or certain scripting languages, and build it so you can eliminate or minimise that task. For example, I got annoyed by having to keep downloading files from a website and sorting it manually into specific folders - so I built a program to do that for me.
Don't go general-purpose for such a small project. Find a niche where you would like to be able to program a solution to an everyday problem. Off the top of my head, how about a constraint language for window placement in your X11 window manager of choice?
If you're just looking to have some fun, then you should try and create your own 'esoteric language'. 'Brainf**k' has kinda achieved meme status in the community (If I'm not wrong)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esoteric_programming_language
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Lately I've been job hunting, and for the most part, they would ask me what type of IDE I like to use.
Now, I usually answer with;
Well it all depends on what language I'm developing it in. If it's Java then it would be Eclipse, if AS3 then either Flash CS4 or Flex Builder 3. For HTML, CSS, PHP, and Javascript, I prefer to use PsPad. (almost identical to Notepad+ or textmage).
Now why is it that they always seem to become immediately disgusted with the fact that I said PSPad? Truth be told, I don't like to use DreamWeaver because I feel like it's bloated. I mean to each his own I guess ... but I've tried using it and I honestly work faster with PSPad.
Should I start using Dreamweaver just to put in my resume?
Theoretical Advice
It's quite reasonable not to like IDE's, though you do need to acknowledge their usefulness, and everyone has their own most efficient ways of working, which makes sense.
Practical Advice
You can't deal with recruitment agents logically, I'm afraid. You need to check their checkboxes, and get past them, to talk to someone real.
Once you get into a real interview with a programmer, be honest about everything, about why you don't like IDE's (especially DreamWeaver) and then you can just hope for the appropriate outcome.
But with recruitment agents you need to appreciate that they don't understand anything about our industry; and you typically need to give them the answers they want.
I'd say your are "familiar" with DreamWeaver and leave it at that.
Maybe they don't know what PSPad is - I didn't. As for Dreamweaver, I would actually look down on somebody who uses Dreamweaver. It's much better to be able to code from scratch.
And to answer your question - it's definitely not wrong to not prefer a single IDE for everything. You should use whatever tools you feel comfortable with, and if it's different for each language, then so be it.
No, just like it's not wrong to prefer:
Horses over cars;
Kerosene lamps over electrical lighting;
Aqueducts over water pipes;
Storing food in a cold cellar instead of an "icebox";
Punch cards over keyboards and visual displays;
and so on.
Sucks that we have to go through people who care not about the programmer but the programs we use!
I mean I think I lost a few chances just by trying to explain that I am decent with HTML and CSS but don't use Dreamweaver (because I cant afford it).
Though I am not that worried, I did eventually stumble across a person who does understand these things and love working for him. So no it's not wrong, you're just unlucky to have come across wrong recruiters.
Good luck finding a job though!
PS It doesn't take more than 10 minutes to get familiar with an IDE, so always a plus to try out some (so you're not completely lost later).
One way to spin such answers is to make yourself the expert. So you could say something like, "I'm familiar with Dreamweaver, but once I got really good at coding HTML, CSS etc. I found it more efficient to just use a really fast and simple text editor like PSPad."
I used the same trick after I worked in C++ and was applying for a Java job. In that case, it went like this, "Well, the nice thing about having started in C++ is that it's such a rich and low level language that once you've done that, Java seems really easy by comparison."
The recruiter doesn't know what DreamWeaver is -- they just know what a commission is. Show them you'll make them one by selling yourself to their principle and they'll send you out to interview more often than not.
Look: when you're job hunting the person who is looking at your resume is either a:
Human Resource person (Needs a person to fill a position or just interview)
Head Hunter (Needs a body to fill a job so they can get their placement pay)
IT Manager (Needs a qualified soul for the best price).
Depending on the person interviewing you over the phone or in person they are just trying to get the best candidate for a position. Sometimes they have prepared questions to see how much you know, how you think and do you match up to your resume.
I went to a .NET code camp once and a head hunter was asked how one goes about showing the interviewer their experience. The head hunter said show them your work:
Bring a laptop with samples of your work.
Print out code sample.
Direct the interview to a website with samples of your work.
Things like this get you past the IDE question real quick.
As silky alluded to above, it's probably a simple mechanism in use by the HR agency to filter out candidates. If you're not using an IDE on the selected list, you're filtered.
For me, when interviewing, I would find somebody who says they use VIM or Emacs as their IDE to be a more advanced developer than perhaps somebody using Notepad.
Last time a CTO asked me what I use, I immediately said "Emacs, of course". He said, "OK, now I'm interested!". I've been working there since.
(I don't know why PSPad would be any worse than Dreamweaver or Eclipse. I find all IDEs hard to really customize. Everybody I work with has gobs of elisp, much of it shared, to make it much more productive for our project.)
Maybe you're talking to the wrong people for the kind of job you want. Where are you finding these "they" who ask you this?
It's certainly not worse than depending on one.
I use EMACS as my primary programming environment. It has a few big advantages:
It's available practically everywhere.
You can use it without having a window system installed.
You can use it over SSH.
It lets you edit multiple files at the same time.
It understands most programming languages.
You can run subshells.
Oh, you can read your email from within it, too.
This question has no good answer. It depends on the culture of the place you're interviewing for. At my current job, I play up my Unix experience and can impress other folks that also enjoy non IDE toolsets. vi, one liner scripts, etc. At my former gig, people were enamored with Visual Basic, and thought the command line was horrific. I'll bet if you were interviewing for the company that develops PSPad you would not have had the same result. ;-)
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During hiring a .NET web developer I give the candidate a coding test.
I tend to limit the candidate to MSDN installed on the test server - I think it holds everything the candidate needs to complete the task.
I admit, this is not the normal case as I don't expect the candidate to do his work without use of the web.
On the other hand I don't want the candidate to google for a complete example and copy-paste it, i want to evaluate his skills.
The question is do I need to allow free use of the web during the test?
If you think the whole coding test is wrong - I would like to hear alternatives you may have for me.
As you say, 'I don't expect the candidate to do his work without use of the web' why not allow it too during the test? And what if he does copy and paste? I do that too. Surely the key is to know where to look, be discerning with what you find and apply it intelligently. Do you want to hire someone with a terrific memory or someone who can develop software for you?
When I was at school, calculators were just becoming affordable. As their use was seen as unavoidable, the exams were changed. Simple number-crunching was no longer tested in the way it was before (it was important then). Rather problem-solving techniques were to be tested.
I usually allow candidates to use whatever resources they want. After they're done, I sit down with them and go through their code together, ask questions like why they chose that particular approach etc.
If a couple of minutes of Googling was enough to not just copypaste some code but to learn enough about it to be able to defend the decisions within, then he's intelligent enough!
There are tests, where web access can be given, and there are where it doesn't really make sense.
Case where its fine to allow web access
When its unlikely to find even 60 percent of the code over the net
When you will ask to explain the code after he/she completed the code
A very specific solution using SQL query, which is unlikely to be found on the web
Case where its fine to not allow web access
Some basic programs like, recurssion, fibonacci, factorial, string manipulation, small trick programs, etc. There is no need of computer even in some of these cases
I'm very sceptical about coding tests during interviews. I think that a lot of the test I have seen, represent very specific (artificial, non real-world) problems where you would use the internet to solve them.
I think it's not really important to know how to solve such problems by heart - often time it is much more important that you know how and where to search for answers.
If you want to test the persons during the interview, I think it is better to ask them some conceptual questions instead of a specific programming problem. E.g: questions about object orientation, polymorphism, design of n-tier application, etc. etc.
Or as an example from the ASP.NET world, ask the interviewed person question such as: what is ViewState, what is a postback, what is session-/application-state, etc.
If you want to get an idea of how a candidate will perform in a job, I think it's best to try and make the conditions of the test as close as possible to the actual working conditions.
It should be pretty easy to prevent copy-and-pasters from slipping through the cracks by asking the candidate to explain his/her code.
Well, one thing you want to be aware of is that the developer you hire might not know everything that he will be thrown during the time he is working for you. If you ask him a question that he doesn't know off the top of his head you would want and expect him to research it and come back to you with proof that he understood the concepts that he just learned.
I say let them use the web - but ask them to explain in their own words how their code works. Most of my knowledge comes from online resources. However, I make sure that every line of code I write I understand.
There is a baseline knowledge that developers in a particular field should know; but you also want to figure out how quickly he can learn new things. A good test IMO is to throw a question you know he doesn't know and see how long he can figure it out using the resources he would have if he were an employee of your company.
Is your goal to see what basic knowledge the candidate has and if he can code without copying solutions from the web, then don't allow internet access. If you want to see what strategies he employs to get to a solution, let him use the web if he wants to.
I personally find it more interesting if a candidate can solve problems on a larger scale than just solving a simple programming problem. So I tend to ask him about the methods he uses when programming (Unit testing? Ever worked with it? What do you think of it?). This gives me a better picture than coding in an interview situation.
Sometimes it helps if you ask the candidates beforehand to bring a one-page coding sample to take a look at their coding style. This also saves you time during the interview.
It's important to make sure a candidate is resourceful - you don't want your programmer sitting there when they get stuck, not moving forward; you want them to use whatever resources are at hand - be it MSDN, picking someone else's brains, using the web, etc - to get the job done. Cut-n-paste from the web does seem like cheating, but (a) if you design your task carefully then it will be unique enough for there not to be a standard answer they can copy from the web, and (b) isn't re-using existing code a key part of building software? It's not much different from using 3rd-party libraries, to avoid reinventing the wheel. On the downside, of course, you also want them to show they can develop algorithms, so the unique task needs to include some element that requires that without the solution already being on the web. Trouble is, forums are the achilles heel to all of that since they can simply ask for the solution and someone, somewhere, is going to hand over the answer unwittingly!
Allow the candidate to use the web but tell him beforehand that if he used the web, you will have to evaluate HOW he solved the problem.
If he used the web for something simple such as finding the syntax or parameters which he forgot, don't mark him down. This is normal.
If he used the web for something like look at how a specific function is used, don't mark him down. This is normal.
If he searched for a specific code and then copy-paste it, then ask him about how the code works. If he can explain how the code works, then there's no reason to mark him down. If he can't explain it without looking at the site where he got the code, you have to mark him down.
If he used stackoverflow.com, check his profile for questions, answers and badges. From there, you can check how good a programmer he is.
It all depends what you want out of your successful candidate. I contest the view that knowing how to google makes you a good programmer because the simple fact is that the internet is full of bad examples as well as good ones. You don't really want your codebase to reflect how lucky your googler was on the day he cut and pasted all his code off the web. You want it to demonstrate sound practices, proven methodologies & elegant, efficient solutions that your team understand and are enthusiastic about. Not a jumble of styles that don't resemble each other. There's a wealth of good to be gotten from knowing how to get help from the interweb but real knowledge and ancient wisdom is being lost every day that people who don't really understand what they are doing are given jobs because they appear to solve problems with their ability to "google it".
If you really want to give your candidates access to the web then by all means do, but make the questions hard and scrutinise the results to see if they've picked the first solution they found or if they've picked the best solution to the problem.
As do many other respondents, I'd rather employ a resourceful developer who know how to use the web to the fullest to draw on other's experiences and previous work, than a developer who limits himself and his applications to the MSDN way of doing things.
I copy other peoples code all the time - daily in fact. The knack of it depends on finding the right solution quickly and integrating it into your existing work.
So let your candidate use the web and ask him how he came to his solutions. You might learn more about him from his methods than from how will he can remember previous solutions.
Three things I'd do.
Let applicants send in a coding example along with their cv.
Let applicants produce some real-life code (maybe even pair-program with a developer on your team) this will show you if they can actually use the tools. Internet is a tool too so they should be able to use internet.
Let applicants solve a problem in pseudo code on a blackboard during the interview. In this case you can be their "internet" by helping them.
These three approaches will show you different things. The first is a good early warning mechanism but can easily be faked (they could just download oss code from the web somewhere). The second is good to see if they can actually code but they might score badly if they're unfamiliar with the tools you use. The third will show you if they can solve theoretical problems but won't show you if they actually are good team players or if they write maintainable code.
I recently had a friend start talking to me on IM, he was in a coding test job interview. He had a couple SQL questions. At first i thought, hell you've got to do this yourself. I'm not going to help you cheat during an interview.
Then i thought about it again. I've been answering questions and talking to him about various technical issues for years on IM as part of his work. So when he encounters problems in the real world with the job if he gets hired, he'll do the same thing.
We don't talk about it much, but having a good network of friends to ask questions, and knowing how to search out relevant answers on the net are a big part of being an effective programmer or sysadmin. I've met people who were super smart programmers, but didn't really know how to find information online. They missed a lot, were kind of out of the loop. Knowing how to use resources should be important.
When i do interviews i often ask people what websites they read, what development tools they use, and why. It's a similar thing. Sure it's not about how they write x line of code, but it's about how they work.
No how to get around somebody just copy and pasting "answers". Well first, don't ask questions which have pat answers. Secondly when i'm interviewing i like to give people some code, ask them to refactor it, have them talk through what they are thinking. Then ask them to write some new code which implements a feature. Pair program with them. It's hard to hide inability to code when pair programming. While they are pairing, it totally makes sense to say, "let's go look up the api on the date time library."
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I'm not a full-time software guy. In fact, in the last ten years, 90 % of my work was either on the hardware or doing low-level (embedded) code.
But the other 10% involves writing shell scripts for development tools, making kernel changes to add special features, and writing GUI applications for end-users.
The problem is that I find myself facing significant holes in my knowledge, often because it's been years since I've done "X", and I've either forgotten, or the environment has changed.
Every so often, there are threads on TheDailyWTF.com along the lines of "WTF: the guy spent all day writing tons of code, when he could have called foobar() in library baz". I've been there myself, because I don't remember much beyond the #include <stdio.h> stuff (for example), and my quick search somehow missed the right library.
What methods have you found effective to crash-learn and/or crash-refresh yourself in programming environments that you rarely touch?
Ask developers you know that work in the environment that you are interested in.
Search the web a lot.
Ask specific questions in relevant IRC channels (Freenode is great).
Ask specific questions on StackOverflow and other sites.
There really isn't any substitue for being "in the daily flow" of the programming environment in question. Having a good feel for the current state of the art is something you only get from experience, as I'm sure you can verify in you own areas of expertise.
i try to keep up with general news about languages i'm interested in but aren't necessarily using at the moment. being able to follow the general changes helps a lot for when you have to pick it up again.
beyond that, i personally find it easiest to grab an up to date reference book, and code a few basic things to get me used to the environment again, ie as a web programmer i'd make a simple crud app, or a quick web service/client.
For frameworks/APIs (such as a JavaScript framework or a widget library):
Quickly scan through the entire API documentation; get a glimpse of all that's out there instead of picking the first method that seems to fit your needs.
If available, glance at the source code of the
framework to see how the
API was intended to be used. Seeing what's behind the curtain helps. And also
some of the methods will have been used
internally, showcasing their true intents.
Don't necessarily always trust existing code (Googled, from co-workers, from books) since not everyone does the due diligence to find out the most proper way to use an API. Sometimes even samples in API documentation can be out-of-date.
In newer full-featured environments like Java, .NET, and Python, there are library solutions to almost every common problem. Don't think "how can I program this in plain C", but "which library solves this problem for me?" It's an attitude shift. As far as resources, the library documentation for the three environments I mentioned are all good.
The best solution I think is to get a book on the topic / environment you need to catch up on.
Ask questions from developers who you know who have the experience in that area.
You can also check out news groups (Google Groups makes this easy) and forums. You can ask questions, but even reading 10 minutes of the latest popular questions for a particular topic / environment will keep you a little bit "in the know".
The same thing can go for blogs too if you can find a focussed blog. These are pretty rare though and I personally don't look to blogs to keep me "in the know" on a particular environment. (I personally find blogs most popular and interesting in the "here's something neat" or "here's how I failed and you can avoid it" or "general practice" areas.)
In addition to the answers above, I think what you are asking for will take a significant amount of your time, and you must be willing to spend that time to achieve your goals. My method would be pretty much the same as Owen's answer; get a reference book or tutorial and work through the examples hacking in changes as you go to experiment with how any given thing works. I'd say as a bare minimum, allocate a hour to do this every other day, in a time that you know you won't be interrupted. Any less, and you'll probably continue to struggle.
The best way to crash-learn is simple, simply do it, use google to search for X tutorial, open your favorite browser and start typing away. Once you reached a certain level of feeling with X, do look at other people things, there is lots of open source out there and there must be someboby who has used X before, look at how they solved certain problems and learn from this, this is an easy way to verify that you are 'on the right track' or that you're doing things or thinking in patterns that other people would define as 'common sense'.
Crash-refreshing something is much easier since you have a suspended learning curve already, the way I do this is to keep some of the example you did while writing or keep some projects you did. Then you can easily refresh and use your own examples.
The library issue you mention here well, only improving your search skills will improve that one (although looking on how others solved this will help as well)
Don't try and pick up every environment.
Focus on the one that's useful and/or interesting, and then pick a few quality blogs to regularly read or podcasts to listen to. You'll pick up the current state of the environment fairly quickly.
Concrete example: I've been out of the Java world for a long time, but I've been put on a Java project in the last few months. Since then I've listened to the Java Posse podcast and read a few blogs, and although I'm far from a Java guru I've got back up to speed without too much trouble.
Just a though. While we are working on our code we know that we need to work very hard to optimize the critical path, but on non critical path we usually don't spend to much effort to optimize.
From your description you are working 90% on embedded and 10% on rest, lets assume that in 50% of the rest you are spending more time that needed. So according to my calculation you are optimizing about 5% of your work flow ...
Of course the usual google/SO/forums search is useful before you doing something new, but investing more than just that is waste of time for my opinion, unless you want to waste some time just for fun or general education ... :), but this is another story.
By the way I'm in same position and last time i needed some GUI and used MFC (because i used it sometimes 10 years ago :) ) and i perfectly understand that i probably will get better results with C# and friends, but the learning curve just not justify this especially knowing that i need mix the C code with GUI.