In a revelation that, to some, is on the order of realizing there is (or isn't) a god, it turns out that all the dungeons in The Legend of Zelda were part of the same enormous map. This seems to have some sort of transcendental importance that I can't quite put my finger on. [more inside]
posted by BlackLeotardFront on Oct 28, 2009 - 91 comments

A free computer-programming course on reddit. Click "prev" for more lessons. 113 lessons so far.
posted by grumblebee on Oct 24, 2009 - 89 comments

Friday non-Flash Fun: Robozzle is a surprisingly deep puzzle game. If you don't want to install Silverlight, there's a Javascript version. [more inside]
posted by you on Oct 23, 2009 - 29 comments

"Hoarders is a fascinating look inside the lives of two hoarders per episode. Tivoids set your season pass here, or watch complete episodes online. Kind of a mix between the documentary "Possessed" (previously) and A&E's Intervention. Discussion board includes some drama between the hoarders on the show and the production staff.
posted by basilwhite on Sep 16, 2009 - 126 comments

Songs in (computer) code (you can also see the Twheat seperated from the Tw-chaff over at Favrd)
posted by melorama on Aug 20, 2009 - 32 comments

How depressing is your sourcecode?
posted by mattoxic on Jun 30, 2009 - 35 comments

flixel is an ActionScript 3 framework abstracted from Adam Atomic's raster-based games, including FATHOM (previously) and Gravity Hook. [more inside]
posted by archagon on Jun 5, 2009 - 33 comments

A Brief, Incomplete, and Mostly Wrong History of Programming Languages
posted by Artw on May 8, 2009 - 47 comments

OMG, Multi-Threading is Easier Than Networking [pdf, white paper about the multi-core future from Intel(R)]
posted by Monday, stony Monday on Apr 27, 2009 - 22 comments

If you're like me, you are not a top computer science researcher, and you haven't written a classic book about programming and made it available online for free. Let's review who we're not. We're neither Abelson nor Sussman, and we haven't written Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (previous proof). We're not part of TeachScheme and we had no hand in the writing of How to Design Programs (not even the second edition, natch). Shriram Krishnamurthi didn't need our help to write Programming Languages: Application and Interpretation. We wish we were Simon Peyton-Jones and had a hand in The Implementation of Functional Programming Languages. [more inside]
posted by Monday, stony Monday on Apr 1, 2009 - 45 comments

This post will walk you through the weirdest thing: Flickr's mysterious obsession with Pandas (previously on MeFi: Link).
posted by lipsum on Mar 8, 2009 - 15 comments

Speaking of Edward Tufte (see below), sparklines are a type of information graphics characterized by their small size and data density named by Tufte. Sparklines were used by sites reporting the 2008 election and were first introduced on MeFi in 2005. There are now several ways to put sparklines on your own web site including: a simple jQuery plugin, a downloadable PHP library, a dynamic generator using a Python CGI program, and even a library for Ruby on Rails.
posted by netbros on Feb 27, 2009 - 8 comments

Mitch Haile's office requires some explanation.
posted by odinsdream on Feb 25, 2009 - 29 comments

Software startup 280 North today announced Atlas: a rich, web-based environment for developing Mac-like web applications. [more inside]
posted by Mr. Anthropomorphism on Feb 24, 2009 - 34 comments

"The avionics system in the F-22 Raptor, the current U.S. Air Force frontline jet fighter, consists of about 1.7 million lines of software code. The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter...about 5.7 million lines of code...Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliner...about 6.5 million lines of software code. These are impressive amounts of software, yet if you bought a premium-class automobile recently, it probably contains close to 100 million lines of software code."
posted by mr_crash_davis mark II: Jazz Odyssey on Feb 4, 2009 - 64 comments

What real-life bad habits has programming given you? "This has actually really happened to me. I was trying to hang a glass picture frame on the wall and accidentally dropped it. And in the shock of the moment, I loudly yelled 'Control Z!' Then the glass hit the floor and smashed."
posted by grumblebee on Jan 30, 2009 - 170 comments

A small collection of special programs for system administration, written at a level suitable for senior admins. [more inside]
posted by 31d1 on Jan 3, 2009 - 37 comments

Structure Synth is an application for creating 3D structures from a set of user specified rules. It is an attempt to make a 3D version of Context Free.
posted by signal on Jan 2, 2009 - 8 comments

Tech publisher O'Reilly editors discuss the role of hard work and practice in programming and learning in general. "One aspect of learning programming that often eludes both students and teachers alike is the importance of practice, of actually working through all of these formal structures we teach. Most of our books, in a way, offer a promise of learning that avoids the slow repetition of practice."
posted by needled on Dec 23, 2008 - 70 comments

Animata is an open source real-time animation software, designed to create animations, interactive background projections for concerts, theatre and dance performances.
posted by Blazecock Pileon on Dec 8, 2008 - 14 comments

Tom ("Duff's Device") Duff examines improving computer source code to make it more concisely communicate it author's intent, in Reading from Top to Bottom. [more inside]
posted by orthogonality on Nov 30, 2008 - 52 comments

Acko.net is the web home of Steven Wittens, designer of AVS presets for WinAmp, as well as the current Bluebeach theme at Drupal.org. Steven also dabbles in programming; for instance his Farbtastic jquery color picker. Be sure to watch his blog for development jewels like Projective Texturing with Canvas.
posted by netbros on Nov 21, 2008 - 14 comments

Haskell has a sort of unofficial slogan: avoid success at all costs says one of its inventors, Simon Peyton-Jones. But will the advanced purely functional programming language[, a]n open source product of more than twenty years of cutting edge research remain true to its roots? Things look rather bleak for the obscurity of Haskell. In the wake of Peyton-Jones's own A taste of Haskell, and with the imminent publication of Real World Haskell by O'Reilly and the emergence of the Haskell Platform, comes BONUS's fun, colorfully illustrated Learn You a Haskell for Great Good!. [more inside]
posted by Monday, stony Monday on Oct 18, 2008 - 61 comments

"Project Euler is a series of challenging mathematical/computer programming problems that will require more than just mathematical insights to solve. Although mathematics will help you arrive at elegant and efficient methods, the use of a computer and programming skills will be required to solve most problems."

Started in 2001 as a sub-section of Maths Challenge, it has since grown large enough to become its own entity. It now boasts over 200 problems, many of them insanely difficult. [more inside]
posted by mystyk on Oct 13, 2008 - 31 comments

Stack Overflow is now out of beta. Designed as a question and answer forum for programmers, it's been made to fill the gap currently filled by sites like the much hated and oft mispronounced Expertsexchange. If you're sick of having to scroll to the bottom, and you write code, then this could be for you. The site has been made by a team headed by Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky. These are two uber-bloggers who've made a name for themselves talking about how to code. Of course, for haters of Stack Overflow, there are already a couple of sites to pamper to your anger. Finally, if you're wondering what a stack overflow is, then wikipedia has the answer.
posted by seanyboy on Sep 15, 2008 - 51 comments

"Double-Taker (Snout)" by Golan Levin with Lawrence Hayhurst, Steven Benders and Fannie White "...deals in a whimsical manner with the themes of trans-species eye contact, gestural choreography, subjecthood, and autonomous surveillance. The project consists of an eight-foot (2.5m) long industrial robot arm, costumed to resemble an enormous inchworm or elephant's trunk, which responds in unexpected ways to the presence and movements of people in its vicinity...." Googly Eyebot. (via) [more inside]
posted by Kronos_to_Earth on Aug 13, 2008 - 3 comments

Computer languages and facial hair
posted by finite on Apr 30, 2008 - 19 comments

From the Infocom treasure trove: Milliway's, the unreleased sequel to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
posted by matthewr on Apr 18, 2008 - 43 comments

101 Great Mostly Pretty Good and Hopefully Correctly Attributed Quotes About Computers and Programming. But Wait There's More! Yep, 101 More Quotes plus an extra extra added bonus for a limited time, the second list as originally published in Spanish, because it's fun to read Isaac Asimov and Emo Philips in another language, and Lou Dobbs will get so pissed off. [more inside]
posted by wendell on Apr 18, 2008 - 18 comments

In an artificial world, only extremists live naturally. Or: You weren't meant to have a boss. On the other hand, maybe you are.
posted by Blazecock Pileon on Mar 21, 2008 - 36 comments

Extensible applications such as Firefox appear to be banned by Apple's iPhone SDK license agreement: No interpreted code may be downloaded and used in an Application except for code that is interpreted and run by Apple’s Published APIs and builtin interpreter(s)… An Application may not itself install or launch other executable code by any means, including without limitation through the use of a plug-in architecture, calling other frameworks, other APIs or otherwise. An Application may write data on a device only to the Application's designated container area, except as otherwise specified by Apple. Applications may only use Published APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any unpublished or private APIs.
posted by finite on Mar 7, 2008 - 142 comments

A 3d graphics engine written in Excel. Money shot on page 4. Blatantly stolen from seanyboy.
posted by signal on Mar 6, 2008 - 32 comments

If you could use a great big free handbook of discrete math and algorithms, Jörg Arndt's fxtbook wants to be your friend. Plain text table of contents to whet your appetite.
posted by Wolfdog on Mar 5, 2008 - 11 comments

Riding the Waves of interest in MVC web frameworks such as Rails, Django, TurboGears, and Cake, comes the latest entrant: Ruby Waves. Interesting features include request lambdas, hot patchable, nestable templates, app reusability, and decoupled controller/view. Is the proliferation of MVC projects helping to push innovation forward? Or pointlessly reinventing the wheel? (via RubyInside)
posted by nakedcodemonkey on Feb 29, 2008 - 39 comments

Getting to the source of 5 beautiful lines of Quake 3. Rys Sommefeldt traces the history of a very quick (and now infamous) inverse square-root function used in Quake 3. (via) [more inside]
posted by spiderskull on Feb 8, 2008 - 60 comments

"This is the story of when I re-wrote the Lotus Notes Formula Engine.... So here was I was, offered this position that I clearly wasn't qualified for. I had no experience with language runtimes or compilers, I knew very little about C and didn't know anything about C++, I had never dealt with platform byte ordering and packing and all the other issues associated with writing something for eight different operating systems, I had never even used proper version control. But none of that mattered to me. It seemed to me like an amazing opportunity and I would be doing exactly the kind of stuff I enjoy most..."
posted by grumblebee on Nov 24, 2007 - 64 comments

You can't tell a hero by his size
I'm just a Teeny Little Super Guy!
Oh yeah!"

Writer for Roger Ramjet, Dirk Niblick, and voice of the Glitch.
Jim Thurman, one Teeny Little Super Guy I miss.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur on Nov 3, 2007 - 23 comments

StupidFilter is a work in progress which aims to recognize online stupidity programmatically. Keep in mind we grade stupidity on a scale of 1 to 5. Someone might get a 1 or 2 for a comment that used no punctuation, whereas a comment consisting of nothing but text message abbreviations with a dash of LOLLLLL thrown in for good measure would probably rate a solid 4 or 5. There is a certain amount of subjectivity, and our software is aware of that; scoring will be normalized to eliminate excessively generous or harsh estimations of stupidity. Read some examples of "the tyranny of idiocy" in their collection of Random Stupidity .
posted by amyms on Oct 18, 2007 - 69 comments

It's not a bug, it's a feature: Carolin Horn has designed Anymails, which represents your email messages and folders as micro-organisms. The morphology of the individual organisms and their behaviour within colonies imparts information about the state of your email. You can view QT movies of the application in action (1, 2), download her thesis, and download the Anymails code itself. See some of her other work here (predominantly in German). via Madame Martin, the "French Metafilter".
posted by Rumple on Aug 31, 2007 - 22 comments

Ever read a blog post, and think, "I wish I wrote that"? For all the Mefites with the many AskMe questions about "can I/should I/how should I learn to/ be a computer programmer", here's a pretty good explication of how good programing is done: Holding a Program in One's Head.
posted by orthogonality on Aug 24, 2007 - 43 comments

"How I Became A Programmer" veers between linear biography and brain dump. The piece meanders through its theme, stopping along the way to flirt with word origins, family politics, the senior prom, Japan, airlines and military recruitment. Reading it, I felt trapped inside inside an extremely quirky -- yet recognizable (in a too-close-for-comfort way) -- mind. About half the time I yearned to tell him that he needs an editor; the other half, I was grateful that he didn't have one. Mostly, I'm amazed he HAD a date to the senior prom!
posted by grumblebee on Aug 18, 2007 - 52 comments

The top 10 dead (or dying) computer skills. "Obsolescence is a relative -- not absolute -- term in the world of technology."
posted by caddis on Jun 25, 2007 - 66 comments

lolcats are great but now they can code!
posted by jeffburdges on May 29, 2007 - 69 comments

Douglas Crockford, leading JavaScript Architect for Yahoo!, has been teaching a series of classes on JavaScript programming for other Yahoo! employees.
The JavaScript Programming Language [4 video clips: 1 (31 min) 2 (31 min) 3 (29min) 4 (20 min), presentation slides: zipped PPT]
An Inconvenient API: The Theory of the DOM [3 video clips: 1 (31 min) 2 (21 min) 3 (26 min), presentation slides: zipped PPT]
Advanced JavaScript [3 video clips: 1 (31 min) 2 (25 min) 3 (11 min), presentation slides: zipped PPT]
posted by ijoshua on May 10, 2007 - 27 comments

In this century, you may have dozens of programming languages lurking on your machine. But how to use them?? A fundamental secret! Well, no more. We cannot stand for that. Hackety Hack will not stand to have you in the dark! Now with 100% more MeFi.
posted by signal on Apr 26, 2007 - 27 comments

“I wanted to try to capture the intelligence of the design, not just the outcome of the design.” “In 1977, [Donald] Knuth halted research on his books for what he expected to be a one-year hiatus. Instead, it took 10. Accompanied by [his wife] Jill, Knuth took design classes from Stanford art professor Matthew Kahn. Knuth, trying to train his programmer’s brain to think like an artist’s, wanted to create a program [TeX] that would understand why each stroke in a typeface would be pleasing to the eye.”—from a profile of Knuth in the Stanford Magazine (May '06). Salon calls him “computing’s philosopher king” (Sep '99). NPR’s Morning Edition interviews Knuth as “the founding artist of computer science” (Mar '05). Perhaps a MeFite somewhere has one of these? (Previously)
posted by Ethereal Bligh on Apr 23, 2007 - 40 comments

Gary Stasiuk's beautiful Digital Creatures pulls the curtains on the kinematics of geometric objects, after which he plays with the mathematics and user interactivity of generative art and shows how to build the appearance of AI behaviors into Flash objects.
posted by Blazecock Pileon on Apr 11, 2007 - 14 comments

How to write a spelling corrector in twenty lines of Python.
posted by alms on Apr 10, 2007 - 45 comments

Magic Ink - Information Software and the Graphical Interface
posted by Gyan on Apr 7, 2007 - 29 comments

Jeff Hawkins, co-founder of Palm and Handspring, has started a new company, called Numenta, to test his controversial theory of intelligence. Whether you find his theory plausible or not, his book, "On Intelligence" is fascinating. Numenta is attempting to build A.I.s using Hawkins' theory as a backbone. They've developed a software engine and a Python-based API, which they've made public (as free downloads), so that hackers can start playing. They've also released manuals, a whitepaper (pdf) and videos [1] [2]. (At about 30:18 into the first video, Hawkins demonstrates, with screenshots, the first app which uses his system.)
posted by grumblebee on Apr 4, 2007 - 22 comments