Welcome to Part 3 of the multi-post series on Fundamentals of Programming. Last time, I just touched upon one very important point regarding style in programming: indentation. In this series, we’ll see a bit more about styles in programming. You can think of those as the “formatting” used in programming. We’ll end with the importance of conventions, comments and consistency in programming. I hope you will enjoy this part and learn something.
Fundamentals of Programming: Part 2 – Pseudo Code and Batch Jobs
Hello, welcome to Part 2 of the series. In this section, we’ll start with some actual code writing. “Code” is a short term to refer to “programming lines” i.e. instructions. So when someone is “coding”, they’re actually “writing programs”. I’ll use that word for short.
We’ll start with writing some instructions in pseudo-code. What is pseudo-code? Does it mean pseudo-programming? Yes, sort of.
You want to make sure you understand how to write and understand pseudo-code because that’s what I’ll be using through the rest of this series. They’re easy, English-like statement so don’t worry too much.
Fundamentals of Programming: Part 1 – Introduction
Hello there! Welcome to my Fundamentals of Programming series of post. In this series, I will teach you about the basics of programming, i.e. the building blocks and what makes a program tick. I will NOT teach you Java, C++, PHP, Python or whatever pretty language you can think of. Instead, I’ll keep it language-independent so that even a complete beginner to programming will be able to follow.
Online Services Mauritius Does Not Have And Why
First post of 2012. So let’s start with something like a wish list. In this post, I’ll run down through a list of online services Mauritius should have and why it doesn’t have these relatively common services.
Let’s start.
[Solved] Firefox’s Right-Click Menu Overlaps Flash/Javascript Menu
Just a quick post here. If you get this problem when right-clicking on Flash videos and sometimes in application-like web interfaces, the solution follows. It’s easy too.
So solution to prevent this overlapping of menus:
Go to Tools → Options → Content → Click on Advanced button (opposite Javascript) → Check “Disable or Replace Context Menus” checkbox.
That’s it. Problem solved. This was tested on the new Youtube and a few other sites. The solution worked fine. Let me know if it works for you.
(source)
Mauritius is not a cyber island yet. Here’s why.
For some reason, our political leaders are bent on using the word “cyber” whenever the get the opportunity to. Everything is cyber here: Cyber caravan, Cyber Crime or something along that line as well as a few other cyber things here and there. What does “cyber” mean anyway?
Merriam-webster says something about “the culture of computers”. It must be a joke: I hardly see any kind of “culture of computers” in Mauritius.
We are far, VERY FAR from deserving being called a cyber island yet. Why? Lots of reasons actually…
Why Display Names Should Be Allowed On Social Networks
Social networks are the actual craze online. People are spending more and more time online, so it is only logical to give them the option to socialize online too. There is one small problem: privacy. Facebook got burnt pretty badly recently and has had to revamp its privacy controlling mechanisms. Now Google+ is coming with its Circles feature, promising finer-grained control over privacy. But here, I argue about using display names (or nicknames) online, something that no social network wants you to do.
Why do tiktok likes matter? Why do social networks bother with real name? Because it is easier for your friends and people to find you. Because it looks more professional. Because they make money by knowing a ton of things about you. Social networks will do various things to “persuade” you to use your real name, such as suspending your account if you’re caught using a display name, or a name that resembles a display name. Quora goes as far as to possibly require you to prove your identity using official documents just to use their service. Insanity, I say.
Why should you be using a display name?
EDIT: A few days after posting this, I see this very nice article slashdotted about the topics of display names on social networks. Worth checking! 🙂
EDIT2: This piece by Danah Boyd is well worth reading and expands a lot on actual dangers people may face when using their real names online. Gizmodo has also written about Google+ Real Names policy.