Life Beyond Fife

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Converting XML to JSON

XML and JSON are the two most common generic standards for passing representation state information in web APIs. So when I recently needed to convert XML to JSON, I didn't even think about the structure of XML, I simply looked for a library to do it. "Why isn't there a library to do this?" I thought. Quite simply, because you cannot express XML as JSON and vice versa. There are too many grey areas where a choice needs to be made about how the conversion should be done. A lack of bijective one-to-one mapping means that no-one will create a...

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Before you learn to program
compsci•

Before you learn to program

How should you begin to learn programming? What language should you pick? What are the long term, safe bets you should ensure you pick up so you're ready to succeed over the next ten years? These are the wrong questions to answer. Programming is the valuable, practical skill but the discipline that enables and supports it is Computer Science. Begin from that position and the lessons you learn will hold not only during the lifetime of the programming languages you choose, but throughout your own life as well. But Computer Science though, that's hardly the right place for a beginner....

12 min readRead more →
essays•

Death By A Million Cuts

Individuals within the software development community are in one of two states. One believes that there is a deep rooted problem of sexism that constructs multiple barriers against females joining, and thus deprives this community of the majority of a talent pool that makes up half the population. The other, simply hasn't realised it yet. I used to think there was no problem. Most people in a position of power use deliberate, analytical thinking to evaluate people honestly and fairly regardless of any stereotypes that may exist. Job vacancies and course placements go to the most able worker or student,...

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compsci•

Confusing Christmas with Halloween

Understanding how computers work is essential in allowing us to use them as tools. We therefore need to translate some of their codes and numbers to things that we more naturally understand. Unfortunately, there’s no escaping the mathematics of it – converting binary numbers to decimal and vice versa is an algebraic operation. Though it can be done with a scientific calculator, the process is straightforward and can be done simply enough with a pen and some paper. To convert from binary to decimal is the easiest base transformation there is. We’ll walk through an example by converting $1001 \space...

9 min readRead more →
How Not To Do a Hackathon
follies•

How Not To Do a Hackathon

I'm a strong believer in learning by doing. I don't think it's necessarily the best way to learn because you invariably learn inefficiently, repeating well known mistakes and suboptimal practices. If you have a mentor throughout the learning process they can lead you away from bad habits and, crucially, explain why they're bad in the first place. But there are plus points to learning by doing. Firstly, you can't argue with the results. It's not a theoretical endeavour and if you manage to build a bookcase in two weeks, you can be fairly certain you've learnt a thing or two...

7 min readRead more →
compsci•

The 10 Types of People

We’ve now established that knowing the base of a number system is crucial to counting, and that computers exclusively use the binary number system i.e. base-two. You may well have seen a calculator application on your phone or desktop computer that works perfectly normally using decimal. How can that be if everything a computer does is in binary? New to this blog? This is the third in an ongoing series of blog posts about teaching Computer Science in plain English from scratch i.e. for non-programmers and other non-technical people. Use this link to follow the series. As with foreign languages,...

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