I was driving recently, and realised that I was near a road that appeared to have a large gap. By that I mean: road A joins road B and stops, but some distance further along B there’s a bit more road A. It’s as if A has been chopped into two by B, and the … Continue reading GB roads with gaps
Author: Bob
I'm a programmer working in the UK. Anything I post here are my own personal ramblings and don't necessarily reflect the views of my employer.
Just detail can lead to poor documentation
I've been around computers long enough to have encountered one problem many times. It's a problem that seems to be almost built-in to computers: poor documentation. In this article I'll focus on documentation of code that you use via its source code, e.g. an API, toolkit etc. There are mental tools you possibly already use … Continue reading Just detail can lead to poor documentation
Squaring complex numbers
As I mentioned in my post about quantum computing, complex numbers are a crucial part of quantum computing programs. I rushed over their details (and lots of other things) in that post, because I was trying to lay out the headlines of everything that you (and I) would need to know in order to understand … Continue reading Squaring complex numbers
Mental models for data processing
I was having a conversation today with someone about ETL pipelines, and I realised that the word pipeline brought along only some of the associations that would be helpful in data processing. In this article I will go through three different terms, and the associations they each bring. I think that they’re all useful in … Continue reading Mental models for data processing
Simulating how birds form flocks
This article is about using a computer to simulate how birds form into flocks. This probably also applies to fish forming shoals and dinosaurs moving and grouping together like they apparently did. There’s a static snapshot of this simulation below, and clicking on the picture will take you to a live version where you can … Continue reading Simulating how birds form flocks
Language, discrimination and software development
I recently noticed myself using gendered language to talk about computer things where gender was irrelevant. This got me thinking about language, and prejudice and discrimination, more broadly. Beyond the obvious, decency-related reasons, being more open to how people are different from you could help you do your job in IT. Gendered magic The trigger … Continue reading Language, discrimination and software development
Great British Place Names Made of Smaller Bits
I was driving recently and saw a sign for a place whose name was built up of two things joined together. That got me wondering about other places I’ve seen whose names were like that. So I found some data, downloaded it, played around with it, and this is the result. There’s no great point … Continue reading Great British Place Names Made of Smaller Bits
Coronavirus, risk and software testing
I was catching up with old episodes of the Radiolab podcast, and one on Coronavirus and numbers made me think about risks to do with Coronavirus, and that thought expanded out to risk more generally and also how it can apply to software testing. UK Coronavirus numbers I need to prefix all this with quite … Continue reading Coronavirus, risk and software testing
A beginner’s guide to practical quantum computing
I recently started dabbling with quantum computing, and this post is kind of the introduction I wish I’d found before I started. It’s not intended to be anything other than a very small tip of a very big iceberg. Hopefully, this will give you enough to help you know if quantum computing is worth your … Continue reading A beginner’s guide to practical quantum computing
How far is it to the coast?
We recently felt like escaping to the seaside, but it's quite far away from us and the weather was awful, so we settled for tea and cake nearby instead. That got me wondering how far it was to the (UK) coast, and which bit of the UK was furthest from the coast. So I dug … Continue reading How far is it to the coast?
