Concise Coding

2009-01-20T19:04:00.001-05:00

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Blog spam

2007-03-10T16:03:00.000-05:00

Sigh.. I've beem spammed!!
I'm working on cleaning up the spam in my blog. Also, i've been really busy this past year. But i will come back and update this blog soon!

Tip #4: Systems Analysis and Design

2006-01-14T14:23:00.001-05:00

The initial design of a system can make or break your business.
I am currently in the middle of developing an online textbook/classified system to be used by university and college students. Click here see a basic sample page.

Taking the RAD (Rapid Application development) approach to design, I set out certain milestones that i wanted to meet on a timely manor.

1.Setting up a log In system.
2.Setting up an add book / search book system
3.Creating some other features
4.Scale the system for use locally, provincially, nationally

Unfortunatly, what started out as a small system has cascaded into a large scale project taking more time then I had originally thought and pushing back milestones.
>
Where did I go wrong?
What I wanted from the system, and what I was designing were totally two different things. I wanted a perfect system where every section came together and worked and didn't interfere with other systems. I was designing the system not as a whole but in parts forgetting about the interaction between the parts.

I've learned alot developing this system and would like to share with you the most important tip!

TIP 1: Analysis, Analysis, ANALYSIS!
Sit down and thouroughly analysis your system.
Brainstorm all the non-functional requirements (System expectations, features you wish to implement, but nothing about the design or the technical aspects).

Once you have tabulated a list that you feel comfortable with, then develop a design that you wish to acheive. Remember, nothing is done on the computer yet. Create relationships between different parts of the system and try to create on paper a well planned out database design (Database tips coming soon).

This done, create on paper a UI, some general sketches to how the system should look.

Finally, once your have the system created in words and drawings. Analysis it again, make sure you have everything you want to do covered. If you are missing something, reevaluate each step illustrated here, until you are 100 percent satisfied.

If you take this tip into practice. You will have a larger success rate of reaching those milestones.

Thanks, graham.

The New Year

2006-01-04T18:24:00.000-05:00

The holidays have come and gone, and now its back to work for me.

In the coming weeks I will be looking at Algorithms as well ass good Algorithm design. So very shortly I will be writing this article.

I will also be looking at Database development. I have spent alot of time in the development of databases. In an ongoing project to create a well optimized and expandable database, I have tabulated a few helpful tips to be written in an article.

So, come back often!

Cheers, Graham.

MacMedia News Article

2005-12-14T12:45:00.000-05:00

Recently an article I wrote for my University Newspaper (MacMedia) was published.
Take a read, it's a light hearted look into the wish list of a geek.

TALK NERDY TO ME
- By Graham McCarthy.

MAC Media is an awesome newspaper. Every month great readers (like YOU!) submit wonderful stories, sometimes so hilarious I pee myself laughing, sometimes so shocking and disturbing that I have nightmares, but never NERDY.
Today, I change history by writing for all those geeks who never get to speak their mind (possibly because they are too engrossed in World of Warcraft, Lineage II, and all those other MMORPGs out there). Wanted or not, I shall do this for them!
As my first article and sticking to the Christmas theme, I have tabulated a “What a Nerd Needs for Christmas” list. I hope you enjoy.

WHAT A NERD NEEDS FOR CHRISTMAS (2005 edition)

Video iPod.
When I said “needs” I definitely meant “wants”. 30gigs of storage space (at least), and the ability to play music/movies as well as store photos has definitely gotten every tech junky drooling over this. It’s a great gift for that geek on your list and with a price tag of $379.00, you’ll have that geek indebted into fixing any computer problem for life!

Caffeinated Soap.
Caffeinated soap solves two major problems geeks face; Sleep deprivation and showering. You could definitely purchase one of those energy drinks (like Red Bull or Bawls) and they would give you the necessary energy to level up that Paladin, but it won’t get you clean, in fact it might add to the problem. 1 Bar $6.99 (USD).

Not an XBOX 360.
I say that with a heavy heart, I am an avid fan of new technology, especially one that makes The Master Chief look so damn sexy! But, a true geek would have a lot more fun tricking out his first gen Xbox or PS2. Gino’s mod Honda Civics, geeks mod game systems, this is our Fast and the Furious. A modded XBOX won’t graphically look like an XBOX 360, but it will perform all the same functions, additionally you can throw some flashy under lighting LED’s to totally impress the ladies. You can get one for about $100.00, but the memories to be had, priceless.

Binary Clock.

Personally, I’ve wanted one of these things for the past 3 years. It serves no functional purpose except make it even harder to read a clock. But if you are looking to impress other geeks in an epic “out-geek-a-thon” like I do, you’ll need to add one of these to your arsenal. The Binary clock sells for around $30 (USD).

Well, that’s all a geek really needs this holiday season. Anything else would be just going overboard. Happy holidays everyone!

Sorry for the delay...

2005-12-09T09:48:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone,

Sorry for the delay in my daily updates, I am currently spending way to much of my time studying! I recently finished the hardest of all my exams, my Math exam on sets and logic, It was difficult, but I feel very confident about it.

Today, I have my Canadian Policy exam, which will be hard, but its not worth that much. Once I get these out of the way, i'll be right back in there with some coding tips, and some neat examples!

Thanks!.

Tips #3 : Conditional Statements

2005-11-23T22:12:00.000-05:00

Today's tip will be really quick, lets talk conditional statements.

A neat suggestion was posted as a comment on my last article, suggesting a really good way to prevent logic errors from creeping into your code. Logic errors being the hardest type of errors to find in your code.

If presented with an if statement:
if(num == 0)
{
//do something.
}

Now, if you forgot to put the double equals in the condition like:
if(num = 0)
{
//Do something
}

An error like that might not be catched, the suggestion put forward was to declare the constant first, and then the variable after like :
if(0 == num) {} , this way if you forget one of the equals, the compiler will be sure to catch it.

You can take this step one further, by declaring the 0 as a constant, like this:
public final int ZERO = 0;
if(ZERO == num);
This just takes your code that 1 extra step to insure good coding practices.

Thank you Jeff, for that great tip!

Lets continue,
Since white space is never compiled into your program, you should never worry about making your code extra readible with space. A lot of the code that I have tested, has been really hard to traverse through because the authors don't leave enough white space between actions, let me demonstrate:

public class MyTestClass{
public final int SIZE = 5;
public static void main(String [] args){
for (int i = 0; i<>
public doJob() {
for (int i=0; i
if (i%2 == 0)
System.out.println("number: " i);}}}

Confused? Frustrated? Good!
Make your code clear to read; the clearer the code, the easier it is to find errors later.
And also dont forget to add comments!

//MyTestClass.java Author: Graham.
//Desc: Prints out numbers, then the even numbers
public class MyTestClass
{
___//Variables
___public final int SIZE = 5;

___//Main Method, prints numbers o - 4, then runs doJob() method
___public static void main(String [] args)
___{
_____for (int i = 0; i (LESS THAN) SIZE; i++)
_____{
_______System.out.println("number: " + i);
_____}
____doJob();
___} //End Main

___public doJob()
___{
_____for (int i=0; i (LESSTHAN) SIZE ; i++
_____{
_______if (i%2 == 0)
_______System.out.println("number: " i);
_____}
___}//End doJob
} //END Class

NOTE: Instead of LESSTHAN you'd obviously put in the symbol, which for some reason Blogger won't let me write.

Now, if I was going to critique my own code here, I would say that the method doJob() is pretty ambiguous, I should have called it countEvenNumbers().

Hope you have found this article useful! Thanks you.

Tips #2 : Variable Naming.

2005-11-22T17:20:00.000-05:00

The next fundamental programming tip I can offer you is naming your variables appropriately. I find that a majority of logic or compile errors are caused by a misuse of variable names.

Here are some examples of bad naming conventions:
1. dim newvalue as Integer
2. int x = 0;
3. JLabel label1 = new JLabel();

Sure, laid out here, it is pretty easy to recognize what each variable does, but in a simple program of at least 500 lines of code it can prove rather difficult to track these variables.

Here are some suggestions.

In the first case, think about what newvalue represents. We know it is an integer but what is it used for? If it is a counter for a while loop, then how about doing this instead,
dim iCount as Integer
It is quite clear that this variable is of type interger and will be used as a counter.
The second example is sort of the same situation. A lot of the times one letter variables are declared in C++ and Java, for mathmatical algorithm or for loop statements. In those cases I feel it is perfectly good coding structure to use these variables as is. If this variable was to refer to a randomly produced interger used in a lottery machine, then the use of x as that variable name proves quite ambiguous.
In the third case JLabel label1 = new JLabel(); in this case, you should be more descriptive as to what label1 points to, either what sort of information is produced from this label, or where it is located.
If this label was created as the title of a program, then I would call it JLabel lblTitle = new JLabel(); If it refered to a name of a person I would declare it as JLabel lblName = new JLabel();

Pretty straight forward, and these little tips will definitly help you efficently test your code.

Also, before I forget, a few quick tips on composing your variables.
Hungarian notation is one of the most common format styles.
iNum = an integer value
dNum = a decimal value
sName = a string value
btnSubmit = a button
lblStudentAverage = a label
as Shown above, use the first initial of your variable to represent what data type it is. here are a few other examples
obj -> Object
arr -> Array
txt -> Text Box
cbx -> Combo Box

There you go, If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave me comments.

Tips #1 : Commenting

2005-11-21T10:34:00.000-05:00

I've spent the past couple of days learning a new computer language, PHP. I'm currently in the process of developing an online management system, and after a careful anaylsis PHP seemed to be the right language to develop with.

So I have been going through some tutorials and looking at lots of coding examples. As a pretty experianced programmer, I am still having a hard time understanding some code developed by other people.

Which leads me to the first tip in this series.

The following coding tip is very straight forward, but ESSENTIAL to keeping you effective in the Information Technology Industry, especially when working in a team enviroment.

1. Comment your code:
If anyone is going to be reviewing your code at any point in time, you should always leave appropriate commets to help guide them. Here is how I structure my commenting, lets use JAVA for this example

/////////////////////////////////////////
// Title of Program Author Name
// Date of creation
//
//Breif description of the program
/////////////////////////////////////////
public class TestClass
{
//Variables
protected int iCounter; Here is where you would list all your global variables
//Methods List all the methods after this for good programing structure
////////////////////
// main(String args [])
// Do: What is the main function of this method
// Input: What is brought into the method
// Returns: What the method returns
public static void main(String args[])
{
//
}//End main Method--> Keep track of your end braces with a small comment
}// EndTestClass
Commenting while you program does not take a lot of time, and it will definitly pay off for you later, when you try to review some comple code.

Thanks for checking out my tip! come back soon for another one, or leave a comment if you want me to cover a certain topic.

Concise Coding.

2005-11-19T22:00:00.000-05:00

As the name of my journal suggests, I will be using this space to provide programmers of all expertise with tips to create good quality code as quickly as possible.

In an Industry which changes rapidly, the ability to be an effective team member and adapt to the changing technologies is extremly important. It can quite possibly reflect a programmers security in the company with which he is apart.

So come back soon, and hopefully I will have some tips for you to better your skills.

Post a comment with questions if you wish for me to address any issues in particular

Thanks.

The first Post

2005-11-19T19:39:00.000-05:00

I'm just getting things set up here. Come back soon for some programming tips.