Hassan Ahmed's Blog

When i code a thousand coders are there to help me

2010-08-09T09:31:00.000-07:00

Most of my friends, when get stuck while coding get panicked. And turn to MSDN for rescue; this is what I used to do until I discovered Jeff Atwood’s StackOverflow.Com. One of the coolest sites I have ever used and have now been using for a long time. I was initially attracted to the site by the pictures from one of my favourite movie “Office Space” which gave a very cool look to the site. I can definitively tell you that in dozens of questions I have asked there was not even one question that was not answered on the same day as asked. So to all I know I will like to recommend this site and also like to thank all my coding gang at StackOverflow.Com.

My Prolog Notes

2009-11-22T02:38:00.001-08:00

Just putting my prolog notes up, hope they might help somebody:

father(f,c);-parentof(f,c),male(f).

-only predicate matching is done in prolog

grandfather(g,c):-parentof(f,c),
parentof(g,f),male(g)

ancestor(a,c):- parentof(a,c),
ancestor(x,c),ancestor(a,x)

-in prolog we represent the relationship france has_capital paris == has_captial

(france,paris).

works_at(nadeem,punjab_university).
cost_of(pill,900).
bright(ahmed).
enjoys(haroon,riding).
likes(yasmin,ice_cream).
tall(ali).
hits(ali,timmy) ^ with(cricket_bat).
travels_by(waleed,plane) ^ to(mecca).
lives_at(farid,16 sawan road) ^ in(isb).

-in prolog there are facts which are represented as predicates. Now there are two

main ways to represent facts in prolog
-Clausal Form consequence < antcentdents
-Horn Clauses(When prepositions are used for resolutions) two types:
1) Atomic Preposition
2) Empty Left Side
-Prepositions can be stated in two modes:
-one in which truth of the statements is known (facts)
-second the truth is yet to be known (Queries)
-Rules are like stored queries that represent more complex relaionships between

predicates which are based on simple relationships. The head of the rule is only

true when the goals in the body of the rule succeeds.
Read it like this:
Head:- head is true if this is true

-You are eligible for scholarship if you score A grade or your father is a

pensioner.
scholarship(X) :- grade_A(X). scholarship(X) :- father_pen(X).

- and or is like this in prolog

We combine both disjunctions and conjunctions together.
Consider: A woman is happy if she is healthy, wealthy or wise
happy(Person):- healthy(Person),woman(Person).
happy(Person):-wealthy(Person),woman(Person).
happy(Person):-wise(Person),woman(Person).

2009-10-05T12:41:00.002-07:00

First Step To Research

2009-10-05T12:41:00.000-07:00

To start a research one needs to know that what is happening all-round in the current domain to gather some context. To know this one should read research papers of this specific domain.
The best source of research papers is ‘Google Scholar’ give it the reference to research paper and will find that paper, But there only the abstract and summary of research paper will be present and never the whole paper. The research papers are normally placed in Digital Libraries of the Universities and if you are not part of the faculty you cannot access it unless you have a reference or you can have membership of organization such IEEE which will give you access to their research paper repositories. If you don’t have either then all you are left with is gathering information using abstract and summary.
Once you have the research paper what you need to do is to first skim it rather then read it. If you find it very relevant to your research topic then you should read it thoroughly while taking notes. And after that write your own summary for it and a small critique for it.
Now you can also judge the level of a research paper using the following criteria:
• If it’s a paper that is published in conference it’s a good one
• If it’s paper that is published in journal then it’s an excellent one.
• They are also levels of conferences level one and two level conferences are good so the paper in those conferences’ should be good.
And one thing about research is that it is not about gathering others arguments and mixing it all together and presenting it as your own work this is sheer dishonesty and against the spirit of research. So whenever using an idea which is given by somebody else always give reference to the original idea.

Some Terms in Computer Programming

2009-08-03T00:29:00.000-07:00

There are some terms in computer programming which are very closely related to each other so i am writing this post rather as a reference to have crystal clear concepts which may provide base to high level of Abstractions.

POINTERS:
A datatype which holds the address of another index of the memory. If not used correctly can result in Segmentation faults(pointing to bad memory location)(C & C++). Because of pointer arithematic and many other allowed uses the pointers are considered unsafe.

References:
A Reference in computer science has two different meanings depending on the context in which used:
1:A reference in computer programming is a value which allows a program to access a a particular memory address directly or any other resource.
2:In C++ context its a datatype which also points to another object in the memory but is less powerfull and more safer then pointer. Some level of restriction is posed on this datatype through which it becomes safer. It cannot be left uninitialized, it cannot be reseated, it cannot be null.

3:Handlers:
Handlers are kind of abstract pointers which are used to access a resource which is managed some other entity eg: a memory block managed by operating system or a TCP socket managed by OS its handler is a file discriptor

Gtest Starters Help(Building and Writing Tests)

2009-07-10T05:16:00.000-07:00

Summary: This article will help you configure google test for the first time in Visual Studio IDE. It will take you through the installation process to writing your first ATP's on gtest.

!!!Installation:
• After Downloading Gtest the next step is to build it. To do this is fairly easy just open \msvc\gtest.sln’ in Visual Studio and Build it just like any other project.
• After Building notice that a ‘Release’ folder will be created in ‘\msvc’. That’s it you are ready to write you first ATP’s.

!!!Making a Test Project(Note: These are the settings only for release mode):
• Place the gtest directory in the local folder(where there is bin directory) of your project so that it can be machine independent
• Make a win32 console application Project in VS2008 with language settings as C++
• Go into Solution Explorer > Right Click Top Node > Add > Existing Project and Add two projects :
o \msvc\gtest
o ‘\msvc\gtest_main
• Go into Project Menu > Properties > Configuration Settings > C/C++ > Code Generation and set
o Basic Run Time Checks to “Both (/RTC1, equiv. to /RTCsu) “
o Run Time Library to “Multi-threaded(/MT)”

• Go into Project Menu > Properties > Configuration Settings > C/C++ > Optimization and set optimization: Disabled (/Od)

• In your Visual Studio Project open: Project Menu > Properties > Configuration Settings > C/C++ > Additional Dependencies(All configuration in combo box)
o Add on a new line in double quotes ‘$(InputDir)\gtest-1.3.0\include’ folder.
o Now make a Separate Source file and in that write the test methods using TEST’ macro
o And in Projects main source file call the tests using RUN_ALL_TEST

Note: is the gtest Directory which should be placed at the local project location
For Additional Help: http://code.google.com/p/googletest/w/list

Black Berry No match for Apple

2009-06-19T02:54:00.000-07:00

Lately I have been hearing alot of fuss that, Black Berry is going to beat iphone and this makes me real sick to my stomach there is NOWAY black berry can touch iphone why guys because there is no passion gone into its making.
-The idea of i-phone conceived by a genious like steve jobs.
-No one brought multi touch to masses like apple did
-No one previoulsy thought of an idea that people will start watching movies on small screen

you know what i think of apple is explained in the following two videos:

APPLE HITS BACK HARD SO DONT MESS WITH IT

My favourite Quote

2009-06-17T05:14:00.000-07:00

I have been recently thinking that what is my favourite quote, Now there are alot of personalities which are my inspirations, but the quote that for me stands out is by the extremely successful American Innovator Bill Gates which is:

" Life is Unfair so deal with it" ~Bill Gates

What is so appealing in this qoute for me is that this quote says to accept the fact that in life somtimes cheats do work, what you need to do is to stop wining that you have been hard done rather accept the fact and find a workaround for it.