I'm currently reading Steve McConnell's Code Complete (for the first time - yes, I know that's somewhat worrying) and there was one section was disturbed me a little. For those of you with a copy to hand, it's in section 4.3, discussing the difference between programming in a language...
Ian Griffiths mailed me about macros, and explained how LISP macros were very different to C/C++ macros, working at a language level instead of at a text level. I won't pretend to understand all about what would be possible and what wouldn't, but Ian gave a good example: query expressions in...
For those of you who aren't aware, JetBrains is the company behind IntelliJ IDEA, the Java IDE which I've heard amazing things about (I've tried it a couple of times but never got into it - I think I need an expert sitting beside me to point out the cool stuff as I go) and ReSharper, the...
I often see people in newsgroups saying how wonderful Visual Studio is, and they often claim it's the "best IDE in the world". Strangely enough, most go silent when I ask how many other IDEs they've used for a significant amount of time. I'm not going to make any claims as to which IDE is "the best"...