Just a quick video to show the difference on how fast it is to create a simple “Hello World” app on all 3 platforms.
XCode vs. Eclipse vs. Visual Studio – Developer Efficiency on iPhone, Android, Windows Phone (Video)
Mar 022012
Feb 262012
“Databases are Categories” – An awesome explanation by David Spivak of what category theory is and how it relates to databases.
Abstract:
Category theory is a powerful language for organizing layers of abstraction in all areas of mathematics. Databases are powerful tools for organizing information of all sorts. Whereas categories are often considered hopelessly abstract, databases are often considered horrifically mundane. Thus it is either strange or fitting that, mathematically speaking, categories and databases are the same concept. In this talk I’ll show how to turn any database into a category and any category into a database. I’ll also discuss functors and how they may be useful for issues of data migration and merging.
For more amazing tech talks by Galois Inc, check out their Vimeo channel at http://vimeo.com/channels/galois.
Oct 102011
Hilarious, but it is so true. This is exactly what happens in most cases. How would you sell F# to your boss?
Sep 202011
Awesome presentation by Bob, who isn’t afraid to blaze technology trails, and he has the arrows in the back to prove it. You may remember him from his awesome PyObjC efforts, and his latest triumph is using Erlang to power an ad network for flash games. Listen in as he introduces the language+environment and waxes poetic about hot code reloading, fault-tolerant runtimes, concurrency oriented programming and function pattern matching.
Erlang isn’t my favorite language, but after watching this, that might just change. Good to watch too when you’re learning F#, about mailboxes and various other concepts.
May 242011
The 8th iteration of CTU is back – It’s the time of the year User Group of Singapore come together and put up a full day technical sharing event for the community. Organized by the community for the community, we have sessions that suits IT Professionals, Developers and Database Administrators. A full day of contents has been arranged for you to help get you up to date with the latest technologies in the Microsoft stack. If you are someone who like hands on more than anything, you are welcome to sign up for our Hands-on Lab on the actual day itself! Don’t miss this chance and start registering today!!!
Date: 25th June 2011
Time: 0900 – 1730 hrs
Venue: Microsoft Singapore, One Marina Boulevard
Registration Fees: $12 (Early-birds), $20 (Walk-ins)
Why you should attend this event:
- To learn about the latest changes in .NET, Microsoft virtualization technologies, Microsoft Lync, Microsoft Exchange, and new upcoming System Center product
- To participate in Hands-on-Lab: Topic that address printer driver deployment via GPO
Who should attend this event:
- IT Professionals
- Developers
- Database Administrators
- Essentially you, as you’re one of our user group members!
For instruction to register to this event, go to www.sgdotnet.org/events/CTU2011/Pages/Registration.aspx.
To find out more about the event, go to www.sgdotnet.org/events/CTU2011/Pages/default.aspx
P.S.
I’ll be talking about the new C# 5.0 – Async keyword, so if you’re interested do come and drop by.
May 192011
Ever since the announcement of a paid-for product, .NET Reflector by RedGate which has been a free application that is now an essential tool to many .NET developers, there has been an uproar among the community developers regarding this move to completely change a free essential developer tool to a paid-for app.
JetBrains, the creator of the famous and popular ReSharper, dotTrace and dotCover, has now created a free decompiler tool that’s similar (if not better) than .NET Reflector called dotPeek.
dotPeek offers:
- Decompilation of .NET 1.0-4.0 assemblies to C#
- Code syntax highlighting and code insight features
- Complete keyboard support
- Visual Studio look-and-feel
- The full power of ReSharper-style navigation
Learn more about dotPeek and download an early build. Please submit bug reports and feature requests to the dotPeek issue tracker, and discuss the tool on the dotPeek forum.
For latest news and hints, follow dotPeek on twitter or like JetBrains on Facebook
Finally, have in mind that decompiling will also be available right in Visual Studio as part of the upcoming ReSharper 6.
May 062011
PyCon APAC 2011 is back again in Singapore from 9th to 11th June 2011 held at the Republic Polytechnic in Woodlands. PyCon Asia Pacific represents a conference dedicated to the Python programming language. It is an independent, community-run, community-controlled and not-for-profit conference. PyCon Asia Pacific will serve as a perfect platform for Python users throughout Asia-Pacific countries to come together to meet with fellow Python users. The same can be said for anyone adopting an exploratory perspective towards Python.
Early bird registration for PyCon APAC 2011 is now open!
Apr 232011
A free e-book on OCaml – “Think OCaml – How to Think Like a Computer Scientist” is available for reading at thinkocaml.com
How to Think Like a Computer Scientist is an introductory programming textbook based on the OCaml language. It is a modified version of Think Python by Allen Downey. It is intended for newcomers to programming and also those who know some programming but want to learn programming in the function-oriented paradigm, or those who simply want to learn OCaml.
OCaml is a powerful high-level programming language with a large emphasis on speed and efficiency. You can find out more about the language by visiting caml.inria.fr.
This text leverages the power of the language to teach the reader important concepts in computer science and software design, with an emphasis in experimentation and self-directed learning.
Apr 082011
Erik Meijer and Gavin Bierman from Microsoft recently wrote a paper on “A co-Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks“. They argue that noSQL is really coSQL, and that there is a duality between coSQL and SQL which are simply 2 opposites that coexist in harmony. This is huge, if there is a simple mathematical duality between the 2, then monads and monad comprehensions can provide a common query system which abstracts and simplifies coding for either SQL or noSQL.
It’s a good read, but your brain might melt with some of the mathematics involved.
In this article we present a mathematical data model for the most common noSQL databases—namely, key/value relationships—and demonstrate that this data model is the mathematical dual of SQL’s relational data model of foreign-/primary-key relationships. Following established mathematical nomenclature, we refer to the dual of SQL as coSQL. We also show how a single generalization of the relational algebra over sets—namely, monads and monad comprehensions—forms the basis of a common query language for both SQL and noSQL. Despite common wisdom, SQL and coSQL are not diabolically opposed, but instead deeply connected via beautiful mathematical theory.
Source: A co-Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks
Mar 042011
A lot of people ask me why they should use F#, and when they should use it. Microsoft has posted a white paper about “F# in the Enterprise” giving some case studies and examples of where F# is being used.
In short, F# allows accelerated analytical and parallel .NET development. Great article, however I wish there were more case studies outside the financial industry, but I guess that’s where F# feels most comfortable at for now.
Check it out: F# in the Enterprise