This is a continuation of thoughts after reading Design by Contract by Example by Richard Mitchell and Jim McKim. This time I want to write a little about design by contract without direct language support. What do you give up without language support, and is it still worth it to struggle through defining contracts without that support? Read the rest of this entry »

I spent some of my Christmas vacation upgrading the hardware on my PC. I’ve been suspicious that there was something wrong with my old motherboard, so I decided to get a new one. And when you’re getting a new motherboard, you might as well get a new CPU and new RAM. And since I was getting a new motherboard, it ought to have PCI-Express, so that meant a new graphics card as well. I’ve been through this process a few times now, so I thought I’d try to collect some of the wisdom I’ve acquired by doing it. There are lots of people who are more expert at system building than myself, but maybe I can save someone from a special class of boneheaded mistakes: those I’ve made myself. Read the rest of this entry »