Archive · 2006
Irrefragable Apriorisms
Tips and links from the original version of this site. They are kept for posterity, and many of the links have long since moved or disappeared.
In .NET, use the RNGCryptoServiceProvider class instead of Random to generate random numbers. It implements a cryptographically strong algorithm, so the results are more random than those from the Random class.
Jeffrey Richter, one of the better authors on Windows development, presents a very simple but powerful and efficient class for thread synchronization.
Scott Mitchell, founder of 4GuysFromRolla.com, wrote an excellent article on master pages and site map navigation.
Peter Femiani uses Ildasm to look behind the scenes of the “using” keyword in C#.
Are you multi-thread savvy? Take Walter Finethen's threading quiz and find out.
The Enterprise Library is important to Software Factories, Microsoft's strategy for industrializing software development. Tom Hollander describes the Application Block Software Factory, included in v3 of the Enterprise Library, which builds application blocks.
Enterprise Library ↗Software Factories ↗Block building made easy ↗
Interactivate offers free online courseware for visually exploring science and math. It targets middle school, but it is a refreshing overview of elementary concepts that apply to software developers. Venn diagrams, for example, can supplement class diagrams to model class constraints and overlapping responsibilities.
Whereas class diagrams depict class relationships, constraint diagrams visualize the properties and compositions of those relationships. Here is a good paper on using constraint diagrams to model software.
A neural net is an interconnected system of nodes working together to solve a problem, used in AI, games like chess, pattern recognition and other problems too complex for a deterministic design. The Hopfield net is one of the easiest to understand; the CodeProject article is worth it for its C# sample code, and there is a simpler explanation without the math. Chess fans might enjoy a Hopfield-net solution to the n-Queens problem.
Hopfield neural network (CodeProject) ↗A simpler explanation ↗n-Queens with a Hopfield net ↗The n-Queens problem ↗
Find out the secrets of a great research paper that will capture your reader's attention.
Listen to legendary computer scientist Donald Knuth's lectures on God and computers.