Visual Studio Magazine reports: Microsoft, which calls its Excel spreadsheet a programming language, reports that an effort called LAMBDA to make it even more of a programming language is paying off, recently being deemed Turing complete. Being Turing complete is the litmus test of a full-fledged programming language, marking the ability to imitate a Turing machine. According to one definition, that…
Tag: coders
In Hidden Message on White House Website, Biden Calls For Coders
The recently updated website for President Joe Biden’s White House carried an invitation for tech specialists savvy enough to find it. From a report: Hidden in the HTML code on www.whitehouse.gov was an invitation to join the U.S. Digital Service, a technology unit within the White House. “If you’re reading this, we need your help building back better,” the message said….
Study Finds Brain Activity of Coders Isn’t Like Language or Math
“When you do computer programming, what sort of mental work are you doing?” asks science/tech journalist Clive Thompson: For a long time, folks have speculated on this. Since coding involves pondering hierarchies of symbols, maybe the mental work is kinda like writing or reading? Others have speculated it’s more similar to the way our brains process math and puzzles. A group…
The Few, the Tired, the Open Source Coders
Reader shanen shares a report (and offers this commentary): When the open source concept emerged in the ’90s, it was conceived as a bold new form of communal labor: digital barn raisings. If you made your code open source, dozens or even hundreds of programmers would chip in to improve it. Many hands would make light work. Everyone would feel ownership….
Python ‘Dominates’ IEEE Spectrum’s 2020 List of Top Programming Languages
IEEE Spectrum’s August issue will include an article titled “The Top Programming Languages.” Calculated using metrics from 11 online sources, it concludes that “One thing remains constant: the dominance of Python.”
Our default ranking is weighted toward the interests of an IEEE member, and looking at the top entries, we see that Python has held onto its comfortable lead, with Java and…
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt Wants To Create a Government-Funded AI University
The U.S. government’s approach of letting Silicon Valley drive the country’s technological boom has left the government itself scrambling for tech talent. Now, a federal commission led by ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt and former Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert O. Work wants to create a university to train new government coders. From a report: The school would be called the U.S….
The F-16’s Replacement Won’t Have a Pilot At All
“The next combat aircraft to enter the U.S. Air Force inventory will not be a manned sixth-generation fighter or even the Northrop Grumman B-21,” reports Aviation Week. “By fiscal 2023, the Air Force expects to deliver the first operational versions of a new unmanned aircraft system (UAS) called Skyborg, a provocative portmanteau blending the medium of flight with the contraction for…
Altran’s ‘Code Defect AI’ and the Rise of AI-Assisted Coding Tools
“Altran has released a new tool that uses artificial intelligence to help software engineers spot bugs during the coding process instead of at the end,” reports TechRepublic. “Available on GitHub, Code Defect AI uses machine learning to analyze existing code, spot potential problems in new code, and suggest tests to diagnose and fix the errors.”
Walid Negm, group chief innovation officer at…
IBM Rallies COBOL Engineers To Save Overloaded Unemployment Systems
As millions file for unemployment benefits in the United States every week, states’ aging computer systems simply cannot keep up. States like New Jersey and Connecticut have said they are desperate for programmers who are still familiar with COBOL, a programming language that debuted in 1960 and is still used in critical computer systems like unemployment databases and banks. But there…
New Jersey Desperately Needs COBOL Programmers
In New Jersey, the coronavirus outbreak has resulted in something that few people outside that state’s tech department would have foreseen: a dire need for COBOL coders. From a report, shared by reader AmiMoJo: Standing for Common Business-Oriented Language, COBOL’s day came and went long ago. It initially made a splash by giving coders a programming language that could work across…