#284 – October 07, 2018
An Introduction to Probabilistic Programming
This document is designed to be a first-year graduate-level introduction to probabilistic programming. It not only provides a thorough background for anyone wishing to use a probabilistic programming system, but also introduces the techniques needed to design and build these systems. It is aimed at people who have an undergraduate-level understanding of either or, ideally, both probabilistic machine learning and programming languages.
Automating the Stack Overflow Developer Survey
In this post, you'll find out about my crazy experiment of automating the most popular developer survey out there - the Stack Overflow Developer Survey.
Your calendrical fallacy is thinking…
Helping you navigate the insane complexity of calendrically correct date and time operations.
Visual Programming - Why it’s a Bad Idea
A visual programming language is one that allows the programmer to create programs by manipulating graphical elements rather than typing textual commands. A well known example is Scratch, a visual programming language from MIT that’s used to teach children. The advantages given are that they make programming more accessible to novices and non-programmers. There was a very popular movement in the 1990’s to bring these kinds of tools into the enterprise with so called CASE tools, where enterprise systems could be defined with UML and generated without the need for trained software developers.
Brute-forcing a seemingly simple number puzzle
Something was bothering me for almost two decades. It was a pen and paper game that I learned when I was around 13. The rules are simple: on an empty 10x10 grid (100 squares in total) you put a number 1 on an arbitrary square.