Judging the performance of programming languages,usually C is called the leader,though Fortran is often faster.New programming languages commonly use C as their referenceand they are really proud to be only so much slower than C.Few language designer try to beat C.What does it take for a language to be faster than C?Better Aliasing InformationAliasing describes the fact that two references might point to the same memory location.For example, consider the canonical memory copy:void* memcopy(void* dst, const void* src, size_t count) { while (count--) *dst++ = *src++; return dst;}Depending on...

Everybody's talking about how programming is the skill that we all are going to need. [Except those folks who might feel that most programming could be turned into wizard-like tools. Insert long discussion about Strong AI.]But what's a programmer? Is the guy who set up his own Apache Web Server a programmer? How about the guy who created a complex Excel spreadsheet? The guy who made his own RPG level? Minecraft players? When we say "Everybody is going to have to know programming" what, exactly, does that mean?We need a set of programming levels.Level 1, The Read-and-Type: This is the guy who ...

If you've used the mobile social network Path recently, it's likely that you enjoyed the experience. Path has a sophisticated design, yet it's easy to use. It sports an attractive red color scheme and the navigation is smooth as silk. It's a social app and finding friends is easy thanks to Path's suggestions and its connection to Facebook.In short, Path has a great user experience. That isn't the deciding factor on whether a tech product takes off. Ultimately it comes down to how many people use it and that's particularly important for a social app like Path. Indeed it's where Path may yet fai...