After a recent talk I gave that included VimScript, an attendee asked a question about the differences between keyword, match, and region following syn in a Vim syntax highlighting file. Here’s my answer. ...

A while back I tackled the following programming challenge: From One End to the Other: Find the smallest possible (positive) integer that ends in a six such that if that six is removed and placed in front of the remaining digits of the number, the resulting number will be four times as large as the original. ...

A few weeks back I tackled the following programming challenge from my colleague Josh Branchaud: Vim Buffer I open up a new Vim buffer and type all the numbers 1 to 10,000, separated by spaces. Then, my cat walks on the keyboard and somehow activates a substitution command that replaces all the ‘0’ digits (zeros) with spaces. If I now sum up all the numbers in the buffer, as delineated by spaces, what is the total? ...

Project announcement! Last night I built a Markov Chain-generated novel, titled Ceramic Nation. ...

Recently, I was thinking about the N + 1 problem. N + 1 is a performance issue in a web application, where a method call unleashes a torrent of database queries. ...

What does &: mean in Ruby? In this post, I’ll explain. ...

I have one computer monitor on my desk. Not long ago, this was common, but today, many people have two, three, or four monitors. In this post, I’d like to make the case that most professional programmers can use just one monitor. ...