Odds and ends

Hi Folks,

Things that may be of interest.

1. On the ratio of program documentation to program code:

Dijkstra has stated that a reasonable

proportion of documentation volumes

of program design/program code is

ten to one. Consequently Dijkstra

wouldn’t raise his eyebrows if a source

code of ten pages is based upon design

documentation of one hundred pages.

He has pointed out that it is not the

design documentation that is extensive

but the source code that is compressed!

2. On meaning:

The meaning of the bits in computer

memory is not in the computer but in

the mind of the programmer.

3. On the ubiquity of unicode:

TEDx talk in Vienna about the

decodeunicode project:

4. On handling conflicting information in the XML encoding declaration, the charset param (in HTML or in the HTTP header), and BOM:

Henry Thompson is seeking comments

about the work he and others are doing

to clean up the ambiguity:

/Roger