The Universe's Most Advanced Aliens

Pure Python is generally a slow language. Written for performance, it will often be around 40-50 times slower than C, and Python “written for performance” is Python that is very straightforward and does not use many of its features. Python code that has a couple of methods on inherited classes, maybe a non-trivial decorator, and some __getattr__...

In This Post Is Not About Python, I make a comment towards the beginning about how Python “written for performance” is “Python that is very straightforward and does not use many of its features”. It may seem odd to post an addendum prior to the post it is an addendum too, but, let’s just say, I’ve learned a bit about how the Internet reads things...

The term “magic” is commonly thrown about in the programming world without a definition. This post gives a definition for it. Not the definition, just a definition. As a long-standing fuzzy term, I can’t necessarily capture all uses of it in the wild, but I believe this captures a lot of the practical value. Magic Definition A piece of code is...

In 1968, Edsger Dijkstra published a classic letter which was titled “Go To Statement Considered Harmful”. I think the headline buries the lede, because it’s actually an exhortation to structured programming in general, but it is not incorrect. goto is indeed considered harmful in the letter. Dijkstra’s letter was completely correct. History has...

The Strong Law of Small Numbers states: There aren’t enough small numbers to meet the many demands made of them. What this means is that there are so many more mathematical patterns in the world that involve small numbers than there are small numbers that there will inevitably be coincidences where two completely distinct will share some terms...