Why “a caret, euro, trademark” ’ in a file?
Why might you see †in the middle of an otherwise intelligible file? The reason is very similar to the reason you might see �, which I explained in the previous post. You might want to read that post first if you’re not familiar with Unicode and character encodings. It
Read moreA valid character to represent an invalid character
You may have seen a web page with the symbol � scattered throughout the text, especially in older web pages. What is this symbol and why does it appear unexpected? The symbol we’re discussing is a bit of a paradox. It’s the (valid) Unicode character to represent an invalid Unicode
Read moreWhen zeros at natural numbers implies zero everywhere
Suppose a function f(z) equals 0 at z = 0, 1, 2, 3, …. Under what circumstances might you be able to conclude that f is zero everywhere? Clearly you need some hypothesis on f. For example, the function sin(πz) is zero at every integer but certainly not constantly zero.
Read moreHow to build a role-playing video game in 24 hours
Ben and Ryan chat about how the human body can act as a resonance chamber for remote car keys, the potential for GenAI to revolutionize game development by creating an infinite array of dynamic game worlds, and advancements in brain-computer interfaces.
Read moreAccelerating the Cloud: The Final Steps
We explore how to approach cloud native application development and where to start the process within your organization. Continue reading Accelerating the Cloud: The Final Steps on SitePoint.
Read moreWhen High Performance Computing Is Not High Performance
Everybody cares about codes running fast on their computers. Hardware improvements over recent decades have made this possible. But how well are we taking advantage of hardware speedups? Consider these two C++ code examples. Assume here n = 10000000. void sub(int* a, int* b) { for (int i=0; i<n; ++i)
Read moreLeading zeros
The confusion between numbers such as 7 and 007 comes up everywhere. We know they’re different—James Bond isn’t Agent 7—and yet the distinction isn’t quite trivial. How should software handle the two kinds of numbers? The answer isn’t as simple as “Do what the user expects” because different users have
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