Beautiful Code for Parsing

I've recently been reading up on JavaScript. One of the books I was re-reading was JavaScript: The Good Parts by Douglas Crockford. In there he mentioned the chapter he wrote in Beautiful Code. (Of which, there are mixed reviews.) It's been a while since I read that book and I didn't remember his chapter. So I pulled out my copy (old enough that it's an actual paper copy). I didn't want to carry the (large) book around so I took advantage of how O'Reilly lets you register your paper books and then buy the ebook for $5. Of course, after I did that I found Crockford's chapter is available on his web site. That's ok, I wouldn't mind re-reading the whole book.

The chapter was on parsing based on Top Down Operator Precedence (TDOP) by Vaughn Pratt. I thought I'd start by reading Pratt's original paper. Crockford's link takes you to the ACM citation which wants to charge you to read the paper (even though it's from 1973), but a quick web search found a public version. I found the paper a little hard to follow.

Crockford's article is an example of a parser for a subset of JavaScript written in that subset. It still took some effort to understand but I found it easier to follow than the original paper.

Suneido's hand written top down recursive descent parser is ok, but it has a lot of methods to parse expressions. It always seemed like there should be a better way. At some point I looked at the Go parser and it manages with a lot less methods by using precedence. I'd be quite interested to see what a Suneido parser would look like using Pratt's approach. Although, because Suneido's syntax grew ad hoc, it has some parts that are a little ugly to parse.

I love coming across elegant new algorithms and ideas. You can tell how much of a geek I am by the fact that I get as much pleasure out of a new algorithm as most people would from a bowl of ice cream :-) Which might help explain why I'm so skinny - not many calories in a delicious algorithm.

Effective Modern C++

I just finished reading Effective Modern C++ by Scott Meyers. Like his More Effective C++ and the original Effective C++ it's well written with good explanations and examples. This third book covers the latest C++ features in C++11 and 14.

It's been a long time since I read the first two books. Effective C++ was published in 1991! Back then I was writing fair amounts of C++ code. Nowadays the only C++ programming I do is maintaining the C++ implementation of Suneido.

I expected the new book to be similar to the previous ones - practical advice on how to effectively use modern C++. And there is lots of that. But it was also full of "gotchas" - things that won't compile (and give horrendous error messages), or compile but won't run, or compile and run but do the wrong thing.

C++ has always been a complex language and the new versions have only pushed that even further. If makes me appreciate the simplicity of the Go language which in some ways is a reaction to the complexity of C++.

Don't get me wrong, the new features of C++ are great, they improve the language in many ways. But my head is spinning with things like when perfect forwarding isn't perfect, when universal references aren't, and when uniform initialization isn't uniform.

Java 8

I just finished reading Java SE 8 for the Really Impatient by Cay S. Horstmann. I'd recommend it as an introduction to Java 8 features. I've also read Cay's Scala for the Impatient, and used his Core Java books for reference. No doubt there will be other Java 8 books arriving soon. Pragmatic Programmers has Functional Programming in Java: Harnessing the Power of Java 8 Lambda Expressions in beta. And Manning has Java 8 Lambdas in Action in Early Access. But unless I'm in a rush to learn about something, I don't usually go for beta or early access versions because I'd rather wait and read the final product.

Java 8 has seemed so far in the future that I haven't been thinking about it much. But I see it's supposed to be released in March, which isn't really that far off.

If I was starting a JVM project from scratch, I'd probably lean towards Scala. But for maintaining and improving the jSuneido Java code, I'm looking forward to Java 8, especially lambdas.

The current release version of Eclipse doesn't support Java 8, but there are early access releases available. Presumably support will be included in the next version of Eclipse. Intellij also has early support for Java 8.

Netbeans may be the best bet right now. Version 7.4 has Java 8 support, and the beta for Netbeans 8 is available.

No DRM Computer eBooks Update

You can now get most computer books in DRM-free ebook versions.

• O'Reilly
• Pragmatic Programmers
• Manning
• Apress
• Informit (Addison-Wesley, Que, Sams)

I've run into a few older books that are available on Kindle from Amazon, but aren't available as ebooks from the above sources. I can see older books maybe not being available digitally, but if there's a Kindle version obviously that's not the case.

They all want you to sign up for their email lists. I prefer to keep my email free of that kind of stuff. Some of them have RSS feeds which I don't mind.

One of the advantages of getting the emails or following the feeds is to get discount offers. Another option for this is to do a web search for something like "oreilly coupons". This will usually turn up valid discount codes. I'm not sure if the companies like that, but they're the ones offering the discounts, so I figure it's ok.

It's too bad that Amazon doesn't sell DRM-free books. It's not ideal to have to go to multiple suppliers, and set up accounts on each, and deal with their differences. Some take PayPal, some don't. O'Reilly automatically sends my books to my Dropbox, the others don't. Maybe someday Amazon will see the light. Until then, they're losing my business.

Several of the sources offer access to "pre-release" versions. At first it seemed attractive to get access sooner, but I ended up preferring to wait to read the final version. 

I've been looking forward to Tor (science fiction) going DRM-free, but the date has slipped from "July" to "summer", and now it's September. There's already been pressure by other publishers against Tor authors. [Update: I see on Amazon that at least some Tor books say: "At the publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied." I'm not sure why the Tor web-site still says "Coming in Summer 2012", maybe that's just referring to Tor's online store.]

Just to be clear, I prefer to buy my ebooks without DRM because it gives me more flexibility in where and how I can read them. I do not do it because I want to "pirate" them. 

informIT eBooks

As I've written before (here and here), I prefer to buy ebooks without DRM, not because I want to pirate them, but because dealing with DRM is a pain in the you-know-where, especially when you have multiple devices you want to access them from.

This is (as far as I know) almost impossible for mainstream books. But for computer books it's not too bad. Both Pragmatic Programmers and O'Reilly sell DRM free ebooks. And I've recently started buying ebooks from informIT (mostly Addison-Wesley ones).

The other issue with ebooks is format. The Kindle currently only handles mobi and pdf. And pdf's are generally painful to read on ebook readers because they have a fixed, usually large (e.g. 8.5 x 11) page size, with big margins. Because of this I bought one of the bigger 9.7" Kindle DX's, and it helps, but it's still not great.

The Kindle helpfully trims white margins on pdf's, but the problem is that the ebooks informIT is providing are images of the paper books so they have stuff like page numbers and titles in the top and bottom margins which prevent trimming from working properly. And worse, the stuff in the margins is not symmetrical so odd pages end up trimmed differently than even pages which means the zoom level keeps changing. Not the end of the world, but annoying.

Both Pragmatic and O'Reilly provide ebooks in epub, mobi, and pdf. But informIT only provides epub and pdf. At first I made do with the pdf's but eventually I got fed up and started looking for alternatives.

I thought about looking for some tool to process the pdf's and crop the margins. But that's not the only problem. Kindle doesn't let you highlight sections of text in pdf's, only in mobi. And the pdf's I've had from informIT haven't had any hyperlinks (e.g. from the table of contents) although pdf's are able to do that.

I took a look at the epub's from informIT and they seemed better, at least they were hyperlinked. So I looked for tools to convert epub to mobi. Stanza was one that was suggested and I already had it installed so I gave it a try. I like Stanza but it didn't do a very good job of converting these epubs to mobi.

The other tool that was suggested was Calibre. A plus for Calibre is that it's an open source project. The user interface is a little confusing but it did a great job of converting epub to mobi, including the cover image and hyperlinks. And it even recognized when I plugged in my Kindle and let me copy the books over. I downloaded the epub versions of all my informIT books and converted them - a big improvement.

I wish I'd got fed up sooner! I could have avoided a lot of painful pdf reading.

Although I'm happy to be able to get Addison-Wesley ebooks from informIT, I do have a minor complaint - their sleazy marketing. I got an email offering me a limited time 50% off deal. Sounded good to me so I found a few books I'd been planning to get. They came to something like $80. When I entered the 50% off code the price only dropped to around $70. That's a very strange 50%. Looking closer I found that you normally get 30% off, and over $55 it goes up to 35%. So the 50% deal was only 15% better than usual. I realize this is a common marketing scam, but it still annoys me. O'Reilly plays some similar games but not quite as bad.

Buy O'Reilly eBooks Direct

When I wrote my last post - Buy Pragmatic Programmer eBooks Direct - I should have mentioned that O'Reilly has a similar deal for their eBooks - ePub, Mobi, and PDF formats, DRM free, and free updates. Not all of their books are available as eBooks (some are print only) but most of the newer ones are.

They even have a 3 for 2 sale on right now.

Buy Pragmatic Programmer eBooks Direct

If you're buying Pragmatic Programmer books for your Kindle you have the choice of buying from Amazon or buying direct.

Buying from Amazon is the path of least resistance since you can buy right from your Kindle.

But if you do that, you'll end up with a proprietary format with DRM that only works with your Kindle. (Although you can read them on your PC or iPhone or iPod Touch with the Kindle app.)

Instead I'd recommend buying direct. That way you can download the book in multiple formats - PDF, ePub (e.g. for iPhone or iPod Touch using apps like Stanza, or for Sony readers), or Mobi (for Kindle). The books are DRM free, and as a bonus, you can download updated copies when they come out.

I've bought a few eBooks from Pragmatic Programmers in the past, either on their own or together with a paper copy. It was very nice to be able to go back and download the Mobi version so I could have them as a reference on my Kindle.

The only very minor hassle is that you have to buy and download the books on a separate computer and transfer them to the Kindle. In Canada that means by USB since emailing to your Kindle is not supported here.

Thanks to Pragmatic Programmers, at least a small part of my eBook library is not locked to the Kindle. I hope more publishers follow their example.

Another Unavailable eBook Reader

Barnes & Noble has announced their eBook reader. It looks pretty nifty, but of course, it's not available in Canada. (Only US currently.)

Nook, eBook Reader, eBook Device - Barnes & Noble

There are some interesting features like being able to loan books to other people, and being able to read your ebooks on your computer.

So far, the Sony eBook Readers are the only mainstream reader available in Canada.

The Sony eBook store claims about 55,000 books versus Amazon's 350,000. Barnes & Noble claims "over one million" but they must be counting all the public domain stuff. I'd be surprised if they have as good a selection as Amazon.

I wonder if you'd get away with shipping a Nook to a friend's US address. The question is whether they'll let you use a Canadian credit card to pay for books (Amazon doesn't).

Back to No Kindle in Canada

I just tried to order the new international version of the Kindle and got:

When the announcement first came out I specifically went and checked Canada and I'd swear it said it was available. (my previous post)

It really annoys me to continually run into products and services that exclude Canada. I don't think Amazon has anything personal against Canada, so I have to assume it's our industry and government that are blocking it. Stupid and short sighted.

Canada snubbed as Kindle goes global - The Globe and Mail

Scala Gets My Vote

Of all the languages I've read about recently, Scala strikes me as the one I'd most like to use.

I've always been interested in (computer) languages. I haven't actually seriously used many different languages - mainly C, C++, and recently Java. But I've avidly read about many.

I have books on Scheme, Smalltalk, Perl, Python, Icon, Dylan, C, C++, C#, Tcl, Ruby, Java, Lua, JavaScript, Erlang, Groovy, Scala, and probably more that I've forgotten.

I'm just finishing reading Programming in Scala by Martin Odersky (the creator of the language), Lex Spoon, and Bill Venners. Part of what prompted me to read it was a podcast with Bill Venners talking about why he likes Scala.

I liked C++. People criticize it because it was too complex, but I liked it's powerful features.

I can't get excited about Java. It's ok, and it has great IDE support, but it's a little boring. I like the garbage collection and the safety of no pointers, but I miss C++'s tricks with things like templates and operator overloading.

For some reason I haven't got too excited about Ruby either. I haven't written much code in it, but I've read a fair bit, gone to conferences, and managed a project written with Rails.

Ironically, Java compared to C++ is a bit like Suneido compared to Ruby. Both Java and Suneido try to avoid features that, although powerful, allow you to "shoot yourself in the foot" (if not in the head!)

Scala feels more like C++, lots of power and flexibility and tricks, enough to probably make your head hurt.

Both Scala and C++ try to support writing powerful, natural libraries and extensions, which I like.

For "system" programming (as opposed to "application" programming) I still lean towards static typing. But I do get tired of the verbosity of type declarations in C++ and Java. Scala is statically typed, but it also does type inference which greatly reduces the verbosity.

And it's a plus for me that Scala runs on the JVM and can be easily integrated with Java. (There's a .Net version as well, although not as well supported.) It seems like I could write parts of jSuneido in Scala if I wanted. I suspect you still might want to implement performance bottlenecks in Java, though. Or at least be careful which Scala features you used, since power often comes at a price.

Scala supports functional programming, but in combination with more conventional object-oriented programming. I haven't spent the time to wrap my head around "pure" functional languages like Haskell or (O(Ca))ML. But I could see using some functional programming in Scala.

I thought the Programming Scala book itself was good. It's not small - 2.6 lbs and 776 pages, but I had no trouble getting through it. I see it won a Jolt Award. Apress also has a Scala book, and both Pragmatic and O'Reilly have Scala books coming.