Author of the "Programming Pearls" column in the Communications of the ACM, which was the source of several outstanding books:
Member of technical staff at
BellLabs.
mailto:jlb@research.bell-labs.com (out of date)
One of my favorite "Programming Pearls" was that on
LittleLanguages [Jon Bentley, Little languages, Communications of the ACM, 29(8):711--21, August 1986.
http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=315691]
In the appendix to the first edition of
Programming Pearls, he gives out ten pieces of engineering advice:
- Work on the right problem.
- Explore the design space of solutions.
- Look at the data.
- Use the back of the envelope.
- Exploit symmetry.
- Design with components.
- Build prototypes.
- Make tradeoffs when you have to.
- Keep it simple.
- Strive for elegance.
CategoryAuthor