What is Toluu?
Toluu is a free service for sharing the feeds you read and discovering new ones.		 Get Invite

GrokCode


T-Shirts: Display Your Inner GeekNovember 8

Show off your inner geek with these t-shirts from CafePress.  There are quite a few classic geek shirts here: Space Invaders, Ubuntu, Whisky Tango Foxtrot (WTF!), Office Space, the regular expression version of “To be or not to be”, Lisp, and more. Click on any shirt for purchase details.

Short on cash? Enter to win a free GrokCode shirt.

119303533v9_350x350_front_color-militarygreen.jpg 153818305v2_350x350_front_color-blackwhite.jpg
GrokCode T-Shirt GiveawayNovember 8

GrokCode is giving away some free schwag to thank our readers this month.  Up for grabs is a free T-shirt, golf shirt, or tanktop that will announce to the world that you grok code. Entering is as easy as subscribing to GrokCode via email or RSS feed, then confirming that you are an active subscriber.   

3shirts-small.png

The Schwag

The winner will be able to choose the style and size of their GrokCode shirt. There are a few more styles in addition to the ones shown on the left, and most styles come in a few different colors. You can see all 5 different shirts and the GrokCode sticker at the GrokCode Developers store.

How to Enter

Enter the Schwag contest in 3 easy steps.

  1. Subscribe via email (don’t forget to respond to the feedburner opt-in email) or RSS.  Subscribers will receive new GrokCode posts delivered to them 2-3 times a month. No spam. If you are already subscribed, no ne
6 Easy Ways To Get Started Programming Open SourceOctober 31

Open source projects can be a good way to geek out and do what you love, and having a side project can help improve overall job satisfaction, keep you at the top of your hacking game, and can often lead to other opportunities.  The problem is a lot of people have trouble making that first step because they don’t really know where to start.  Here are 6 easy tips for getting started with F/OSS.

FOSS Logos1. Get Involved With the Projects You Use

This may seem obvious, but don’t try to jump into a project that you don’t use and don’t know anything about.  Make a short list of open source software projects you might like to contribute to based on the software you are already using.  Don’t forget about the potential for contributing to libraries and modules - there are advantages to developing on a project used by other developers.  Do you use a framework, file converter, graphing library, or build tool that is open source and in need of bug squashing, optimization, or new features? These are prime candidates for a first F/OSS project.

 2. Do What You Love

Look for a place to contribute where you can do something you are genuinely interested in. If you have a special place in your heart for p

Interview: Rebecca HeinemanOctober 17

This is the first interview in an ongoing series of mini-interviews with famous developers and programming authors.  Rebecca Heineman has kindly agreed to be the first interviewee. She has been a games programmer for almost 30 years - she has written and designed many titles over the course of her career including a Bards Tale III: Thief of Fate, Battle Chess, Wasteland, and Tass Times in Tonetown. Rebecca was also a founding member of Interplay, Logicware, and Contraband Entertainment.

Bards Tale III

Regular readers will remember her name from the analysis of famous developers on GrokCode a while back.

Lets get to the interview!

How did you first get involved with programming?

When I was 14, I saw the early computers like the IMSAI 8080 and the AIM-65 from Rockwell and I knew I wanted to be involved with that. Eventually, I earned enough money to buy an Apple ][ computer (They just came out) and messed around with it. From using F666G, I was able to use the mini-assembler and eventually taught myself 6502 programming. Learning how these machines worked got me hooked and I’ve been programming non-stop ever since.

What advice would you give to someon

Programming Syntax Brain TeasersOctober 5

This is a collection of 4 programming brain teasers in C and Java.  Some require a sudden flash of insight or knowledge of good coding style to solve, others demand intimate knowledge of the compilation process. The problems range from easy to insanely tricky.  The C brain teasers come from The C Puzzle Book and the Obfuscated C Contest.  The Java problems are from the Java Puzzlers book.  Answers to all problems are at the bottom of the page.

1. Magic Java URLs

Why does the following Java code compile?

  1. public class Oddity {
  2.     public static void main(String[] args) {
  3.         http://grok-code.com
  4.         System.out.println("Why is the URL allowed above?");
  5.     }
  6. }