Prime Factorization – Actual Code

I finally had a little time free and put together a solution to the prime factorization problem. As with the tic-tac-toe program before, there are lots of opportunities to make this program better. This only runs once, rather than looping. The number being factored is a constant so you have to edit the program toContinue reading “Prime Factorization – Actual Code”

I Hate Your Favorite VCS

Whenever I have to start working with a new software package to do a task I already know how to perform using a different software package, I feel a little frustrated. I’m sure everyone can relate to this. Programs that do similar things are often unnecessarily differentiated. It’s as if DeWalt and Makita made cordlessContinue reading “I Hate Your Favorite VCS”

Hey, I Built a Thing

My new job involves hacking on Bugzilla and part of that involves email. Bug email, system administration email, yadda yadda. I wanted a way to test that email without it ever leaving my development system. We had a mechanism in place where the emails would just get written to a plain file, but that doesn’tContinue reading “Hey, I Built a Thing”

Factorize, More Boxes

Boxes and arrows, I know, it doesn’t look like a program yet. Still, it all is going somewhere, I promise. Let’s take a minute and talk about how factorization works. It’s pretty straightforward: either a number is evenly divisible by some other number (a factor) or it isn’t. Let’s look at an example: 48. WhatContinue reading “Factorize, More Boxes”

Why You Gotta Hate?

For the past three weeks I’ve been working on a Bugzilla system. Specifically, working on fixing small bugs in the UI code of a customized Bugzilla installation. This system has been highly customized, with lots of new Javascript as well as a lot of server-side extensions to customize the process of bug entry and workflow.Continue reading “Why You Gotta Hate?”

Factorization: Some Drawings

So here’s the very high level flowchart for the factorization program. The key insight here is that the things the program does are grouped together and put inside pretty inclusive boxes. The lower-level flowcharts will start to unpack these boxes. The really interesting thing about this is that for any box we don’t really knowContinue reading “Factorization: Some Drawings”

Programming Assignment: Prime Factorization

Last night the Badb had to find the prime factorization of a number. Thrill moment! This is exactly the problem I once wrote a computer program to solve and wound up entering that program in the school science fair. That was pretty cool. Back when I had to solve this problem, my computer had aContinue reading “Programming Assignment: Prime Factorization”