In Praise of Function Pre and Postconditions

By Antonio Cangiano Posted On July 3, 2016 Programming 1 Comment

I call it my billion-dollar mistake. It was the invention of the null reference. — Sir Tony Hoare In mathematics, functions have a domain and a codomain. These are respectively the set of inputs and the set of possible outputs. The function then simply relates an input to an output. For

A Language for the Next 10 Years

By Antonio Cangiano Posted On June 14, 2016 Programming 16 Comments

In early 2006 I had just started my career in IBM. I was the “Ruby Guy”[1] (or alternatively, the “Rails Guy”). During a meeting with a few high-profile engineers, I presented what Ruby brought to the table. An IBM Distinguished Engineer[2] stopped me in my tracks and said, “It sounds slow”.

Rails Is an Old Hat, and That’s Okay

By Antonio Cangiano Posted On December 9, 2014 Programming 3 Comments

Not too long ago, someone I know said, “At this point in time, Rails is an old hat”, in reference to the fact that many developers are adopting newer technologies like Node.js. I don’t see this as a negative, true as it might be. When Rails arrived on the scene a

3 Upcoming Languages That Are Worth Exploring

By Antonio Cangiano Posted On November 25, 2014 Programming 2 Comments

Being at the forefront of technology is something that I’ve always sincerely enjoyed. For example I was one of the first C# programmers in Italy back when C# was still in beta, and I was there in the early days of Rails as well (just a few months after its initial