eRambler

Today’s challenge, takes us back to a bit of computing history: a good old-fashioned Turing Machine. → Full code on GitHub !!!

Today’s challenge, the penultimate, requires us to build a bridge capable of reaching across to the CPU, our final destination. → Full code on GitHub !!!

Today’s challenge requires us to understand why a coprocessor is working so hard to perform an apparently simple calculation. → Full code on GitHub !!!

Today’s challenge has us helping to clean up (or spread, I can’t really tell) an infection of the “sporifica” virus. → Full code on GitHub !!!

Today’s challenge asks us to assist an artist building fractal patterns from a rulebook. → Full code on GitHub !!!

Today’s challenge finds us simulating the movements of particles in space. → Full code on GitHub !!!

Today’s challenge asks us to help a network packet find its way. → Full code on GitHub !!!

Today’s challenge introduces a type of simplified assembly language that includes instructions for message-passing.

In today’s challenge we deal with a monstrous whirlwind of a program, eating up CPU and memory in equal measure. → Full code on GitHub (and Python driver script) !!!

Today’s challenge rather appeals to me as a folk dancer, because it describes a set of instructions for a dance and asks us to work out the positions of the dancing programs after each run through the dance. → Full code on GitHub !!!

Today’s challenge introduces two pseudo-random number generators which are trying to agree on a series of numbers.

Today’s challenge has us helping a disk defragmentation program by identifying contiguous regions of used sectors on a 2D disk. → Full code on GitHub !!!

Today’s challenge requires us to sneak past a firewall made up of a series of scanners. → Full code on GitHub !!!

Today’s challenge has us helping a village of programs who are unable to communicate.

Today’s challenge is to help a program find its child process, which has become lost on a hexagonal grid.

Today’s challenge asks us to help a group of programs implement a (highly questionable) hashing algorithm that involves repeatedly reversing parts of a list of numbers. → Full code on GitHub !!!

In today’s challenge we come across a stream that we need to cross.

Today’s challenge describes a simple instruction set for a CPU, incrementing and decrementing values in registers according to simple conditions.

Today’s challenge introduces a set of processes balancing precariously on top of each other.

Today’s challenge asks us to follow a recipe for redistributing objects in memory that bears a striking resemblance to the rules of the African game Mancala. → Full code on GitHub !!!

Today’s challenge has us attempting to help the CPU escape from a maze of instructions.

Today’s challenge describes some simple rules supposedly intended to enforce the use of secure passwords.

Today’s challenge requires us to perform some calculations on an “experimental memory layout”, with cells moving outwards from the centre of a square spiral (squiral?).

Today’s challenge is to calculate a rather contrived “checksum” over a grid of numbers. → Full code on GitHub !!!

Well, December’s here at last, and with it Day 1 of Advent of Code. … It goes on to explain that you may only leave by solving a captcha to prove you’re not a human.

It’s a common lament of mine that I don’t get to write a lot of code in my day-to-day job.

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I thought it was about time I had some sort of content policy on here so this is a first draft.

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What is a librarian?

Better Science through Better DoughnutsJez Cope Update: fixed the link to the slides so it works now!

I’ve just switched my blog over to the Nikola static site generator.

Kanban board Jeff Lasovski (via Wikimedia Commons) I’ve been working with our IT services at work quite closely for the last year as product owner for our new research data portal, ORDA.

Photo by Lena Bell on Unsplash Every year, the Mozilla Foundation runs a two-day Global Sprint, giving people around the world 50 hours to work on projects supporting and promoting open culture and tech.

A couple of months ago, I went to Oxford for an intensive, 2-day course run by Software Carpentry and Data Carpentry for prospective new instructors.

For most of the last few years I've been lucky enough to attend the International Digital Curation Conference (IDCC).

CC0, Pixabay This time last year, Brad Colbow published a comic in his “The Brads” series entitled “The long slow death of Twitter”.

I’m knocking the rust off my programming skills by attempting to write a pure-Python interpreter for OpenRefine “scripts”.

I’ve been meaning to give Yesterbox a try for a while.

From opensource.com on Flickr Whenever I’m involved in a discussion about how to encourage researchers to adopt new practices, eventually someone will come out with some variant of the following phrase: “That’s all very well, but researchers will never do…

“The single most important rule of testing is to do it.” — Brian Kernighan and Rob Pike, The Practice of Programming (quote taken from SC Test page One of the trickiest aspects of developing software is making sure that it actually does what it’s supposed…

Photo by Alan Cleaver I really love Markdown1.

This competition will be an opportunity for the next wave of developers to show their skills to the world — and to companies like ours. — Dick Hardt, ActiveState (quote taken from SC Track page) All code contains bugs, and all projects have features that…

Nine years ago, when I first release Python to the world, I distributed it with a Makefile for BSD Unix.

I’ve started using “semantic linefeeds”, a concept I discovered on Brandon Rhodes’ blog, when writing content, an idea described in that article far better than I could.

Software tools often grow incrementally from small beginnings into elaborate artefacts.

“Software Carpentry was originally a competition to design new software tools, not a training course.

I’ve decided to move the site over to a different static site generator, Hugo.

Except where otherwise stated, all content on eRambler by Jez Cope is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

I occasionally get asked for resources to help someone learn more about research data management (RDM) as a discipline (i.e. for those providing RDM support rather than simply wanting to manage their own data).