Code Generator

The Code Generator?
$24.95
Doctor Bill Warner, the principal investigator for a clinical research project gains international recognition, as he¡Çs about to revolutionize the way health care is practiced. In reorganized clinical information, doctors and nurses could select vital information by just pointing their finger at a unique touch sensitive terminal. John Allen, a software genius, determines Bill¡Çs unique structuring of information has unraveled a key-programming element that will also revolutionize the programming industry. He suggests they¡Çll be able to program by computer, through what he calls a Code Generator, totally eliminating the cost of software. But there are individuals at work in both the medical and the computer industries that seek to prevent this from ever happening. A corrupt group of physicians persuades a powerful Senator to have John Allen killed; but when an attempt to kill Bill Warner fails, the whole issue threatens to blow-up into an international scandal.

Code Generation in Action
$44.95
Two problems with this book:

1. The language -- Ruby -- is a strange choice. I've been writing and using code generators, in some form, for decades; I've used mmm... let's see: dBase, C, C++, awk, and perl, alone and/or in combination. These, I believe, are the more-or-less mainstream languages that could be appropriate as a platform for a book on code generation (and text processing in general). But Ruby? Life's short! One has to prioritize, ruthlessly sometimes: -- I don't know Ruby, I don't need Ruby, and don't want to waste my time on learning it just for the sake of reading this book. And, consider this: for every person knowing Ruby, there's gotta be at least a thousand knowing perl, so: Why Not Perl?

2. Code generation cases the author demonstrates are, w/o exception, way too primitive and inadequate for typical real-life needs (for example, in the unit-test section he generates tests for something like funcAdd( addend1, addend2 ) should be equal addend1+addend2; is that practical, useful? It's easy to test, yes, but that's not what we, the silent majority, tend to be writing -- and how do you generate unit tests for something more realistic? The author demonstrates solutions to far-fetched and unrealistically primitive cases, while skirting the real issue of unit-testing in a realistic context. Can you automate testing of anything more involved than 2+2 must be = 4? Studied silence on that, I still don't know, testing 2+2 does not lend itself to easy extention into higher semantic complexity.... so what use is this book?

Bottom line: Good topic; audacious promise; no delivery. Thumbs down, not recommended.

Graphical User Interface and Microprocessor Control Enhancement of a Pseudorandom Code Generator
$25.95
This is a AIR FORCE INST OF TECH WRIGHT-PATTERSONAFB OH SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING report procured by the Pentagon and made available for public release. It has been reproduced in the best form available to the Pentagon. It is not spiral-bound, but rather assembled with Velobinding in a soft, white linen cover. The Storming Media report number is A777163. The abstract provided by the Pentagon follows: Modern digital communication techniques often require the generation of pseudorandom numbers or sequences. The ability to quickly and easily produce various codes such as maximal length codes, Gold codes, Jet Propulsion Laboratory ranging codes, syncopated codes, and non-linear codes in a laboratory environment is essential. This thesis addresses the issue of providing automated computer control to previously built, manually controlled hardware incorporating the Stanford Telecom STEL-1032 Pseudo-Random Number (PRN) Coder. By incorporating a microcontroller into existing hardware, the STEL-1032 can now be conveniently controlled from a MATLAB Graphical User Interface (GUI). The user can quickly create, save, and recall various setups for the STEL-1032 in an easy to use GUI environment. In addition to having complete control of the STEL- 1032's internal actions, the microcontroller adds an extra measure of control possibilities by using various signals as possible interrupt sources. The microcontroller can sample the STEL-1032's various outputs at a rate up to 320 kHz and the data can be imported directly into MATLAB for further analysis.

Code Carnival
$18.00
"Code Carnival" starts and finishes with marches: the opening title track is a kind of jazz march, and "Just Brave in a Brain" the rock march finale a punky 2-bar bass ostinato that carries the bass at 3:58 into triplet afro-feel, picking up the theme again later in binary beat. Norbert Stein clearly relishes the rhythmic modulations. The penultimate track, "Ballade von Zounds" is yet another 2-bar ostinato with a counterpoint theme which dissolves the metre and then dips back into a ternary groove, this time an uptempo swing. Norbert Stein - tenor saxophone, composition; Michael Heupel - flutes; Thomas Heberer - trumpet; Frank Gratkowski - clarinet; Matthias Muche - trombone; Christopher Dell - vibraphone; Achim Tang - double bass; Klaus Mages - drums