Hello World, Poker Style
I have updated my reference application with code that evaluates Texas Hold ‘Em poker hands. I had written the poker logic a few months ago. Recently, I moved it into a class library and service. This project is a long way from a functioning poker application that enables users to play Texas Hold ‘Em against artificial intelligence “bots”- my ultimate goal. But it’s a fun start. Evaluating poker hands certainly is more entertaining than confirming a “Hello World” message sent through an SOA stack appears at the other end of the pipe- on a web page in the user’s browser. […]
The Best Domain-Specific Language for Manipulating Data is SQL
Motivation I’m not a fan of Microsoft’s Language Integrated Query (LINQ). But ranting about a language feature is an ineffective way to convince programmers of the merits of other techniques. So decided to construct a detailed example that illustrates how LINQ solves a certain problem, contrast it with a different technique, then highlight the deficiencies of LINQ and extol the virtues of my preferred technique. I happily set about creating a relational database and C# object model, then hit an impasse. When the time came to determine how to write LINQ code that maps the relational data into the C# […]