Real Programmers - no impossible code
Saturday, December 16th, 2006I consider programmers as real programmers only if they attempted to write something like an editor or a word processor. My favorite interview question is “Did you write a word processor?” This probably explains why my team is small 
Why? Because writing a word processor shows your determination, persistence and if you are successful - understanding of OO principles. Even Gang of Four in their seminal book
Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software
used word processor as a unified example. I was very satisfied when I read their book - I designed and implemented at least 2 word processors: one in pure C meant to be better than MS Write 3.x and one in Java with syntax highlighting. And I implemented design patterns without knowing they were design patterns. The Java one was better and here is the screen shot showing my editor with C/C++ syntax highlighting implemented in Java 1.0 without any 3rd-party class libraries:
The earlier one (with Windows 3.x look and feel) was written in C and has MDI interface, floating embedded objects and printing support:
- Dmitry Vostokov -