Hello World

Hello World is often the first program someone writes, and I thought it fitting to be the title of my first blog. The idea behind /dev/null is to create a platform to share my journey and passion for coding with others. I hope that in the coming weeks, months, and even years I will be able to produce quality content that the community can learn from and enjoy.

Why /dev/null?

Honestly, becuase I was out of ideas and I thought it sounded cool. For those who don’t know, redirecting IO to /dev/null on Unix systems discards all data written to it, but the null device still reports that the operation succeeded/failed. This can be handy for timing or testing programs with a lot of print statements that you don’t care about. Anyways, /dev/null looks and sounds cool, and became the name of my blog. However, I am definitely open to new ideas for the name! If you have any suggestions please comment your ideas in the section below.

Plans and Projects

The /dev/null blog will mostly mirror my studies and insights learned while finishing my undergraduate studies at Portland State University. This format will help me cement my understanding of difficult concepts taught during my studies, as well as, hopefully, help others learn about these topics that are typically hard to breach. Since programming is also my hobby I will be posting guides and updates on personal projects I have planned. Here are some personal project ideas I have planned and will likely write about:

• Writing a Unix Shell in C++ Haskell
• Developing a tabata timer app for Android
• Refactor and publish my reference counted String class for C++
• Build a collection of templated Data structures (Balanced trees, linked lists)
• Build something with Haskell (Learning Haskell right now)

Of course, all these ideas are subject to change (And sadly may never happpen). If you have any fun project ideas in any language or with any toolset, please let me know in the comments below! Also, follow me on twitter, @dev_null42, to keep up to date with my latest posts and activites.