Is Git superior to all of those systems that came before it? Maybe, but it doesn't matter. What's important is all of the tooling and devops processes that are now based on Git and the services that have been built around it. That's what makes it essential for most software/IT shops these days. A few years ago I made a tutorial for our users who had the same question as you...what is this and why should I care?

Another trick for C#: use the Ceiling function.

static void Main(string[] args)
{
double a = Math.Ceiling(-0.1);
double b = 1 * 0;
double c = -1 * 0;
Console.WriteLine("a = Math.Ceiling(-0.1), a=" + a.ToString());

 byte\[\] bytes;
 bytes = BitConverter.GetBytes(a);
 Console.WriteLine("Bytes of a:");
 Console.WriteLine(BitConverter.ToString(bytes));

 Console.WriteLine("b = 1 \* 0, b=" + b.ToString());
 bytes = BitConverter.GetBytes(b);
 Console.WriteLine("Bytes of b:");
 Console.WriteLine(BitConverter.ToString(bytes));

 Console.WriteLine("c = -1 \* 0, c=" + c.ToString());
 bytes = BitConverter.GetBytes(c);
 Console.WriteLine("Bytes of c:");
 Console.WriteLine(BitConverter.ToString(bytes));

}

Output:

a = Math.Ceiling(-0.1), a=0
Bytes of a:
00-00-00-00-00-00-00-80
b = 1 * 0, b=0
Bytes of b:
00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00
c = -1 * 0, c=0
Bytes of c:
00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00

I wrote about this some years ago for our SAS programming users (What's the difference between 0 and -0?[^]), as a similar IEEE 754 behavior exists there.

Whenever somebody asks me what I do for a living, I do not answer with "I'm a computer programmer", even though that is one of the main activities that justifies my paycheck. For me, "computer programmer" conjures up an image of a sun-deprived subterranean creature -- a go-between who accepts requests from the computer ignorants and performs the necessary incantations over a computer keyboard to make it happen. In "the old days" it really was that mystical. The programmer was like a priest who took your petition to the Great Mainframe. After a ritual sacrifice of punch cards and green bar paper, your prayers might be answered with a result that you could use. I'd rather be seen as a team member who just happens to specialize in software. It's a lot like the film Oceans Eleven, where a team of specialists all work together to achieve a noble goal. (Their team also has a software specialist, albeit one with some ridiculous skills.) (Excerpted from my Computer Science Education Week essay: Why "programmer" is not in my job title[^])

Yes, it's nice to hear that our customers care about the practical side of technology as well. And it's good to have the candid conversations, which is why we have tech blogs in addition to our "marketing content". Thanks to those who pointed me to the mechanism for putting a tech blog into the CodeProject blog stream; I'll use that mechanism from now on when referring to my own stuff.

See what my colleagues are doing with prototypes of business apps that use Kinect (motion and voice) and Microsoft Surface (huge tabletop multitouch device)[^]

Mr. Babbage led an interesting life! And believe it or not, making up a name for a non-existent programming language is more difficult than it seems. Most of the plausible names (and even many implausible names) are taken.

Uh oh, did you study?[^]

December 4-10 is Computer Science Education Week! Time to get yourself out of the basement and into the mainstream.[^]

Chris @ SAS http://blogs.sas.com/sasdummy