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An article was written a while back about how neural networks can be used to classify source code. Yes the source code that you write to feed to compilers / interpreters.

The article explains at a high level what method could be used to perform this activity. In the end the author claims some level of success and wonders how other neural-network implementations / techniques would solve the same problem. This got me curious enough and I spent a weekend trying to crack this with Neuroph, the neural network library for java. I present to you my analysis and results below. For the impatient here is the code-classifier DEMO.

Ever visit sites like topcoder.com and solve a problem or two ? No ? You should and do so regularly. It will help find tune your programming / design skills. This is because solving the problems requires going though the following thought process

1. Understanding the problem.
2. Thinking up a solution that covers all use cases.
3. Executing your thought process through code.
4. Testing.

Now as simple as that sounds, it is not so easy to get right. Especially when you are competing with thousands of fellow coders for time. And when time is a constrain you usually select the first solution that comes to your head, which might not necessarily be the best. So there is that risk of your code timing out even if it is following the right logic. I would love to delve into a problem right about now and throw in some examples and illustration, but you get the point.

I was testing an application today and came across a bug. A screen had some CRUD operations on a resource. The problem was, whatever I did, the system would perform the operation and tell me that the resource already existed. This left me scratching my head for quite a while. I add a resource and it says it already exists and then adds it. Delete and update also do the same.

So the debugging process started and I sat down with eclipse to get to the root of the problem. I verified that indeed the CRUD operations were reflecting in the persistence store. Then I came across these magical lines of code

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public static final String S_SOMETHING_EXISTS = "something.already.exists";
public static final String S_SOMETHING_ADD_SUCCESS = "something.already.exists";
public static final String S_SOMETHING_DELETE_FAIL = "something.already.exists";
public static final String S_SOMETHING_DELETE_SUCCESS = "something.already.exists";

This left me smacking my head. It should have been

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public static final String S_SOMETHING_EXISTS = "something.already.exists";
public static final String S_SOMETHING_ADD_SUCCESS = "something.add.success";
public static final String S_SOMETHING_DELETE_FAIL = "something.delete.failed";
public static final String S_SOMETHING_DELETE_SUCCESS = "something.delete.success";