Dirck van den Ende

Blog

May 4, 2025

An Introduction to Python Type Hints

The Python programming language is ever-evolving. In recent times some very useful additions have been made that allow for static type analysis, which is undoubtedly welcomed by C++, Java, and Rust programmers alike. In this post I want to give you an introduction to Python type hints and mypy, along with an overview of some more advanced features like generics. A Simple Example Let’s say we want to write a...

April 10, 2025

The Math Behind COVID Variant Dominance

It has been a while since the pandemic, but I would like to show you some interesting math behind the spread of the different COVID variants. During the pandemic one thing that everybody knew was that the future was unpredictable: At any point cases could go up, new measures needed to be taken, and new variants popped up all of the time. However, there is one thing that was surprisingly...

April 5, 2025

Confusing Color Names

I want to complain about something: Color names in programming languages. Because these are really confusing to me. And to make it even worse: There are dozens of different standards! It all started while trying to set up the website you’re reading this on: I had an element with a grey color and wanted to make it darker. So what do I do? I change the color to darkgrey. And...

April 4, 2025

JSON Schemas are Awesome!

While I was working on my Master’s thesis, for the millionth time now, I had to come up with some input format. Of course, I go for the easiest solution and use JSON files as input. With one line of Python code the file contents can be converted to a dictionary, list, etc. However: What happens if a user does not follow the format I carefully came up with? Well,...