Indoor enthusiast. Co-founder of Stack Overflow, Discourse, and staygold.us. Disclaimer: I have no idea what I'm talking about. Let's be kind to each other. Find me
programming languages
I’ve been following Michael Abrash for more than 10 years now; he’s one of my programming heroes. So I was fascinated to discover that Mr. Abrash wrote an article extolling the virtues of Intel’s upcoming Larrabee. What’s Larrabee? It’s a weird little unreleased beast that
software development concepts
Have you ever gotten that classic job interview question, “where do you see yourself in five years?” When asked, I’m always mentally transported back to a certain Twisted Sister video from 1984. I want you to tell me – no, better yet, stand up and tell the class – what do
programming languages
One of the more famous Edsger Dijkstra quotes is from his 1972 Turing award lecture, How do we tell truths that might hurt? Besides a mathematical inclination, an exceptionally good mastery of one’s native tongue is the most vital asset of a competent programmer. Note that he specifically says
programming languages
On the internet, you can pretend the world is flat. Whatever country you live in, whatever language you speak, you have the same access to the accumulated knowledge of the world as every other citizen of the planet Earth. And a growing percentage of that knowledge can and should be
software development
Have you ever considered paying for, or sponsoring, a * bug fix * new feature * plugin * small tweak to existing functionality ... for software that you use? I don’t mean waiting for a new release of the software, which will contain a bunch of new features you may or may not care
marketing
I didn’t fully understand 37 Signals’ advice to Have an Enemy until recently. Sometimes the best way to know what your app should be is to know what it shouldn’t be. Figure out your app’s enemy and you’ll shine a light on where you need to
programming languages
I have the very great honor of speaking at this year’s EclipseCon with one of my heroes, Clay Shirky. The theme of this year’s EclipseCon is collaboration – so all the talks are presented by two speakers. Our talk, The Social Mind: Designing Like Groups Matter, will alternate between
software development concepts
I’ve been a longtime fan of Eric Lippert’s blog. And one of my favorite (albeit short-lived) post series was his Five Dollar Words for Programmers. Although I’ve sometimes been accused of being too wordy, I find that learning the right word to describe something you’re
interview
Have you ever been to an interview for a programming job where they asked you one of those interview puzzle questions? I have. The one I got was: How much of your favorite brand of soda is consumed in this state? And no, the correct answer is not who cares,
online communities
I was struck by the conclusion of Andy Oram’s thoughtful piece on the next generation of online forums. People who want to learn more about computer technology and solve problems they encounter on their systems currently have a wealth of forums to turn to: mailing lists and newsgroups, official
c++
Back in September 2008, I mentioned that we were spawning a new process. Well, that process arrived today, and its id is Henry Burton Atwood. We’re starting him off right with a little light reading. You may recognize this book from Apple’s Mac vs PC ad series, specifically,
software development
I haven’t had the opportunity to talk at all about Google’s new Chrome browser yet. Which is a shame, because it’s easily the best web browser I’ve ever used. If it wasn’t for the complete and utter lack of an add-in ecosystem, I’d