programming languages
I see that Scott Mitchell has a new book out, Teach Yourself ASP.NET 2.0 in 24 Hours. Let me preface this post with a disclaimer: Scott Mitchell is a great writer. I’ve been a fan of his work since his 4 Guys From Rolla days. Anything he
programming languages
Tom’s criticism of Mikael Grey’s article, How to Become a Rock Star Programmer, starts off promisingly enough: Let’s start with the title. There is no such thing as a “Rock Star Programmer,” so if you want to become one, you already have problems that reading a blog
software development concepts
I was struck by a comment in Steve Yegge’s not-so-new blog: How could you have arrived at [the conclusion that top tech companies do a good job at interviewing] after reading this blog entry? Did you read a different post than the one I wrote? I said interviewing is
usability
The Windows Live Local mapping service is surprisingly difficult to use. It certainly looks simple enough: Like everyone else, the first thing I do when I encounter a new mapping solution is try my current address. In this case it’s my work address. But when I press enter, I
.net
Richard Grimes recently posted an Analysis of .NET Use in Longhorn and Vista, wherein he draws two conclusions: 1. Between PDC 2003 and the release of Vista Beta 1, Microsoft has decided that it is better to use native code for the operating system 2. Microsoft has shown no intention
programming
It’s remarkable how much you can learn from other programmers. Not by reading their code, mind you, but by realizing that programmers are human beings. Nowhere is that more evident than these two collections of interviews with notable programmers: Both Programmers At Work: Interviews with 19 Programmers Who Shaped
programming languages
I’ll be attending SDWest 2006 all next week (March 13 - 17) in Santa Clara, California. If you’re attending, let’s meet up somewhere! I’ve met a handful of people in person at past conferences: * Sara Ford * Steve Maine * Walt Rischler The highlight of SDWest, however, will
ruby
Steve Yegge’s whirlwind language tour is, as he points out, neither good nor complete, which makes it one of the best blog posts I've read this year. I’ll spoil the ending for you: according to Steve, Ruby combines the best features of Perl, Smalltalk, Python, and
minimalism
John Maeda created quite a stir with his montage of the Yahoo and Google homepages from 1996 to 2006 in simple is about staying simple: Although Philipp Lenssen has posted on this topic before (he calls it the portal plague), it’s still striking. Altavista made the same mistake, and
programming languages
Inspired by my recent post on C# code snippets, I found a little console app by Francesco Balena* that enumerates all the snippets on your system along with their shortcut text. I improved his console app and turned it into a convenient IDE macro along the lines of my keyboard
ides
I just installed CodeRush, and now my IDE looks like this: From Mike Gunderloy’s review of Refactor! Pro: Refactor! uses the same drawing technology as CodeRush, making a video game out of your code. When you introduce an overload, for example, you actually see strikethroughs appear on parameters being
programming languages
I have nothing against World of Warcraft, but the Gamasutra editorial World of Warcraft Teaches the Wrong Things highlights one problem I have with the entire MMORPG* genre: [WOW teaches players that] investing a lot of time in something is worth more than actual skill. If you invest more time