usability
I was lucky enough to attend a week-long Human Factors International session on usability a few years ago.* As a developer with a long term interest in getting to the human root cause of so many programming problems, I loved it. One of the freebies from the course was this
software development concepts
Rajesh Setty has some unusual advice for IT professionals — stop wasting time in the technology skill-set rat race, and start building your personal brand: Jack meets Janet and they start talking. Jack explains who he is and what he does for a living and Janet does the same. While Jack
programming languages
I was struck by this quote from a New Yorker article on Muzak: “Our biggest competitor,” a member of Muzak’s marketing department told me, “is silence.” The problem with comparing something to nothing is that nothing is, well, nothing. James Bach elaborates: I was watching Dr. Stuart Reid talk
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