technology trends
I recently took the plunge and upgraded to a plasma television, mostly because I want a decent native resolution for my home theater PC under Windows Media Center Edition 2005. Analog televisions don’t do 640x480 very well, and can barely be coaxed into legible 800x600. However, HDTV or EDTV
software development concepts
One warning sign I look for when working with other developers is fear of breaking the code. The absolute worst systems I’ve worked on are the ones where the developers practically tiptoe around the source code. The main problem with fear of breaking the code is the implicit assumption
software development concepts
Here’s a data point supporting my hypothesis that users will jump through any hoops to get things for free as in beer. It’s the SourceForge top downloads list: Seven of the ten top downloads are pure p2p file sharing clients. The other three directly relate to media ripping.
stored procedures
It’s intended as sarcasm, but I believe this Daily WTF entry on Stored Procedures should be taken at face value: I’m sure we’ve all heard, over and over, that inline SQL is generally a bad practice, and that we should use Stored Procedures when possible. But let&
software development concepts
Today’s dose of YAGNI comes from a recent Anders Hejlsberg interview: If you ask beginning programmers to write a calendar control, they often think to themselves, “Oh, I’m going to write the world’s best calendar control! It’s going to be polymorphic with respect to the kind
oop
Microsoft performance guy, Rico, touches on a topic near and dear to my heart: I hardly think that one can make any conclusions about which vendor has the edge in performance from my article on Performance Tidbits. If I was to summarize my advice in that blog in a few
productivity
Derek Sivers relates an interesting Steve Jobs anecdote: In June of 2003, Steve Jobs gave a small private presentation about the iTunes Music Store to some independent record label people. My favorite line of the day was when people kept raising their hand saying, “Does it do (x)?”, “Do you
software development concepts
Building up a portfolio (a collection of your work) is essential. Many employers will require it before they consider you for a job. Take the time you need to produce something that will impress them – it’ll really pay off. That’s part of the job description for a graphic
programming languages
I modified the recommended reading list to include, The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master. If you haven’t read the book, it includes a handy reference card that will give you a great idea of the gems covered inside. And if you have, well, it never hurts to review
security
This Slate article highlights an interesting statistic: A few years ago, Microsoft set up the Windows Error Reporting Service to help find out where crashes come from. After a Windows application – or your whole PC – shuts down, a box pops up asking you to send a confidential error report. Using
software development concepts
The benefits of a daily build are well understood by now. McConnell even cites the book Showstopper! as an extreme example circa 1993: Who can benefit from this process? Some developers protest that it is impractical to build every day because their projects are too large. But what was perhaps
programming languages
I had no idea this was happening, but it is fantastic news: according to this GamePC article, the latest 2005 version of Windows XP Media Center Edition will be released as a retail product within a few weeks: Windows XP Media Center Edition was originally launched roughly two years ago,