speech recognition
Remember that Scene in Star Trek IV where Scotty tried to use a Mac Plus? Using a mouse or keyboard to control a computer? Don't be silly. In the future, clearly there's only one way computers will be controlled: by speaking to them. There's
usability
Writing code? That's the easy part. Getting your application in the hands of users [https://blog.codinghorror.com/shipping-isnt-enough/], and creating applications that people actually want to use [https://blog.codinghorror.com/youll-never-have-enough-cheese/] — now that's the hard stuff. I've been a long time fan
programming languages
I find it difficult to believe, but the reports keep pouring in via Twitter and email: many candidates who show up for programming job interviews can't program. At all. Consider this recent email from Mike Lin: The article Why Can't Programmers... Program? changed the way I
programming languages
I apologize for the scarcity of updates lately. There have been two things in the way: 1. Continuing fallout from International Backup Awareness Day, which meant all updates to Coding Horror from that point onward were hand-edited text files. Which, believe me, isn't nearly as sexy as it
software development concepts
I've been unhappy with every single piece of software I've ever released. Partly because, like many software developers, I'm a perfectionist. And then, there are inevitably … problems: * The schedule was too aggressive and too short. We need more time! * We ran into unforeseen technical
programming languages
Let's face it: we all write bad code. But not every programmer does something about the bad code they're polluting the world with, day in and day out. There's a whole universe of possibilities: * Follow the instructions on the paint can * Become a software
regex
Among programmers of any experience, it is generally regarded as A Bad Ideatm to attempt to parse HTML with regular expressions. How bad of an idea? It apparently drove one Stack Overflow user to the brink of madness: You can't parse [X]HTML with regex. Because HTML can&
software development concepts
If the internet has perfected anything, it's the art of the crappy, phoned-in, half-assed email "interview". For all those who have bemoaned the often pathetic state of internet journalism, when it comes to interviews, you're largely correct. The purpose of most of these interviews
programming languages
Links are the fundamental building blocks of the web [https://blog.codinghorror.com/dont-click-here-the-art-of-hyperlinking/]. And every time I click on one, I can't help recalling the odd visionary who came up with the original idea of clickable links in text, aka hypertext [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertext]
programming languages
The Gamasutra article Dirty Coding Tricks is a fantastic read. One part of it in particular rang true for me. Consider the load of pain I found myself in when working on a conversion of a 3D third person shooter from the PC to the original PlayStation. Now, the PS1
microsoft bob
Do you remember Microsoft Bob? If you do, you probably remember it as an intensely marketed but laughable failure – what some call the "number one flop" at Microsoft. There's no question that Microsoft Bob was nothing short of an unmitigated disaster. But that's the
web programming
Michael Braude decries the popularity of web programming: The reason most people want to program for the web is that they're not smart enough to do anything else. They don't understand compilers, concurrency, 3D or class inheritance. They haven't got a clue why I&