lazy programming
Philipp Lenssen agrees that inspired laziness is a desirable trait for software developers: .. only lazy programmers will want to write the kind of tools that might replace them in the end. Only a lazy programmer will avoid writing monotonous, repetitive code. The tools and processes inspired by laziness speed up
ui/ux
Windows Media Player may be the only windows application with a UI that gets progressively worse with each new version. It is my media player of choice due only to overwhelming indifference on my part; I curse every time I use it. That's why I was so encouraged
software development
I picked up a copy of The Best Software Writing I: Selected and Introduced by Joel Spolsky [http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1590595009/codihorr-20]. It's essentially just a collection of Joel's favorite blog entries from the last few years. But it's Joel,
software development
Wil Shipley, the entity behind Delicious Library [http://arstechnica.com/reviews/apps/delicious-library.ars], has a hilarious (and informative) talk on why he develops software for the Mac-- and also netted $54,000 from Delicious Library on the first day with zero advertising. How to Succeed Writing Mac Software [http:
xml
I have no problem with XML. It's a fine way to store hierarchical data in a relatively simple, mostly human-readable format. But I've always disliked its companion technology, XSLT [http://www.w3.org/TR/xslt]. While useful in theory-- "using a simple XSLT transform, XML
usability
Some users commenting on the poor pre-game user interface in EA’s Battlefield 2: Poster #1: They need to stop hiring angry little men and romantically spurned women to design user interfaces. Poster #2: But doesn’t that describe most programmers? Poster #3: No, that describes all programmers. It’s
learning
I found this Will Wright quote, from a roundtable at last week’s E3, rather interesting: Will Wright said he’s learned the most from games that seemed appealing on paper, but were failures in the marketplace. “I actually ask people when hiring how many failures they’ve worked on,
software development
Based on the number of times I’ve seen the comparison come up in my career, you might think that bridge building and software development were related in some way: [...] my Dad, who is a “real” engineer, is out visiting for a few days. We got talking tonight about the
community
Dare Obasanjo recently wrote about the failure of Kuro5hin, which was originally designed to address perceived problems with the slashdot model: [Kuro5hin allowed] all users to create stories, vote on the stories and to rate comments. There were a couple of other features that distinguished the K5 community such as
open source
Traditional wisdom says that the “code first, design later“ approach is a bad idea. However, Charles Miller points out that when it comes to open source projects, it’s mandatory: I would almost go as far as saying that starting an open source project with no code and a committee
productivity
Johanna Rothman posted a number of what she calls Schedule Games on her product development blog: 1. Schedule Chicken 2. 90% Done 3. Bring Me a Rock 4. Hope is Our Most Important Strategy 5. Queen of Denial 6. Sweep Under the Rug 7. Schedule Dream Time or Happy Date
diversity
A few months ago there was a little brouhaha about lack of diversity in weblog authors, which caused a few ripples. Julia Lerman asks the same question about software development in a recent interview: I think that the lack of women in visible roles in our community is one of