physics simulation
I love playing videogames, but I have no illusions whatsoever of being talented enough to write videogames. Game developers live a hard life, and not just because the industry is notoriously abusive. Even the most brilliant minds can get bogged down in the morass of complexity that is game development.
software development concepts
In response to My Giant Calculator, Joost commented: I’ll jump to the defense of trusty old calc.exe. Even though it’s crappy, we know it’s on every Windows box we touch. He’s got a point. The applets that ship in the box with the operating system
software development
Have you ever noticed how many people keep a physical calculator next to their computer? The irony is almost palpable. My favorite is the calculator mousepad. Jef Raskin, in The Humane Interface, defends the practice of keeping a pocket calculator next to your PC: It’s true. Many of us
programming languages
I’ve always been fascinated with road signs. And evidently so is Donald Knuth: During our summer vacation in 2003, my wife and I amused ourselves by taking leisurely drives in Ohio and photographing every diamond-shaped highway sign that we saw along the roadsides. (Well, not every sign; only the
software development
Why is it that fully half of my interactions with GotDotNet are extremely unpleasant? I was telling someone about the Microsoft sponsored IronPython project today and I foolishly attempted to click through to the GotDotNet workspace for same: That's, like, totally awesome. Maybe I should visit the Workspaces
clipboard
In this era of 3ghz processors, 1gb memory, and 500gb hard drives, why is the Windows clipboard only capable of holding a single item? Sure, you have fancy multi-level undo and redo in applications like Microsoft Word and Visual Studio. Did you know that the humble Windows textbox supports a
programming languages
Charles Petzold is widely known as the guy who put the h in hWnd. He’s the author of the seminal 1988 book Programming Windows, now in its fifth edition. And he can prove it, too. He has an honest-to-God Windows tattoo on his arm: This is explained in his
programming languages
In the process of researching a few recent blog entries, I found the amazing Atari Archives. The title is a little misleading; it isn’t completely Atari specific. The archives contain incredible page-by-page high resolution images of many classic computer books, including The Best of Creative Computing, volume 1 (1976)
naming conventions
Jason Kemp notes that Microsoft's choice of product names can have some unintended consequences: I don't know yet how I feel about the name Windows Vista, but it at least has some character to it. But Windows Presentation Foundation? Windows Communication Framework? Who wants to use
user experience
One of the biggest highlights of PDC 2005 was the first day keynote, when the Office 12 UI was unveiled. I don’t know if people realized the significance of what we saw at the time – but we had just witnessed the death of the main menu. There’s no
software development concepts
I noticed something strange in a Windows ME screenshot embedded in a Joel Spolsky article I linked yesterday: Notice the Qantas icons? Those are shortcuts to a now-defunct unix machine at Joel’s company, Fog Creek Software. You can find evidence of it at the bottom of this forum post
programming languages
I’m sure most of you are familiar with this famous Microsoft group photo from December 1978: Groovy. In case you were wondering, the photo is authentic. It’s even featured on the official Microsoft Bill Gates biography page. Of course we recognize Bill Gates in that famous photo, but