July 2005 Archives
Here's a cool site with lots of DRM free music: ListeningLounge.
(Via Critical Section)
In today's business world, most communication is done through writing, whether it's via email or via instant messenger, or if you use Basecamp or Backpack or whatever. You have to write things down, because instant messaging and email are so easy and fast. I think it's really important—especially these days—that people should be able to express themselves through writing.
If they can't quite formulate sentences or explain things clearly in writing, it's going to be a problem. Because communication is really the key to everything here. You need to be able to be clear about what you mean and what your intentions are. If someone can't write, that's going to be a problem down the road, especially for teams that are geographically spread out. [...] So writing is very important; that's how we communicate almost 90 percent of the time.
I should add that reading is the complementary, equally important skill.
...is hilarious.
The first 90% of the work is done: Dave Winer has released his OPML Editor this morning.
I sure hope he'll come around to working on the last 90% of the product. The OPML Editor deserves it. Great potential. Excellent.
For anybody unfamiliar with the 90% rule:
It takes 100% of work to create a software product. Within the first 90% you'll come up with something a decent product. The next 90% are needed to add polish & refinements to the product. The last 90% of the work are spent making the software a first-class citizen on all supported platforms.
Then you'll have a software product.
...is now free. For MacOS & Windows XP.
The actor, whose Star Trek character "Scotty" was a role model for any software engineer (How long will this take, Scotty? 3 hours! You have 10 minutes, Scotty! OK, captain.) passed away.
Here's a great list of online collaboration tools compiled by Jonathan Boutelle.
Christopher Diggins' list of Everything I Know About Programming.
Vielleicht lauert hinter der Maske nur eine gigantische Leere. Das halte ich nicht für unwahrscheinlich.
"I've said it before--your call center is probably the single cheapest investment you can make in building your consumer or business to business brand among customers and motivated prospects."
...from an engineers perspective.
Very interesting experiment featuring a mouse-driven GUI without clicking.
(Via Scobleizer.)
You may have varied opinions on him & the company he represents, but check out the Channel 9 interview with Steve Ballmer.
Can you imagine a German CEO of a multi-billion dollar shop, let's say our dear friend Jürgen E. Schrempp, being filmed & interviewed sitting in front of his office door with a standard camcorder by one of his underlings (albeit a high-profile underling :-).
Can you imagine him being as passionate about his work as Ballmer is? Can you imagine him having an office as unpretentious as Ballmer? You can't?
Think about it.
(Via Scobleizer.)
Update I: Yes, some of Ballmers answers have kind of a rehearsed quality - but that's not my point.
Update II: Our CEO is even more passionate than Ballmer. But we're not a billion dollar shop (yet :-)
Let me re-phrase it: Developers are from Mars, Marketing & Sales are from Venus :-)
Very funny.
Dave Astels proposes Behaviour-Driven-Development instead of Test-Driven-Development.
Megacool: Starry Night.
(Via vowe dot net.)
An excellent editorial on how Ireland became the second richest country in the EU, right after Luxembourg: The End of the Rainbow. (Via BitWorking).
I suspect that Ireland got its fair share of EU support over the last decades, but that doesn't change the fact that Ireland is doing great while Germany isn't. We're still arguing about the negative impact of globalization instead of taking advantage of it.
"Doing it is more important than talking about it" - Hans Zabojnik-Ihla
Another excellent post by Keith Ray on Code Smells - Long Method.
Comments should deal with why a certain design decision was made, why a certain algorithmn was chosen etc. - and not describe what's going on in the code. Everytime you encounter a comment describing what a piece of code does, there's an opportunity for Extract Method.
Keith Ray on Keeping the Design Good.
Excellent read. If you end up with a switch statement like this, you know there's something fishy going on.
