Damien Katz:
Static typing in OO languages isn’t the solution to software complexity, rather it’s an enabler of it. Static typing is like giving a drunk a bunch of breath mints and saying “Don’t drive drunk. But if you must, use these breath mints in case you get pulled over.”
I’m still trying to make sense of […]
I’ve been fantasizing about a flexible object store to act as the back-end for web applications. The best approach I could muster was trying to come up with a flexible, pluggable SQLAlchemy model as a start. That’s a lot harder than I anticipated, and I’ve been stumped for a few months now.
No mas. Having played […]
Seriously.
Good software design papers don’t try to compare software development with civil engineering because (from reading the article):
The architect frequently fails to design something interesting that can actually be built, on the first draft
Commercial buildings are frequently reused in ways not envisioned by the original developer/builder
Single family dwellings frequently get the room scale off so […]
Continuous integration
A large and useful suite of tests that are run during #1
A principal or group of principals who care about the future of the software and is active in its development
A manager who understands the full software development life cycle
Developers who understand the business domain and problem the software is designed to solve
[via /.]
After catching this TLF post about the Seasteading Institute, a group behind a new more practical approach to Waterworld than many of the previous micronation landgrabs, I can’t help but think there’s finally something to this.
While their platform of choice, at least to start, seems to be a spar, a brief passage about using cargo […]
I’m with Cliff…
The Bipolar Lisp Programmer, an essay posted to comp.lang.lisp by Mark Tarver, brilliantly sums up many of my worst traits. Of course, I never realized quite how many BBMs there must be out there. If only one of us could work up the kind of sustained execution that would be required to organize […]
It surprises and saddens me that I’m still so enamored with the version control offered by many of the web apps we use every day. It’s tragic that in this day and age I have to jump through so many hoops to get but a sliver of that ability on my desktop with a VCS. […]
I came across a fiendishly clever cryptography strategy a while back on Slashdot, an answer to “rubber hose” attack vector (strong encryption is worthless if I beat you with a rubber hose until you divulge your keys). Rubberhose, the software package, seems to have been an encrypted file system with an indefinite number of keys […]
I’ve never been the paranoid conspiracy type, but Brad Templeton asks a question that has me scratching my head…and looking for tinfoil. Are botnets run by spy agencies? Consider…
Of all the spy agencies in the world, can it be that none of them have thought of this? That none of them are tempted by being […]
I don’t know what possessed me to install Silverlight. I happened upon a Silverlight app and figured what the hell. Sure, I’ll never develop in it, but what’s the harm having it around? (Other than this…but I don’t care about that on my work box.) I’m a UI guy and there’s bound to be something […]
Oh, the train wreck that has become of the OLPC project. Here’s a great insider essay that sheds some light on the internal conflicts. Nobody’s coming out of this clusterfuck smelling like roses! Particularly choice…
Stallman similarly called a Windows port of Sugar “not a good thing to do”. Here’s the thing: such a port is […]
As far as mental models of software development go, Eric Raymond laid down a beauty when he penned The Cathedral and the Bazaar. But what about the software developers themselves. We’re all farmers or nomads, according to this great essay at Milking the GNU. You have to read it through for context, but it ends […]
I was just catching up on some feeds and I came across a Matt Wilcox suggestion that really sparked my interest — social sites should ditch the ability to vote down…
Either vote up, or don’t vote at all. As your mother may once have told you; if you’ve not got something nice to say, don’t […]
Now I can’t claim to know much about much, but John Resig’s port of Processing to 5,000 lines of javascript looks to me to be one of the most ridiculous, impressive feats I’ll ever witness. I don’t have the time to poke around with it yet, but from the demos, it looks like this could […]
So Mike Warot addressed on my questions about a capability-based file system with a two part ditty that, after first leaving me a little confused, ultimately answered quite a few questions. But what with class tonight and what seemed (from a myopic Beltway perspective) to be the crazy politico drama unfolding this evening I can’t […]
Picking up on the Expelled Exposed meme…
According to Seth Finkelstein, I’m not a Googleterrorist:
I’d say this isn’t a “Google-bomb”, since the target site wants the high ranking itself. And Google’s algorithmic changes to defuse the bombs aren’t applicable here, since the words appear extensively on the site.
Another great essay from Mark Pilgrim, but it’s a shame to see his disdain morph into defeat in the end…
As you might expect, the EFF is just bursting with joy at the prospect of rubbing salt in the wound and saying “I told you so.” This is their “I told you so” letter. I would […]
David Weinberger on his attempts to learn more about Microsoft® Expression® Media:
The popup conscientiously informs me that once installed, Silverlight “updates automatically,” where “update” means I am giving Microsoft the right to load stuff onto my computer without asking or informing me. In addition, the privacy statement says Microsoft will only transfer information it […]
Zeldman on lumbering corporate budgetary beasts.
I’ve been holding out hope that there is a better way. I hope I never lose that…
The worse-is-better philosophy:
Simplicity: the design must be simple, both in implementation and interface. It is more important for the implementation to be simple than the interface. Simplicity is the most important consideration in a design.
Correctness: the design must be correct in all observable aspects. It is slightly better to be simple than correct.
[…]
I’ve been kicking around the idea of an web-app file system for quite some time, but I haven’t been able to really find the time to work up a head of steam on any implementation details. Now that I’m revisiting the idea for a graduate class, I keep finding little pieces of this vision […]
The official Hardy Heron release has been out for a few days and I’m finally getting around to upping my systems. But sitting here meditating to the install status bar has got me thinking…
I have quite a few laptops I maintain, and every time I do a fresh Ubuntu install on one of them — […]
Absolutely magnificent.
[via shauninman]