One of the things we're thinking about while building stackoverflow.com is how to let users style the questions and answers they're entering on the site. Nothing's decided at this point, but we definitely won't be giving users one of those friendly-but-irritating HTML GUI browser layout controls.
Read more »Let's say, just as a hypothetical, you're sitting at your computer, casually chatting up a fellow programmer. You begin to describe some bit of code, then bring it up on your display to illustrate. You want to highlight some particular part of the code. Perhaps you move the cursor invitingly over the area to bring it to their attention, or gesture towards it with your hand.
What happens next?
When I said there were two types of programmers, here's what I really meant:
Everywhere I look, programmers and programming tools seem to have standardized on XML. Configuration files, build scripts, local data storage, code comments, project files, you name it -- if it's stored in a text file and needs to be retrieved and parsed, it's probably XML. I realize that we have to use something to represent reasonably human readable data stored in a text file, but XML sometimes feels an awful lot like using an enormous sledgehammer to drive common household nails.
Read more »You've probably read this classic boner of an iPod quote at some point:
No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.
It's from the Slashdot article on the introduction of the original Apple iPod back in 2001. I had always assumed this particular quote was written by a random Slashdot user in the comments. But in fact, that quote is part of the body of the news entry, and it came directly from Rob Malda, the founder of Slashdot.
Read more »Like everything else in software engineering, it seems, the concept of Model-View-Controller was originally invented by Smalltalk programmers.
More specifically, it was invented by one Smalltalk programmer, Trygve Reenskaug. Trygve maintains a page that explains the history of MVC in his own words. He arrives at these definitions in a paper he published on December 10th, 1979:
The Garmin Nuvi GPS first got my attention when it came not just recommended, but insanely recommended by Jason Fried in late 2005.
So, back to the 350 Oh wow. The Nuvi 350 is insanely good. Next to the iPod it's the the best piece of consumer electronics I've purchased in the last 5 years. It really is that good. It's perfectly executed.
Read more »Like Donald Knuth, I think much of the current multicore hype is overrated.
Read more »Pop quiz, hotshot. Which one is the superior Uniform Resource Locator?
or
This is one of those intractable problems. Global wars have been fought over so much less. In hacker circles, this is sometimes referred to as a bikeshed discussion.
That said, I do have a few bits of practical advice that I think apply unilaterally, whatever your position is:
One of the central themes of stackoverflow.com is that software developers no longer learn programming from books, as Joel mentioned:
Programmers seem to have stopped reading books. The market for books on programming topics is miniscule compared to the number of working programmers.
Joel expressed similar sentiments in 2004's The Shlemiel Way of Software:
Read more »I've kept a PC in my living room for the past three years as my primary home theater interface, and I heartily recommend
it. It's shocking how cheap and easy it is to build a home theater PC these days.
As a person who has spent a significant part of his professional life getting paid to write software, I believe it's important for me to regularly pay for software, too. Our programmer salaries don't come from magical money trees. They come from customers laying down cold, hard cash for the software we've built. That's why every month I try to put into action what I described in Support Your Favorite Small Software Vendor Day:
Read more »Lately I've been delving into the WordPress ecosystem, as it seems to be the most popular blogging platform around at the moment. I've set up two blogs with it so far. In the process, I've gotten quite comfortable with the setup, interface, and overall operation of WordPress.
Read more »Edsger Dijkstra had this to say about Beginner's All Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code:
It is practically impossible to teach good programming style to students that have had prior exposure to BASIC; as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration.
Read more »Last summer I posted a four part series on building your own PC:
A little over a month ago, I announced that I was quitting my job. But there was also something else I didn't fully announce.
Read more »How many times have you returned to your web browser to be greeted by this unpleasant little notification:
Your session has timed out. Please sign in again.
If you're anything like me, the answer is lots. What's worse is that you're usually kicked out of whatever page context you were working in. You have to manually log in again, remember what you were doing, then navigate back to where you were and resume your work.
Read more »Back in 2006, I examined the power usage of my Dell Inspiron 300M laptop. It was the first ultraportable I ever owned, and I fell in love with it. I stuck it out as long as possible on that wonderful little laptop until the true heir to the ultraportable throne was unveiled: the Dell XPS M1330. The specs are much better, as you'd expect after almost five years. But what about power consumption? How much has that changed? Let's find out.
Read more »Way back in June of last year, I promised to donate a portion of my advertising revenue back to the community:
Read more »Whenever the regular expression topic comes up, I unashamedly recommend the best tool on the market for parsing and building regular expressions -- RegexBuddy. But there's one tiny problem.
RegexBuddy costs money.
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