constructive nonconformist

BoMoms

From the proud husband department:

The bug is spreading. My wife is blogging. Her blog, weighty issues, is on the new boston.com BoMoms, a site “for moms in Boston and beyond.”

Do You Talk to Your Compiler?

Do you talk to your development tools?

On Emeril Live, Emeril Lagasse would sometimes make funny little humming noises as he worked. I found it charming in a dorky way. Emeril’s example makes me feel better when I catch myself talking out loud to my compiler.

Green Monster at the Boston Apple Store

Universal Hub - Give Apple credit

ifoAppleStore - Future Boylston Store Goes Green

Update:

kottke.org: “I bet they did this just to piss off Gruber.”

Update Update:

The Boston Apple Store opens Thursday May 15.

Opening Day - The Boston Globe

Urgency is Poisonous

… in the software industry urgency is self-imposed and morale-busting.

— Jason Fried
Signal vs. Noise: Urgency is poisonous

Successful Large Systems

There is a rule of thumb that says that every successful large system is a development of a slightly smaller working system. You apply that rule recursively.

— Bjarne Stroustrup
Artima: Elegance and Other Design Ideals

Professional Praise

Here’s a story:

I’m working as an in-house software engineer for Nameless Big Co creating software for internal use.

I’m at an all-hands meeting for my business unit group. A very important person in a nice expensive suit is at the podium. Apparently we’re honored to have him come and speak to us. What he has to say is engaging until he gets to a certain point.

He tells us he’s had a career in financial services IT and we’re the best and brightest IT organization he has ever worked with. I think of the inefficiencies and poor decisions we deal with every day. It’s normal stuff for a large organization and for a software development management chain heavy on MBA’s. I don’t think we’re more clever than average.

Why is Mr. VIP laying on the superlatives? Is he out of touch? Is he measuring differently? Is he just trying to be a cheerleader? Is he marketing to us?

Striving to be the best and the brightest is incompatible with being uncritical enough to accept his hyperbole. I tune out. He’s pushing more noise than signal.

Here’s a second story:

The lead architect has moved some of my code from a particular project down into a core library so he could use it on another project. “You saved me a lot of time.” He tells me. “You did some good work on that project and I want to leverage it across the other projects.”

Here’s a guy whose technical chops I respect and he found my code useful. It’s a small thing but it made my day.

Peer praise is meaningful.

Science and Technology Television for a Seven Year Old

Television shows that my seven year old son enjoys that have science and technology content:

• MythBusters
• Fetch!
• Zula Patrol
• PEEP and the Big Wide World

Internet Explorer's Maximum URL Length

Note to self: Internet Explorer has a maximum URL size limit of 2,083 characters. Passing a longer URL (like maybe a URL with a dynamically built query string) to IE 7.0 will produce a cryptic error page (even with ‘Friendly’ turned off) that says “Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage” and then misleadingly suggests that the server can not be reached. Don’t waste time troubleshooting network connections or DNS lookups. Don’t be puzzled by why the same URL works in FireFox and Safari.

Safari 3.1 Develop Menu

SimpleBits: Safari 3.1 Develop Menu

Joy in the Job

Ponderous Programmer: Crazy is as Crazy Does - Joy in the job