shutter

Wholeheartedly second this question. I've always enjoyed software, but I have an itch to play with hardware too.

Most typical users don't care about URLs, and many people don't know the difference between typing a URL into their address bar or typing a search term to get them there. (IMHO, that's an unfortunate truth.)

The primary problem with that truth is that without URLs, we inherently have to rely on a search engine's ranking to determine which terms lead to which site. I suppose the fancy address bars in Chrome, etc., will get it right most of the time. In the end, Google seems to become a fancy DNS server.

Just come right out and say it -- show them advice from agile developers (37Signals, etc) that says "get your stuff out the door or you may not succeed".

Architecture can be flexible -- applications will evolve with growth. As noodle said, commit, build, iterate, repeat.

Couldn't agree more.

Written a dozen years ago, yet still interesting.

I often wish I had taken a bigger interest in math, because AI really, really intrigues me. I'm finishing up a CS degree, but that hasn't stopped me from thinking how it'd be interesting working toward developing true AI. Unfortunately, without lots of knowledge in neuroscience and very high-level math, that's something I'll probably watch from afar.

Developers don't want to have to develop for multiple platforms. There are two ways to solve that: Either develop for a platform which has a monopoly share, or develop cross-platform.

Web Applications' ability to work on every platform, combined with an increasing feature-set (thanks to Gears), makes it a very viable platform.

The web is Google's domain: The better the web stack works in all platforms (including mobile), the better chance they'll have to beat out Microsoft, Apple, and all the rest.

Scaling something to 10K isn't easy no matter what system you use. Erlang isn't a silver bullet.

I have a question related to this:

I've heard a little about issues like this, where old data still exists even though you thought you deleted it -- or it's still in RAM for instance. When I read TrueCrypt's info, I seem to recall something about how your data is still potentially visible to others unless you shut off your PC first (and then it might still be retrievable?).

I'm not trying to hide anything, but I've always been curious as to what it takes to truly wipe all traces from a computer without physically smashing the drive, for instance.

Blocking IE7 is overboard. If the browser is your platform, I'd forgive blocking IE6.

If you're selling a desktop application, blocking IE6 or IE7 doesn't make financial sense.

I think that the reason we don't see decreases in bloat is because developers generally don't want to remove features once a program has been released.

Instead, they strip things down and re-release it as a new, leaner product. Then they're free to break compatibility and features without hindrance.

Mozilla -> Firefox being one example.

What do you mean when you say "keep the SMTP operations separate from the web application"? With a queue?

I almost didn't give yellowing a second thought on old devices, since I saw the same effect on all types of old paper (especially newspapers).

The CSS should go in the head, and the Javascript can be placed at the very end of the page right before the closing body tag.

Failing that, you can put the JS right below the CSS in the head tag.

Be a better platform.

Finally, an intriguing glimpse of what the web could become in the future, if we open ourselves up to the possibilities.

I didn't see anything in that video that was "way out there" either. With enough foresight and vision, something like that could be made with today's technology.

Yeah, we could argue back and forth about the feasibility of that specific UI. But without vision and exploration, we won't see the web evolve.

The "Beyond REST" moniker is a little propaganda-ish. REST has its place and is a great architectural paradigm. Apart from that, the slideshow was pretty useful and informative. For me, it couldn't have come at a better time -- it pointed out a couple things about XMPP integration that no one had really clearly explained before. (For me, it helped clarify the distinction between XMPP itself and IM, and how one would build an app to leverage XMPP servers.)

If the charge was _minimal_, I'd be willing to pay a few bucks a year for Facebook.

If you use it properly (read: non-obsessively), it's a great way to keep connected with people you've known in the past several years. Without Facebook, I would have lost touch with a lot of people, whom I could now communicate with easily when I need to. I gave up the day-to-day "social" aspect of it a while ago, but for keeping connections with past high-school and college friends, there isn't a better way to keep the doors open.

That being said, if I was paying for the service, I'd hope they would open up their data (for export) and give a few more bells and whistles for the money.

I'm not really a "Mac" developer, since I don't (yet) code for the Mac APIs, but I'll respond anyway:

I primarily code in Python and Javascript, but also some C/C++ non-GUI stuff. I tried a few different cross-platform Python IDEs, but nowadays I just use TextMate. I use iTerm for the terminal.

TextMate's a great app for a lot of different things... Markdown, Python, C++, Javascript, Mail... it has a lot of plugins to help write code and text in different languages. That's great, and it allows you to be really productive. My only gripe is that it hasn't been updated substantially lately; while it's a great product as-is, I'd like to see a few improvements to the interface.

My network programming has been mostly just from Python, but I haven't run into any problems with OS X's sockets. I'd imagine it'd be nearly identical to BSD systems, and I'd also suspect that it you would not encounter much difficulty shifting between OS X and Linux compiling. Someone else might know more specifics.

I used to use a 20-inch Dell that rotated vertically -- it was great because I could see a lot of code at once, but I noted that I didn't usually view more than one window at a time because I'd just keep one maximized.

Then I switched to a Mac, and found that no matter what size screen I use, I've grown comfortable with multiple windows on the screen.

I saved my money for a LONG time to buy an HP 30" monitor, and I love it. I can keep several open side-by-side at the same time, which I've found extremely useful. It seems to have helped my productivity a lot.

That said, you don't need a 30" screen to see the benefits of a (relatively) larger monitor. A 24" monitor would be great as well IMHO -- that is, if you can get used to the side-by-side window effect.

If you prefer only seeing one window at once, perhaps consider two smaller monitors instead, and then you can have one window maximized on each.

YMMV, of course. It really depends on your workflow and how you like to focus on things.

I've always thought it would be an exciting development if enough OSS developers could be paid to do their work, à la Canonical or some of the other places that do that.

The trouble with OSS is that most developers are working on it part-time... if more projects had dedicated teams of individuals, I think we'd see faster iterations of better quality. For instance, desktop linux is moving there pretty quick nowadays, but it still takes a lot of time and energy and coordination to form a product as cohesive as some proprietary software (e.g. Apple).

"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly Plants."

Throw in regular exercise, and that's how you can maintain a good healthy lifestyle. Don't obsess over it; just learn to enjoy the healthy stuff. There's a lot of great, healthy food that tastes good. I'm not an expert on getting away from an unhealthy lifestyle, but once you're to the place you want to be, it's dead simple to maintain.

An alert system's usefulness is proportional to its reach. For an online widely distributed alert system, Twitter's one of the few services that would fit that goal.