stusmith1977

Sorry, didn't really clarify what I meant by mainstream: easily available to purchase, by non-techie consumers, from a high-street shop.

Does anyone else think it weird that the first mainstream hi-res displays weren't pushed by Microsoft? Let me explain...

Back when WPF was still called Avalon, Microsoft were pushing the technology as a solution for the soon-to-be-arriving high-dpi displays (which, we were assured, were right around the corner). As an example, see a contemporary blog post: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/marcelolr/archive/2004/12/03/274213....

Given that Microsoft were (are?) deseperately trying to hold back the tide of web-based applications, wouldn't displays like this, combined with tchnology such as WPF, have been a killer feature of a desktop OS? And hence, shouldn't they have been a high-priority for Microsoft?

So why did Apple get there first? Why didn't Microsoft research/fund/introduce these high-dpi displays?

Edit: More links from a Coding Horror post from the same year: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2004/11/trapped-in-a-bitmap...

> Duplication of module dependencies is also tedious and error-prone.

You can combine these with RequireJS as well. Instead of:

  define(['a', 'b', 'c'], function () {
    var a = require('a');
    var b = require('b');
    var c = require('c');
    ...
  });

You can instead just do:

  define(['a', 'b', 'c'], function (a, b, c) {
    ...
  });

It does seem surprising, but ARM BASIC was fast. Seriously fast. I read somewhere that it was later optimized further for the ARM3, so that its core working set (for common operations) would fit inside the ARM3's cache. When you consider that was only 4kb, you get a feel for how well-written ARM BASIC was.

Email addresses, agreed, not so much. But one thing that annoys me where I work is our logins are of the form 'u0123456' (roughly sequentially allocated, but starting from 0100000)... and they're tied to our source control system. So you look through the commit logs, and all you can see are Unumbers - no names. Half the whiteboards in the office are covered in lookup tables of U-to-name.

It's a real downer when someone joins the company too - pretty much the first thing you have tell them is "you're a number now - everything in the company is accessed by this number". You can see in their eyes an "oh shit what have I gotten into" moment.

UK here: 35 hr week (which I generally stick to), 28 days holiday (rising to 30 in a couple of years, plus I usually buy 5 extra, plus public holidays).

What's interesting is I work for a large multi-national (listed on NYSE and TSX) - local expectations override the rest of their US-centric culture.

> Explicit access to PC as a register, makes "computed goto" trivial and very natural.

Am I right in thinking ARM uses this model? I haven't worked on them since ARM2, but I have a hazy recollection...

Completely agree. I once worked at a bespoke software shop where they had 'proper' developers upstairs, and support developers downstairs. (Quotes used to indicate how that made the support staff downstairs feel).

Most projects taken on by the company followed the same path: upstairs developers would code up the application as per functional spec, client would do a bit of UAT, accept it, publish it live, at which point the project was assigned to the support staff.

What generally happened next was the application would begin to fail on non-functional fronts, generally appalling performance and scalability problems.

Since there was minimal communication between floors (afterall, what could a 'proper' developer learn from a lowly support developer?), the pattern repeated again and again.

I'm sure that either rotating the positions, or having individuals responsible for staying with each application throughout its life, or some other form of mixing, would have drastically improved both morale and quality of apps produced.

The question is why are American manholes round.

You can walk quite a way in Britain before you see a circular manhole cover. Domestic drain covers are almost always rectangular galvanized steel, and aren't actually that heavy, so dropping one doesn't happen that often.

Digging and constructing a rectangular inspection pit is much easier than a circular one.

Agreed. Always keep SRP in mind. In effect, this is IoC for views. Having a separate manager to manage views and their lifetimes is very useful. Need a popup dialog view? Manager handles it. Views have prerequisite views (like sign in, or loading)? Manager handles it.

Just to present an alternative: I found for apps which don't use many forms the above plugins can be overkill. I used something like the following:

https://gist.github.com/2049308

..to provide simple form-to-model and model-to-form conversions, with appropriate validation. Just decorate the form elements with data-bind="property" and away you go. (I'm using Bootstrap so the validation is tied heavily to that).

(I'm certainly not trying to denigrate the above plugins - obviously different apps have different requirements and as pointed out, if you have many forms then the above plugins make much more sense. The fact that Backbone lets you make these decisions is for me a nice feature).

...but I'm quite happy with my 35-hour week, thankyou.

There's a lot that's wrong with the UK, but being forced to work for free thankfully isn't one of them.

I just can't imagine where people get the time for a 50-60 hour week. Once I've been to work, played with my son, fed, bathed, and put him to bed, and cooked, there isn't much time left in the day, surely?

Reminds me of a friend who used to run IT for a school, telling me the feature he looked for in educational software was greying out the 'print' button for 30 seconds after it had been clicked. Otherwise, the scenario was: kid clicks 'print', looks at printer, sees nothing coming out (maybe the printer is out of paper, or warming up, or whatever). So kid just keeps clicking 'print'. Result: when printer finally comes online, it wastes reams of paper printing dozens of copies of the document in the queue.

There's also the EU, which (particularly with the EU Bill of Human Rights) acts more and more as a reasonably sane constitution for the UK.

Oh boy that's a biggie here. Last year the raise given for "exceeds" was around 1% - 3%. For comparison, inflation is running at about 5% in the UK, so effectively if you work as hard as you can, you still get a pay cut.

Currently, I'm interviewing new hires who will be roughly a paygrade below me. They will start with a 10% higher salary than my current.

Needless to say, I'm not a happy bunny. Sadly, there aren't that many software companies here, so I can't easily move jobs.

Hmm, according to this page:

http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/pricing/calculator/

The cheapest server (compute+database) is $100/month.

That can't be right, surely? Is there really no intermediate pricing? What am I missing?

I'm not a fan of sotware patents, but perhaps there's a halfway house towards getting rid of them:

Make software patents only holdable by a real person (i.e. not a corporation), and not transferable. Any money received from a patent infringement lawsuit would be paid to that named person.

That way, they can be used for their original purpose (to protect small inventors and allow them to build a larger business), but can't be collected by the trolls.

(It would also give companies an incentive to keep 'their' patent owners happy).

Just an idea... I'm sure there's a glaring hole in it somewhere.

I don't think so, because it never goes any further than those initial harrassments. If someone had got a loan in my name, I think I would have received escalating demands, culminating in a court summons. That never happens - they just keep calling wanting to discuss a loan application, or sending emails saying that a payment is overdue.

I suspect they hope that they can just get people to talk to them, and then convince them to take a loan.

If it is "honest" identity fraud, then they obviously don't have the checks in place to deal with it - either way, they're not good companies to deal with (IMO).

They're a deeply sleazy company, along with lenders like PayDayUK.

They mass-cold-call people asking to "discuss their application for a loan", when those people haven't made an application.

They send threatening emails to folks saying that loan installments haven't been paid, when those people haven't taken out a loan.

Their tactics are basically bullying and fear.

(No, I haven't ever taken out a loan with either of these companies. Yes I have had to experience both of these annoyances. Yes, so have various other people I know).

Heard this one before, and it made me think of the barometer problem:

http://www.snopes.com/college/exam/barometer.asp

Agree here. Bending over to change does your back in. And when the poop has gone up their back or down their leg, you want a surface you can bleach.

Also agree on sleeping separate - we put ours in the nursery after three nights. He sleeps 7pm - 8am now (at 8 months) and is very happy. Bizarely, tired babies don't sleep well (ie don't keep them up in the hope they'll sleep longer). Put them to bed before they get overtired. If you share a room you will wake each other and you'll all be tired and cranky.

New father, with 8-month-old son:

- The first three months just have to be got through. Think of it as a survival test. Lack of sleep, complete change of family dynamics, no sex, no relaxation.

- You might well find yourself resenting the baby. No-one admits to it though. Everyone says "it's magical" and "you love them unconditionally". There are nights when that won't be the case. You and your partner just have to help each other, and don't be afraid to say to them "I just need a couple of hours away from the baby". Obviously you have to do the same for them.

- After three months generally any collicky issues settle down, and they start smiling and really recognizing you. Now it gets good!

- Routine (in my opinion) is everything. We used a modified Gina Ford routine and he was sleeping 7pm - 8am every night by 5/6 months. I'm tired in the evenings but only in the usual way - no more exhaustion.

- It's unbelievable how much you care for them. When you hear their pain cry (the staccato one; not just the usual crying) you drop everything and run to them.

- The biggest change/loss at this stage is the loss of intimacy (and I don't necessarily mean in bed) with my wife. Little things like "shall we go out for dinner on a whim" or "here's breakfast in bed" are very difficult to achieve.

- Spare time is almost non-existant for me, apart for a few evenings when wife and baby visit grandparents. My admiration for people with both startups and babies (and especially side-projects and babies) is enormous.

Can't tell you about the later years (not there yet), but I'm looking forward to just being part of a family with a little mini-me to re-experience the world with.

I strongly disagree. If you're expecting the first value of a list, what use is nil?

If you have a list of Ints, then what can you do with nil returned? It's not an Int.

Nils have a habit of propagating through the whole type system, and you then need to have rules about how they apply to every function. (What is 1+nil? What is nil:[1,2,3]?).

Eventually every single function will either have odd behaviour when confronted with a nil, or will be a source of exceptions (which are generally undesirable in a pure functional setting).

Haskell encourages you to write patterns that check for these edge cases, and handle them explicitly:

foo [] = ...

foo (x:xs) = ...

As a curious european, I always wondered: who decided female nipples are shocking, but male nipples are acceptable? It's rather like saying, "you can show milk bottles, but only if they're empty".

Well I don't have either, but if I were buying, my thoughts would go like this:

"If I get an iPhone, I know which one to buy (iPhone 4), and I know it will all work out of the box".

"If I buy an Android phone, I have to compare between about a bazillion models, and I don't know whether each has a separate app store, and if I get the 'wrong' Android phone I'll regret it".

Basically, there's /too much/ choice in the Android market.

...with the sub-text being: develop on FF (best tools)... all other browsers are roughly compliant... except for IE, which needs additional testing. Ouch.

Not sure what country you're in, but here in the UK the law is on your side.

* Get everything in writing. Keep copies. Inform both MS and the collection agency that they're in error. Send it recorded. Make them sign for the letter.

* Next, ignore them until they either take you to court, or put something on your credit record. Only a court can force you to pay a debt like that.

* If they take you to court, you have a period of time to respond. You don't need to physically go to court in most cases.

* If they put something on your credit record, take them to court to have it removed. That costs about £70. The record comes off in a matter of days.

* Any court judgements issued can also be overturned, if you have a good reason for not responding in time.

* Any costs (eg that £70 above) can then be reclaimed through small claims. A small claims filing costs about the same, but you just add it to the claim you're making. Add on postage, travel, etc.

* Remember the judge will recognize the sleazy agencies. (They will probabaly deal with several such cases every day). If you have the proof in paperwork, they will find for you.

* Once overturned, they cannot take you to court again for the same amount. If a judge decides the amount is wrong, you cannot be harrassed again for the same amount. End of story.

You've probably now lost the money however since you've essentially admitted fault, but you may be able to put it through small claims. Not sure.

Ditto, a couple of hundred years ago being pale was fashionable - it meant you were rich enough to not work outside. Nowadays of course, we mostly work indoors - so being tanned is fashionable.

Slightly off the wall idea... but you could buy an old Archimedes or RiscPC off eBAY. There's an ARM assembler built-in (OS, BASIC V, assembler, and some apps are in ROM).

You can only scroll down if visiting from Google. Copying the URL and pasting it into your browser returns a page without the answer. I'm suprised Google didn't exclude them years ago. (Apologies if that's what you meant).