January 2007 Archives

Jeff Atwood:

"A smart software developer knows that there's no point in writing code if it's code that nobody will see, code that nobody will use, code that nobody will ultimately benefit from...A smart software developer realizes that their job is far more than writing code and shipping it; their job is to build software that people will actually want to use. "

Here's a good one from User Friendly.

User interface guru Bruce Tognazzini talks about the iPhone.

Bob Koss analyzes why long methods and large classes are bad: Size Matters.

Amen.

(Note: It's not my intend to pick on Basecamp here, I'm just using it as an example of a Web 2.0 hosted application)

If I get myself Basecamp it's about 24$ / month. So I pay 12 * 24$ = 288$ in the first year. And every year thereafter.

Plus, I can only work when connected with the Internet. Not in the train, not in the plane (mostly). I need broadband internet access. Plus, if the company goes out of business (or decides to stop the service), I'm hosed. I can't continue to use the product. With a traditional shrink-wrapped package, I shell out about the one year fee of a Web 2.0 app once (or maybe even less), but then I'm free to use it a few years and not upgrade.

Why can't I get Basecamp (which is a really cool product, BTW) as a downloadable app, too? I would be able to set it up on my local machine or on a server behind our firewall with no bandwidth limitations etc.).

Yes, I'm well aware of the advantages of using a web-based, hosted application. But these advantages just don't cut it, IMHO.

Browsing through my 400+ feeds (yuk) I find my part of the tech crowd's echo chamber resonates with posts complaining about the iPhone's lack of 3G, lack of third-party apps, lack of VoIP, too expensive etc. Interesting enough, most of the guys complaining still want one. That's the reality distortion field at its best. Plus, I remember the tech-savvy crowd bashing a certain mp3 player for not having enough features a few years ago....

Watch it. You may learn something on how to give an insanely great presentation.

Excellent, albeit quite lengthy post by Jeremy Miller on Orthogonal Code.

Get a coffee and read it. You may learn a few things along the way (or get reminded of a few things, which isn't bad, either).