March 22, 2011
App Store Roulette and Suicide Truckers
Many developers look at this and shake their head. How could these folks be such suckers? Can't they see how they are being manipulated? Then they go write an app for an app store somewhere based on reasoning just as bad.
February 4, 2011
Media, Morals, and Money
In fact, I don't think it's impossible to run a technology company without being able to make good moral decisions. Here are just a few of the moral questions I've faced:
December 18, 2010
The Web Control HTML 5 Left Out
Having a slider list or a slider array in HTML 5 would have been an awesome acknowledgement that the tyranny of binary thinking is over. But alas, it didn't happen.
November 12, 2010
To code quickly, you must quit coding
I did something yesterday that doubled my daily coding performance. It was easy, cheap, and made a tremendous difference in my life. Some of you may already know what it is. For the rest of you, its going to sound wacky.
November 9, 2010
Make something people hate
"Make something people want" is the first rule of the startup community will tell you. But they're wrong. Or rather, what they say is incomplete.
October 30, 2010
The Case For Nothing
What's the most natural and logical reaction of individuals when organizations do stupid things? --- Nothing.
October 18, 2010
Programming is for Stupid People
That seemed to pacify him, and it also hit me as accidentally touching on a really deep truth: Programming is for stupid people.
September 16, 2010
Signal-to-Nothing Ratio
After all, if folks are leaving comments on the veracity and perspicaciousness of your writing, it must mean that people want you to write true and insightful stuff, and that the depth of insight and intellectual power displayed in your article is of paramount importance.
Boy was I wrong.
February 19, 2010
Answering PG'S Arc Challenge: On the Road to a DSL
I'm building a new startup -- it allows people to collect and share quotes from books and web articles. As you add each quote, you tag it. When people vote up or down your quote (or comment on it), the...
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October 29, 2009
Agile Windows Programming: Big, Simple, Stupid
I can't help notice that every freaking thing in windows programming has a more options than a Wall Street derivatives trader.
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August 6, 2009
Palm Pre SDK Problems
As a proud Pre owner and hacker, I had a blast downloading the SDK this week. I'm planning a fun side-project, and the Pre looked like a cool platform. And then I took a look at some of the limitations....
July 16, 2009
Blue-Sky Startup Ideas: Socratic Linking
Should I code this? That's a much more interesting question. It involves what kind of team I have, how long we can run before needing money, and what all of our individual goals are.
May 15, 2009
SEO Dreck
I haven't been blogging much lately, mostly because I've been reading up on SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and web analytics. As part of that, I've also been in discussions with an acquaintance from HackerNews about forming a startup. The startup...
March 16, 2009
Technology Companies. We Hate You.
Weekend Mission: Buy a laptop for your mother who knows nothing of computers. This story is crazy. But it's true....
December 10, 2008
TDD: I Want to Believe
You'd think as an agile coach that I would be fervently advocating all things agile, but that's not the case....
September 25, 2008
Agile Accelerators
Having seen scads of projects that are agile over the years, quite frankly I'm sick of talking about agile. Who's more agile than whom? Is there such a thing as agile maturity? If so, does it mean something useful? Can...
July 23, 2008
Doing the Big "O"
I've been away from blogging for a while, working on a small project I have on the side. So my days have been mostly spent with getting up at 4, coding for 2 hours, working 10-11 hours, then coding for...
July 2, 2008
Grid Hell
So I'm writing a short ASP.NET program. And I've entered Grid Hell....
June 5, 2008
It's not Just Testing
Lately when we talk about making sure our code is done well, we talk about various types of testing -- unit, system, stress, integration, performance, etc. But it's not just testing. Everybody knows (or should know) what a code walkthrough...
May 2, 2008
Delta Airlines Can Go Jump in a Lake
I hate blog rants, but there are times when you just don't have any other options to complain to anyone. I'm a happy person, and I love writing happy articles, but sometimes you get frustrated and have nothing esle to...
April 29, 2008
Tell me What I Think
I don't watch a lot of TV. But I have noticed that more and more, TV is not only telling me what to buy, but what to think. For me it started with Battlestar Galactica. I was excited that the...
March 14, 2008
Meeeting the Mucky-Mucks
It's good to know whether you are designing the nuclear power plant or driving the technicians to the site I have kind of a weird job. While I help large organizations run their software teams a lot faster, I'm also...
March 3, 2008
Explaining Modeling
I have been talking to some friends who are more into Agile with a big A than I am over the past couple of weeks. One of the topics was the purpose and use of modeling in developing software. On...
January 25, 2008
Seven Things I Hate About Agile Literature
I'm an Agile Coach. That means I help teams adopt agile practices to make time-to-market shorter. I love agile with a little "a" But I have a confession to make: as much as I love the concepts in Agile and...
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January 16, 2008
SPRING and OSGI
I've been consulting with a small Java team that's implementing SPRING and OSGI I could tell you what they are doing but then I'd have to shoot you, so let's just say they're doing neat stuff. I haven't poked around...
December 25, 2007
It's not the Code, Stupid
Programming is not about programming. I came to this realization after reviewing my XP and Agile books as part of an engagement for a large client. I must confess that each time I start on my XP books I have...
December 18, 2007
Test your Installs
Lesson for the day -- always test your installs. If you don't, this could happen to you.Shortly after releasing EVE Online: Trinity at 22:04 GMT on Wednesday, 5 December, we started receiving reports that the Classic to Premium graphics content...
December 12, 2007
Philosophy and Software Development
Recently one of my large clients asked me to come out and look at their development process. It underscored even more to me the relationship between philosophy and software development....
November 9, 2007
How Many Fishes for the Gladiator?
I am not a fan of machine translation. I guess for some things it's fine, but I have played around with it off and on for years and it just never seems to work the way it is supposed to....
November 2, 2007
It's the Data, Stupid
With news today that Google is releasing news of its support for OpenSocial API, the light finally went on in my head. It's the data, stupid....
October 27, 2007
Is F-Sharp Enough?
Ready for prime time? I've gotten the functional programming bug lately. Most of my career after I learned my third language or so, I could care less what the language is -- just let's solve it already, ok? But lately...
October 22, 2007
It's an O/S, it's a Browser
Cool! Silverlight will run on linux! So I'm thinking about my next project, a small app to write over the next few months while I'm filling the piggy bank back up and working on finding cofounders, and it occurs to...
October 20, 2007
Talking Head Roundup
I have a secret vice. It's watching political talk-shows. As a right-leaning libertarian, somehow I started watching these shows back in the days of Bush I and Clinton even though I "didn't have a dog in the fight", as Clinton...
October 16, 2007
Anti-Google: the Future of Social Networking
What media do you want to consume today? It seems like a strange question -- obviously you're already consuming stuff so you must know -- but yet are you really consuming the stuff you'd like to? Whatever time you spend...
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October 15, 2007
Recommendation-Consumption Impedance Mismatch
There's been a terrific discussion around social sites both here and other other parts of the blogosphere. It seems to me that content selection systems swing out of whack after achieving a certain level of growth, as I pointed out...
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October 14, 2007
Voting up or down is dead
Look. I know the arguments. Let's say you're creating a social web site, that is, a place where people can do stuff and other people can recognize them for what they are doing (even if it is just scratching their...
October 10, 2007
Social Networks and ADD
There have been three memes lately in the world of startups that I think are connected: Social Networks degrade over time - or as put by CmdrTaco from Slashdot: Look at Reddit. It started small with smart people. As it's...
August 15, 2007
Top Ten Movie TechnoFarts
Great for the 1950s. Not so much today. I just got through watching a really bad movie. So bad I almost ran through the house yelling "My eyes! My eyes!" The lead actress was so ugly she went trick-or-treating...
July 27, 2007
Javascript and Kindergarten
I've done all sorts of programming. Back in the day, I started with DBase, then AppleBasic, then C. I moved through a bunch of stuff. I've written all kinds of cool, web 2.0, cutting-edge programs. Somewhere along the way, I...
May 17, 2007
Is Modeling Science?
In arriving at a scientific law there are three main stages: The first consists in observing the significant facts; the second in arriving at a hypothesis, which, if it is true, would account for these facts; the third is deducing...
April 29, 2007
MIT: Where are your Values?
I've had a love/hate relationship with higher education for most of my life. There are many things about the collegiate and university community that give us our greatest, best hope for the future. But there are also things about the...
April 4, 2007
I'm not Warming up to Global Warming
Ok, I'm trying. Really I am. For the last week or two I've listened to several hours of a prominent physicist explain Global Warming to me. I love The Teaching Company, and this is probably the 10th series of college-level...
March 25, 2007
My StressMaster Chair is Stressing me out
I've had a stressful last couple of weeks. One of my clients is in a bind as far as needing enterprise software, I have a couple of contracts that are ending, some of my students are starting to ask really...
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February 26, 2007
What's Your Software Purchase IQ?
Here's a nifty checklist to determine whether or not you are covering all of the bases when making a software purchase....
February 21, 2007
Finding the Fun in Technology
If this is your first time visitng the blog, here are some funny and insightful articles about technology and technology management. I think you'll like them. If you're a technology person, they are bound to ring true. And if you...
January 16, 2007
Derived Confusion from the Unified Process
I had a customer recently that just had fits over derived artifacts. I felt badly for them, because derived artifacts take a little bit of consideration....
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November 1, 2006
Signs You Have Too Little Process
Is this all of your project documentation? Is it on a napkin? I don't like rules very much. And I hate, really hate, paperwork. So how did I end up as a process expert? I finally realized that good process...
October 19, 2006
Don't Say I Didn't Warn You
One of the "Futuristic Warning Signs" on a site I viewed today...
September 19, 2006
Captivated by HDR
When I was a teenager, I used to take pictures for my school newspaper. I really liked it: getting into games for free, getting a lot of attention from fans, players, and cheerleaders. I even got to learn how to...
August 30, 2006
Those Weather Channel Guys
Come on guys, it's the stupid title bar! Surely you can check that when you do a build Ok. I'm going to start getting all of my news from the Weather Channel website. I've already blogged about how the Wednesday...
July 24, 2006
Building Blocks
I was reading over on slashdot today about a neat operating system called "Plan 9". For those of you who aren't film buffs, the operating system is named after the famously bad movie"Plan 9 From Outer Space". So what makes...
July 6, 2006
Weather Channel Scoops CNN
i was waking up this morning, reading my email, feeds, and favorite web pages, when I came across this from the weather channel. I had to read it twice.
June 26, 2006
Consultants: Who Needs 'Em?
I've been in technology management consulting for over 20 years, starting off in the Blue Ridge Mountains and ending up in places like San Francisco, Detroit, and Washington, DC. My clients have included Charles Schwab, the INS, Ford Motor Company,...
June 15, 2006
Is Your Project Off-The-Rails?
In an ongoing public service to my fellow programmers, and an attempt to keep from working as much as possible, I hereby offer you these signs that your project might be off the rails.
June 13, 2006
Signs You Are Living in a Matrix
God may be a programmer, but I've done some code slinging myself, and I think it's time we programmers helped out the folks in other universes.
June 7, 2006
Hosting Providers: Love 'em or Leave 'em
I used to say I have been very happy with using a hosting provider. But lately, I'm not so sure. Here's a round-up of the current bugs we're working on batBack and their status.
Sixteen Hints That Your Program Might be Buggy
As those of you who have read the blog know, I have a small start-up web application that I think is really cool. I'm still doing programming, management, and technology consulting, but I am also writing this program and doing user support. In the interest of sharing with you some of what I've learned, here are SIXTEEN HINTS THAT YOUR PROGRAM MIGHT BE BUGGY
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May 21, 2006
OOP-Man versus the Forces Of the Octopus
Recently a reader told me that partial classes were good for cases where one class had to implement multiple interfaces. What are you going to do, for instance, if you have a class that has to implement seven interfaces, each...
May 18, 2006
Attack Of The Interface Octopus
During my recent rant about partial classes being a bad idea, a commenter said something like "Yeah, but I have a bunch of interfaces to implement in this one class, so of course class is going to get huge. Partial classes let me separate the different interfaces into different files"
How Big Should Your Class Be?
Digg picked up the article linked below. One of the comments was really insightful:
Partial Classes. Totally Stupid?
Is it just me, or is partial classes the dumbest thing to come out of Redmond in a long time?
May 8, 2006
Plato and OOP: Together Again
I'm taking my hour of exercise each morning and listening to a tape series about great thinkers in Western culture. Today I learned some about Socrates and Plato. If you are a C++, Java, or C# programmer, you should take some time to learn about those dudes who lived a long time ago and wore togas. After all, they're the ones who really created analysis and OOP.
May 1, 2006
Brian Pomeroy: Lost in the Ether
One of the trade-offs I'm always struggling to make as a programmer is how much instrumentation to put in my code. Instrumentation is when the program writes to a log or somehow keeps track of what it is doing while it is doing it.
April 26, 2006
The Seven Best Classic Rock Songs To Code To
I think I'm more productive when I code and listen to music. Do you? What's your favorite Rock-n-Roll songs to code by and why?
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April 22, 2006
One thing, two things, three things, 27
Why is it that stuff is so clustered?
Hooked on Beethoven
I've got an earworm like I've never had before. You have to help me get rid of it.
April 8, 2006
Same Lesson, Different Day
One of the things I hate the most about programming is when you make the same mistake twice.
March 22, 2006
Is Microsoft ATLAS for me?
I have an AJAX application that I've written, and I'm thinking about whether to use the ATLAS tools from Microsoft to help me develop it.
March 21, 2006
Atlas At Last
Yesterday I got my first peek at Microsoft's new ATLAS framework. I'm going to tear it apart, but first a couple of warnings.
March 16, 2006
It's Always Something
The show goes on.
March 15, 2006
Why is it Always an Art Project?
I'm getting ready this morning to go to speak at the Region 2000 Wired Wednesday luncheon. As those of playing along at home know, I've done a bunch of speaking engagements over the last year or two. Can somebody tell...
February 7, 2006
Make it up
It's all about the jargon.
December 23, 2005
Sad State Of Science
Let's imagine you pay an accountant or attorney. His job is to provide answers to technical questions you may ask. He's not the strategist -- he's just telling you what the facts are. But every time you ask him a question, you have a 80% chance of him being wrong.
That's where we are today with modern scientific research.
December 13, 2005
Invention, Inventor
I had a friend email me the other day with a great idea for an invention. I think now that I have a patent filed more people will do this. It was an uncomfortable situation.
October 27, 2005
Haunting Songs
I heard the most awesome song last night...
October 18, 2005
Best Business Tapes for a Techie
Here's the best set of business tapes I have found coming from a technical background.
October 11, 2005
Power Plastic
Here's an idea whose time has come: plastic that produces power.
September 16, 2005
Enough is Enough!
What's got five blades, two lubricating strips, and the blades vibrate while you use them? Nope, not my new lawn mower. It's Gillett's latest monstrosity, the Fusion.
September 1, 2005
Admitting You're Wrong
You gotta love an article that is titled "Thinking Clearly About Space" Monte Davis may be a smart person, writing for Omni and all that, but he's part of the problem and not part of the solution.
August 23, 2005
Beware Geeks Bearing GIFs
I love watching the commercials for "Geek Squad", which seems to be an on-call, pocket-protector-wearing thin white man with 1950s glasses.
August 14, 2005
737 Crash
As a commercial pilot who's never flown a big commercial aircraft, I think I've always dreamed of being on an airplane when they ask "Is there a pilot on board?", then leaping up to the cabin to save the day.
August 8, 2005
AJAX: Get Your Head Outta the Can
"Here's a bill for that other universe. You'll find that we had to work a lot of overtime over there. Jeesh. What a job!"
Ah yes. The quantum computer consulting world will be a load of fun for everyone.
August 2, 2005
CMMI Facilitator: Not An Easy Job
I'm currently looking for companies to help out, so I am scouring the web for various opportunities. Aside from the recruiter who emailed me this morning with a ludicrous contract rate, it's been very interesting. There's a lot of jobs out there, but the one I think is the toughest is CMMI Facilitator.
July 28, 2005
Biggest Security Hole This Year
This is the biggest security hole discovered so far this year -- word that Cisco routers are open to attack. You got an operating system bug, or something wrong with IE? That's nice -- patch your OS or don't visit...
Let the Lawsuits Begin
Looks like an 85-year-old grandmother from New York is suing Rockstar Entertainment for the mature content that was inside "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" Boy -- talk about seeing this one coming....
July 27, 2005
Exciting Study
Here's a very exciting study from the world of health: scientists are beginning human trials for stem cell therapy on heart patients after intial success with pigs. It's unknown what the pigs did to get heart disease -- one pictures...
Cratering. What's Good and What's Not?
I'm finishing up a contract in eastern Virginia this week and I dropped by the Petersburg Battlefield last night to take in a look before I moved on to other things. I think one of the stories teaches some lessons about software development.
July 26, 2005
Outsourcing Your Support Services? Read Up
Here's a blog entry I stumbled across today while trying to figure out why my phone doesn't download my hotmail messages any more. Give "Goodbye Hotmail!" a read if you have time -- what a story....
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July 24, 2005
Computer to Monitor Cop Quality
In something so strange it could only happen in California, Los Angeles has built a computer system to monitor the police force for bad cops. The system, which costs $25 million, is supposed to monitor complaints and incidents for patterns. Read on for my opinion.
Major Security Flaw: USB Drives
It's long been known that USB drives are a major security risk for their ability to move large amounts of information directly from a PC without going through the network. Now comes news that "bootable" USB drives can comprimise the...
July 18, 2005
Quality TV -- Can Reporters Be Participants?
The big hubbub tonight seems to be that CNN Miles O'Brien was in negotiations with NASA to become the first journalist to fly in space. How could he do it? Wouldn't it tarnish his reputation? How could he remain impartial? Talk about a tempest in a teapot!
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July 16, 2005
NASA: Beats Us
Word today that NASA doesn't know what's wrong with the fuel sensors on the shuttle, and may launch anyway. Wired News has a great interview today with Gene Krantz, known for the Apollo 13 mission among others. ("Gentlemen -- Failure is not an option") Krantz said some things I agree with, and some things that I take issue with.
July 15, 2005
How Much Help Is Too Much?
From the "oops" department, here's word that Harry Potter fans were told erroneously that their books will be delayed. Talk about bad publicity! E-mail is a great, immediate, easy-to-use tool. Is it too easy?
July 14, 2005
Moore's Law, Not The Only Game In Town
Scientific American has an interesting article this month about the growth of storage devices. Seems like storage technology is growing even faster than processor speed. Entire industries that wouldn't have been possible ten years ago -- like the I-Pod, have now sprung up. Where's it all going?
July 13, 2005
Eat Your Own Cooking
So I've re-done the site, used something new, and learned a bit. Now if I could only find the Tylenol.
July 12, 2005
18-Foot Robot For Sale. Low Mileage
18-Foot Robot For Sale. Low Mileage
July 11, 2005
What are the Variables?
To fix something, whether it's a computer, a biological system, or a business program, you've got to know what the important variables are. It makes me wonder: 20 years from now, what's the "new" thing going to be then?
July 10, 2005
CAT 4 Storm Bears Down On Gulf Coast of US
Where the models seem to fall apart is when rarely-seen conditions occur: it's been common wisdom in the forecasting community for years that CAT 5 storms seem to do whatever they want to.
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July 9, 2005
How Long Does an Inkjet Photo Last? Who Knows?
Soon the day will come for the family server -- it's already here for us technical types, and the neighbors won't be far behind. What runs on that server and how it's hardware is configured is still up in the air.
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The Buzz: Digital Radio
By this fall, expect a push towards digital radio, which is already in many US markets. The sets will set you back from 200-1700 bucks. But they'll offer much-enhanced quality, and the ability to multicast: receiving more than one stream of information from the same station. How will they compete against satellite radio? That's the question. More on digital radio here.
July 8, 2005
WTF? How About Style Sheets?
So I'm taking a look at upgrading the web site. I've kicked around HTML ever since there was an HTML, so I think I know the deal. This time, for the first time on my own site, I think I'm...
July 7, 2005
Easy For You to Say
When I first started coding in Oracle I had an error "Mutating tables present" or some such. Yikes! I certainly don't want mutant tables running around in my database; they might touch off some of that volatile code!
July 6, 2005
Evolutionary vs. Revolutionary
But there comes a time when you have to evaluate your product against the perceived market niche, whether you think it belongs there or not. When you get to that point, it's surprising what you'll find.
July 5, 2005
Must Stop Reading Server Logs
I do know is that with 3 thousand people dropping by your site, it makes your head spin to try to keep track of them all.
Now my eyes are red, I haven't had a good night sleep in several days, and I'm running on Diet Mountain Dew. I got to stop reading those server logs.
If You're Going To Be Bad, Be Bad
From the "How cheap can they go" department, Chinese pirates have already hacked up "Star Wars: Revenge Of The Sith". As reported by this web site, the English subtitles aren't always in sync with the original meaning, as when Anakin...
July 4, 2005
A Man, A Plan, and a Evil Empire
He was the right guy, with the right idea -- but he was Wong for Microsoft.
July 3, 2005
Know What You're Talking About
I've sat in rooms with some extremely smart people talking to their managers and I have felt truly sorry for those poor schmucks who had to take all that information and make something out of it. You've got to provide context.
July 2, 2005
Enough Already!
Just go do what I paid you for and leave me alone. Is that too much to ask?
July 1, 2005
First The Comets Strike Us. Now We Strike Back
As Stephen Covey says, sometimes we don't need a stopwatch, we need a compass.
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June 30, 2005
From the "Beats Me" Department
Instead of asking "What is intelligence?" perhaps a better question would be "Would we know it if we saw it?"
June 29, 2005
Maybe Worf Was Right?
In the show "Star Trek: The Next Generation" there was a Klingon who served on the Enterprise. Worf, being highly skilled in the art of weaponry, was always wanting to use this or that weapon to solve whatever problem appeared....
June 28, 2005
Alternative Input
I've had a tablet for several years now, and once you really try one out, you'll never go back.
June 27, 2005
E-Bay Hitting The Rocks?
Quality, in the general public's mind, is a moving target. What worked great a couple of years ago now isn't so flashy or new.
June 26, 2005
The Death of Analysis
It's a "journey of discovery" (as much I hate that phrase, sounds like a Discovery Channel show, "Jouney with us now into the darkest of African use-case jungles...")
June 25, 2005
How much does poor software quality cost? Try $60 Billion
But have you ever seen all of the stuff that Microsoft Word can do? That thing could launch nuclear missiles if you knew the right buttons to click.
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June 23, 2005
Guns For Bots
But one day, in the not-so-distant future, some autonomous machine is going to kill somebody because it felt like it.
June 21, 2005
Make It Look Like The Picture
Even a charging rhinoceros doesn't look so big when it is far away -- but it gets a lot bigger when it's getting ready to run over you.