Compendium of Wondrous Links vol VIII

It seemed like a good idea at the time. How tech decisions done at some point in time can have a big impact much much later. Unfortunately, this is unavoidable, developing software is based in dealing with imperfect information all the time.
Fear Driven Development.
Dealing with different languages is difficult in programs (and otherwise).
Seven Laws of Sane Personal Computing.
Great compilation of Python libraries that deserve to be widely used.
Debug like Sherlock Holmes. One of my favourite ways of thinking on debug is: “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.“
How to work with Hexagonal grids. Amazing article and a must read if you want to work with these kind of grids for a game.
The sed FAQ. One of my resolutions for this year is try to learn sed better and use it more.
Small general-purpose commands that can be combined to compose larger commands. The lesson of Vim. Interesting follow up here.
git is the epitome of a UNIX tool: powerful, tied to the command line, high learning curve, amazing. Hidden consistency.
A talk on how to program coroutines in Python through generators.
Using command line tools for map reduce. Piping data is incredibly powerful. Also, GNU Parallel is an amazing tool.
Use crypto to avoid database writes.

Speed in Software Development. Lengthy article about the different paces in developing software, and impact of different factors. I’ve already talked on how I think that “sprint“ is a bad name.
Goals in code coverage. Metrics should be subject to analysis to focus the meaningful objective.

While I understand the concept, I don’t really like the word talent. Like every overused word, It can hide very dysfunctional things.
Simplifying the problems doesn’t usually look impressive. The Parable of Two Programmers.
Bug finding is slow in spite of many eyeballs.
Feature requests that look simple. How a taxation change took 4 developers a week to handle.
Performance reviews are a complicated part of the manager-managed relationship. What your manager really thinks of you.
Great advice for managers: 44 engineering management lessons.
Why sometimes I hate myself, on the self imposed pressure of comparing yourself with the (unreal) public faces of other. Another article related.
I still can’t see why Open Space plans are still the standard in new companies.
Fascinating read. God’s Lonely Programmer.
Good tips on writing a technical CV.
Computers are awesome!
“Forty years later Weinberg’s “egoless” approach, in which mistakes are accepted as inevitable and reviews are performed in a collegial way, remains the sanest way to produce code” “Rock Star” Programmers

Amazing models from the original Star Wars trilogy.
And how sound effects were done back in the day. Millennium Falcon’s hyperdrive malfunction.
Also, preproduction concept images for Star Wars.
Raiders of the Lost Ark in Black and White. It looks great.
Mastering records and why do all records sound the same.
Using the Nintendo Power Glove as an Stop-Motion animation tool. Amazing creative use of a tool for something completely different that it was created.
The problem measuring financial assets and determine how much benefit (or loss) on a bank.
Why adventure games suck and what we can do about it. 1989’s article by Ron Gilbert. Fantastic.
The iPod classic has been discontinued. We probably won’t have another device with the sole intent of listening to music. On Death and iPods: A Requiem.
How Bezier curves are drawn.
Get exposure of an indie game is difficult. Some advice on it.
DDoS attacks are growing to be very scary. A good article about how they work. The visualisation is mesmerising.
What do your password say about you? The secret life of passwords.
A Brief History of Databases.
Erlang the movie. Every programming language should do one of these. I love that they make the demo on phones, as the erlang is a measure of phone load.
IBM model M. Arguably the most famous keyboard ever made.
Databases a 14.4MHz. Impressive benchmark.

Menu