More great reads!

About code creation

• 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.

The job of developing

• 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

Other stuff

• 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.