TV interface
Isn’t it quite absurd that we haven’t nail this yet? We recently heard about all the great advances in terms of image quality, 4K, bending screens… Yet controlling a TV feels clunky and awkward. Even worse, given the never ending increase in devices connected to the TV (DVDs, Blu Rays, AppleTVs, consoles…) the usage of different remote controls is painful, unless a Universal Remote is used. But even in that case, the process itself of selecting the activity is weird, for very common operations. For example, if you want to play a movie… Read More
Future as a developer and the ever changing picture
A few weeks ago I came by a couple of articles my Marco Arment that share the theme of the current status of accelerated change within the development community as a way of stressing up, and being difficult to be up to date. After all, one gets tired of learning a new framework or language every size months. It gets to a point where is not funny or interesting anymore. It seems like two different options are presented, that are available for developers after some time: Keep up, meaning that you adopt rapidly each new… Read More
Compendium of Wondrous Links VI
They finally found all those buried Atari cartridges, and confirmed a beloved urban legend. Just wonderful. This episode of @ExtraCreditz follows up an idea I always had about education. The key is being demanding, but allowing a lot of opportunities. Amazing book introduction, showing how no one is immune to think that they are stupid. Lots of things in live are hard. Readability in code is not about being literary. Is about making the code easy to understand. You don’t read code, you explore it. The Great Works of Software. The premise is extremely… Read More
Visual Programming and Mental Constructs
I saw yesterday live the Apple keynote on the WWDC. I am far from an Apple developer, but I use OS X and iOS everyday, and I’m interested on new stuff. There was a full section devoted to developers, which is great (well, it’s supposed to be a developer’s conference, after all), and, arguably, the most interesting stuff on that part (for a developer’s perspective) was the release of a new programming language, Swift. It was announced with an (irrelevant) comparison with Python in terms of speed (I actually have plans to write… Read More
Compendium of Wondrous Links vol V
Seven habits of effective text editing. A great essay by Bram Moolenaar (of Vim fame). It is applicable to any editor, but, of course, shows why Vim can be such a good choice (once you know how to use it, obviously) A useful collection of recipes in Python. Thirty python language features and tricks you may not know How to be a sane programmer. Basically, do other stuff not related to programming. The related Business Insider article is also worth the read. The Evolution of a Software Engineer D/A and A/D Digital… Read More
The amazing forgiveness of software
One of the things I like most about developing software is the fact that you can recover from most mistakes with very few long term impact. Bugs are unavoidable, and most of the people involved on programming deeply understands that is something we all live with. So, there’s no hard feelings, once you find a bug, you fix it and immediately move on. Not only no one thinks that you’re a bad developer because you write bugs, but typically the impact of a bug is not that problematic. Yes, there are some bugs that are just… Read More
Compendium of Wondrous Links vol IV
Some gifs showing Vim capabilities. Why I use Vim. More about the philosophies behind vim. Why Atom can’t replace vim. A browser game, similar to the great Threes for iOS, with a binary twist. 2048 It can be a little addictive, though. An this is another brilliant game. Create your own metro system. Mini Metro. 3 wrong ways of storing a password and some examples to do it in a more proper way. And more about setting a salted password hashing. Don’t be a technical masochist. It is good to have options and recognise… Read More
Let your fellow developers know they’re great
I think that one of the most challenging things in my life as a developer is the Impostor Syndrome. Unless you’re stuck into a mediocre job, where everyone around you is pretty lame (and, believe me, if you’re in that situation, you want to get out as soon as possible), I think it is quite common to get that feeling of “wow, I don’t deserve to be here” feeling from time to time. I am pretty terrible at myself, and I suspect I am not the only one. If I achieve something, that… Read More
Compendium of Wondrous Links vol III
Good tech lead, bad tech lead. Can we please please stop telling people that coding is easy? Confessions of an Intermediate Programmer. The perception and psychology of competence. The Science of Making your Story Memorable Some interesting advice about presentations. The presentation itself used as example is interesting as well. Thirty percent feedback to iterate faster. The classic “your problem with Vim is that you don’t grok vi” response in Stack Overflow. A very nice list of Python articles. Best Python 2013 Companies and startups are different. Not only in size, but qualitatively. An… Read More
Wrong Side of Memphis 