As per Alan Kay on the Squeak mail list in 1998: …Smalltalk is not only NOT its syntax or the class library, it is not even about classes. I’m sorry that I long ago coined the term “objects” for this topic because it gets many people to focus on the lesser idea. The big idea [...]
The ActiveRecord adapter for SQL Server seems to work fine for SQL Server 2008 — if you can get to it! The adapter’s hardcoded to only recognize SQL Server 2000 and 2005. If the code is tweaked to recognize and handle 2008 as it does 2005, all seems to work well. [Disclaimer: We haven't done [...]
Use this plugin to conveniently run just one test. Handy during the throes of development, to quickly run one test for the code you’re hacking instead of rerunning all the tests.
Another programming language, but an interesting one – start with Python, add optional typing and contracts, among other things. A comparison with Python sums it up nicely But Cobra does not strive to be backwards compatible with Python (IronPython fulfills that role wonderfully). This opens the door to some improvements. The self-hosted / self-implemented nature [...]
This post has a gem in the middle, sage advice for any who use electronic communication (myself included) I don’t recommend banning all devs from posting, because the community interaction has many benefits. It can help keep the community happy, it has obvious PR benefits if done well, and it can make your developers feel [...]
Interesting read from someone who should know. Jives with everything I’ve ever heard. I enjoy development, but it’s hard to imagine I’d ever go near the gaming industry (as an employee) even with a 10′ pole.
He talks about experiences in the gaming industry but this one spans all genres and endeavors: What’s a QA team without a spec? A goddamned nuisance and a waste of time, that’s what. Read on.
Amusing, and true: There is a joke/story that Jick, one of the creators of The Kingdom of Loathing, likes to tell and refer to in his biweekly podcast. To roughly paraphrase: Someday, I’d like to make a game called “The Future”. And all what this game would be is an empty space to start with. [...]
I used to fuck anything that moved, but then I thought, “Why limit myself?” Movement is overrated.
I miss ReviewBoard. We’re currently using ‘the Yell method’, which blows. ReviewBoard isn’t perfect, but it’s lightyears ahead of any other tool or process I’ve ever seen or experienced. And many others agree. This holds some hints to a solution: Atrice, Malevich and (especially) Team Review sound promising. Time to do some more reading…
Real-world comparisons of a working application across Ruby 1.8.6, JRuby and Ruby 1.9. But where’s the IronRuby numbers?
Here’s an interesting line of dialogue I stumbled over, in short, the Debian folks have serious gripes about the fundamental distribution model espoused and supported by Ruby Gems: Ruby Gem is from Mars, aptget is from Venus Ruby has a distribution problem Rails? Stay the f* away from my system Upstream Developers, Be Nice to [...]
Hmmm: One of the most profound differences between dogs and cats is that cats focus on effects while dogs focus on causes. If you toss a pebble at a cat, it will look at the pebble. If you toss it at a dog, it will look at you.
Now available: Read in portrait or landscape mode Pinch to zoom images in books Select alternate background and text colors to improve reading comfort in low light conditions Tap on either side of the screen or flick to turn pages And the author makes one amusing musing: You know what would be really funny, Jeff? [...]
Jensen Harris’ presentation at MIX’08 about “the general design process we used to come up with the Office 2007 user interface, to iterate on it, and to evaluate it. As part of the discussion, I showed for the first time some of the early prototypes we worked on (and abandoned or refined) along the way.”
And, shockingly, it turns out to be a right mess – and also fundamentally shoddy, as in, there’s no way a court of law should accept ANY readings from this device. The summation: Read it again. It’s broken from a legal liability and trustworthiness standpoint. It’s broken from a precision standpoint. It’s broken from an [...]
