Tutorial D

Simoens and I had a conversation about Tutorial D. It's a relational language that you folks might find interesting.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D_(data_language_specification)

http://dbappbuilder.sourceforge.net/Rel.html

Kick Mike! (or Google)

No wonder I haven't been seeing any new posts in google reader! The f'n url changed!

First one to put a Kick Me sign on Mikes back gets $10...

Can Your Team Pass The Elevator Test?

This is a snip from coding horror;

Can Your Team Pass The Elevator Test?

Software developers do love to code. But very few of them, in my experience, can explain why they're coding. Try this exercise on one of your teammates if you don't believe me. Ask them what they're doing. Then ask them why they're doing it, and keep asking until you get to a reason your customers would understand.

What are you working on?
I'm fixing the sort order on this datagrid.

Why are you working on that?
Because it's on the bug list.

Why is it on the bug list?
Because one of the testers reported it as a bug.

Why was it reported as a bug?
The tester thinks this field should sort in numeric order instead of alphanumeric order.

Why does the tester think that?
Evidently the users are having trouble finding things when item 2 is sorted under item 19.

If this conversation seems strange to you, you probably haven't worked with many software developers. Like the number of licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop, it might surprise you just how many times you have to ask "why" until you get to something-- anything-- your customers would actually care about.

It's a big disconnect.

Dismissing the Myths

Python: Myths about Indentation

If you "just don't like it", that's perfectly OK, but other than personal preference gripes, quit yer bitchin' !!!

The fine line between abstraction and obfuscation

Most of the books out there that teach OO design talk about Abstraction, but they don’t warn about Obfuscation at all. Its a shame.

http://www.sitepen.com/blog/2007/09/24/a-fine-line-between-abstraction-and-obfuscation/

PacketGarden - Grow a garden from network traffic

I know that Mike S. has always wanted the terrain in games to have a stronger correspondance to the network/hardware that's running them. Seems like this is very similar:
http://packetgarden.com/

New Name

Since the clu6 doesn't ever meet for 3reakfast anymore... I decided to change the name of our blog. Hope you all like it!

One of the Blessed,
M.

Read online

This may be old news, but I just discovered that The Internet Archive has real online books, including texts hundreds of years old.

Found this out by following a link from reCAPTCHA.

Google Presentations

http://docs.google.com/TeamPresent?fs=true&docid=dcq7txnh_41g75mbs#