Ryan Tomayko

Writing good documentation —

Jacob Kaplan-Moss:

It’s really tempting to use an auto-documentation tool like Javadoc or RDoc for reference material.

Don’t.

Auto-generated documentation is almost worthless. At best it’s a slightly improved version of simply browsing through the source, but most of the time it’s easier just to read the source than to navigate the bullshit that these autodoc tools produce. About the only thing auto-generated documentation is good for is filling printed pages when contracts dictate delivery of a certain number of pages of documentation. I feel a particularly deep form of rage every time I click on a “documentation” link and see auto-generated documentation.

Hate that shit.

You know what I want? Man pages. For everything. Wouldn’t it be cool if you didn’t have to write roff?

On Saying No —

Surprisingly interesting Esquire essay by Tom Chiarella:

Yes suggests pleasure. It wants something. Salesmen train themselves to use yes at the beginning of a sentence, no matter what, which is why when you say it enough, the word yes starts to feel like a con.

But no is cold and heavy. It puts an end to things. In that way, it is a word of control. Its very use suggests a speaker who actually knows something, who won’t bend, who won’t give in to what you want simply because you want it. No says the case has not been made.

Cops use it. Operators use it. Good teachers, too. I’d always wanted to be a guy who simply said no. So that’s what I did for a month. Whenever I didn’t want to do something, I didn’t hesitate, didn’t explain. I just said no.

“No.” Is there a more elegant sentence in the English language?

What Works: The Web Way vs. The Wave Way —

The Google Wave demo blew me away but I think Anil gets a lot right here. If the past is a good predictor of the future, Wave is a little too orphaned, a little too complex, and doing a little too much to be adopted quickly on any kind of large scale.

Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule —

Paul Graham at his finest. This is why I’m so pissy at the end of the day when I can’t get a single four hour chunk of time together. The thing is that you can do the same work in four contiguous hours what takes eight in interrupted hours.

25 And Over —

“If you have reached the age of 25, I have a bit of bad news for you, to wit: it is time, if you have not already done so, for you to emerge from your cocoon of post-adolescent dithering and self-absorption and join the rest of us in the world.”

Very well done.

The Git Parable —

tl;dr — that’s why it’s awesome.

How can C Programs be so Reliable? —

Laurence Tratt: “I had implicitly bought into the idea that C programs segfault at random, eat data, and generally act like Vikings on a day trip to Lindisfarne; in contrast, programs written in "higher level” languages supposedly fail in nice, predictable patterns. Gradually it occurred to me that virtually all of the software that I use on a daily a basis – that to which I entrust my most important data – is written in C. And I can’t remember the last time there was a major problem with any of this software – it’s reliable in the sense that it doesn’t crash, and also reliable in the sense that it handles minor failures gracefully."

Text Transcript of Chris's Ruby Hoedown '08 Keynote —

Chris Wanstrath: “Side projects are less masturbatory than reading RSS, often more useful than MobileMe, more educational than the comments on Reddit, and usually more fun than listening to keynotes.”

Explaining REST to Damien Katz —

Dare Obasanjo is a machine.

Not Being a Real Person —

“We’re born as unreal people but somehow get turned into respectable members of society with good cover stories.”

An Under-Appreciated Fact: We Don't Know How We Program —

“… in every one of these processes and diagrams there is a box which basically says ‘write the code’, and ought to be subtitled ‘(and here a miracle occurs)’.”

Gin, Television, and Social Surplus —

“Here’s something four-year-olds know: A screen that ships without a mouse ships broken.”

"All I need is a Programmer" —

Ethan Vizitei with a great piece on people’s misconceptions about what coders do and the difficulty with which they do it.

The Algorithm: Idiom of Modern Science —

“The Algorithm’s coming-of-age as the new language of science promises to be the most disruptive scientific development since quantum mechanics.”

The Pirate’s Dilemma —

“We live in a world where it is legal for a company to patent pigs, or any other living thing except for a full birth human being, but copying a CD you bought onto your hard drive is considered an infringement of someone else’s rights.”

The Right and Lawful Rood —

… the primary activity depicted here is standards development, particularly the historically mandated procedure for determining the linear measurement known as the “rood”, related to the English “rod”, the German “rute” and the Danish “rode”.

In software, some developers take up residence on planet architecture, an otherworldly place where software is eternally planned and discussed but never actually constructed. —

Atwood’s had a great year.

The Nerd Handbook —

“Whereas everyone else is traipsing around picking dazzling fonts to describe their world, your nerd has carefully selected a monospace typeface, which he avidly uses to manipulate the world deftly via a command line interface …”

How Benjamin Franklin Made New England Prosperous —

Need more posts like this!

Defanging the Multi-Core Werewolf —

“… where’s the harm in spawning another process? Let the two halves of the program communicate over some IPC mechanism. That model is well known, well tested, well-understood, widely deployed and has been shipping for decades.”

Why Programmers suck at Picking Colors —

“Let me repeat this because it’s very important: contrast is the basic building block of UI design.”

Software Is Hard —

“Talking about a software development schedule more than a year out is like talking about where we go after we die. Everyone has some idea where we’ll end up, but those ideas differ wildly, and there’s a lack of solid evidence to support any of them.”

Programming Can Ruin Your Life —

“You will avoid taking care of simple things because the solution is inelegant or simply feels wrong. Time to think will no doubt yield a better result, you’ll say.” Aye!

Jonathan Swift - A Modest Proposal —

An oldy but goody :)

Richard Feynman and The Connection Machine —

“One day when I was having lunch with Richard Feynman…” — need I excerpt more?

Pop Quiz on the situation in Iraq [truthdig.com] —

I’ve been looking for a essay-sized historical account of the Shiite/Sunni conflict for a long time now. A former Marine intelligence officer and UN weapons inspector lays out what appears to be a fairly comprehensive story over three pages.

Why the 09ers Are So Upset [freedom-to-tinker.com] —

“Giving a private party ownership of a number seems deeply wrong to people versed in mathematics and computer science.”

Invasion Of The Dynamic Language Weenies [hacknot.info] —

Wow. Pretty solid anti dynamic language advocacy piece. It’s been a while since I’ve written anything longish so maybe I’ll try to put together something of response to this.

Why Intelligent People Tend To Be Unhappy —

Being neither unhappy or intelligent, I wouldn’t know :)

random thoughts on being an entrepreneur —

Wow.

The perils of avoiding heresy (or "What are Design Patterns") —

In fact rather than being subtitled “Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software”, it should have been “21 reasons C++ sucks; 1 embarassment; and an Abstract Syntax Tree”.

Where were you on Saturday, November 9, 2002? —

Crazy.

Intelligent Abstractions —

Sometimes I think Aaron’s brain is my brain in the future. I’ve had all of these same ideas rattle around in my brain before but they never seem to line up so neatly for me. It bugs me a little.

? will save us, or, Applicative trumps imperative in the large —

Aristotle just destroys that recent reg article that suggests we need to shit-can 20 years of engineering masterpiece for distributed objects. Nice piece!

E.W. Dijkstra Archive: On the cruelty of really teaching computing science —

Dijkstra’s writing style is so perfect.

How to Write Articles and Essays Quickly and Expertly —

Surprisingly insightful.

But Martin, Enterprise Software IS Boring —

A well thought out and respectful response to Fowler’s argument that business software doesn’t have to be boring (RailsConf 2006). Good points abound but I have to disagree with the premise.

It's Not Software —

I have no idea how I missed this. Great Yegge piece from October 2004.

java sucks —

let’s go back to ‘97

Too many words about The Matrix —

this is insane

Why I Hate Frameworks

Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Collapse? —

It’s impossible for diffuse flames (jet fuel, paper, office stuff) to reach temperatures needed to melt steel. This guy thinks there were thermite charges in the buildings.

The Dining Philosophers in REST —

Great read…

Everything Your Professor Failed to Tell You About Functional Programming —

“This leads to my point: In computer science, nothing [still] makes sense [even] if you violate the identity principle.” :)

Sriram Krishnan : Lisp is sin —

All roads lead to Lisp…. eventually… we think. :)

The Impeachment of George W. Bush —

When you see everything stacked up like this, it’s a bit harder to call the impeachment crowd “crazy”.

HOWTO: Be more productive —

Aaron Swartz looks at the productivity problem, how not to proscratinate, etc. This is just what I needed right now.

The Beauty of Simplicity —

On Google and other things..

Saving the Net: How to Keep the Carriers from Flushing the Net Down the Tubes —

Doc just got upgraded to hero status…

When C is the Best (Tool for the Job) —

Perfect timing as I’m just about to write a little piece on how C is the only reason dynamic languages are viable…

Linux is Not Windows —

Lot’s of things I’ve wanted to say in here…

This is about Self-Reference —

Godel would be proud, I think…

PowerPoint Remix —

that’s some funny shit — “Feynman only needed 2” :)

Links to essays in Joel's Best Software Writing I —

Nice!

Ontology is Overrated -- Categories, Links, and Tags —

“People have been freaking out about the virtuality of data for decades, and you’d think we’d have internalized the obvious truth: there is no shelf.”

World of Ends —

What the Internet Is and How to Stop Mistaking It for Something Else.

Social Bookmarking Tools (I): A General Review —

Oh wow – this is the definitive work thus far I guess.

Dabblers and Blowhards —

A debunking and satirical look at the collected works of Paul Graham.

Groupware Bad —

Goddam this is an awesome essay on how bad software is written..

Politics-Oriented Software Development —

“Someone who points out a problem early is a troublemaker; someone who fixes a problem at the last minute is a hero.”

Why Craigslist Works, by Craig —

The whole PDF requirement at ChangeThis sucks but this looks like a good read anyway..

The open source monopoly —

Nice look at how companies are releasing new products under F/OSS licenses but missing much of the spirit.

cluetrain/hughtrain —

Cluetrain Manifesto: “This is why we hate you.” Hughtrain Manifesto: “This is how we’re going to fuck you up.”

What You'll Wish You'd Known —

Paul Graham takes the honest route with High School kids and tells them what they should really be worried about. Great quote: “Rebellion is almost as stupid as obedience.”

A del.icio.us study —

I need to read this a couple times when I get some times..

Quitting the Paint Factory - On the virtues of idleness —

I would love to read this but I’m too busy doing work. Let me know if it’s interesting. Work, work, work! ;)

The Command Line In 2004 —

Neil Stephenson’s “In the Beginning was the Command Line” updated and annotated by Some Guy.

Basic Critical Thinking for Software Developers —

AKA: “how to avoid the language war..” must read!

The Wizard of Oz: Parable on Populism —

What “The Wizard of Oz” was really about..

On the Relationship Between Python and Lisp —

Paul Prescod rebuttal to Paul Graham on the Python/Lisp connection. Good stuff…

Metaphilm - Fight Club —

Tremendous theory on how Fight Club is based on, and a continuation of, Calvin and Hobbes.

Metacrap —

I love this paper…

Best Software Essays of 2004 —

Joel Spolsky is putting together a book of the 30 best essays related to software development. This is a growing list of public nominations.

Good Bad Attitude —

Paul Graham on why hackers have “shitty attitudes” when it comes to topics of IP and removal of natural liberties. (Feynman’s safe cracking gets a mention, btw).

Strong Typing —

A piece on the difference between static typing and strong typing. Hint: static typing sucks, strong typing is valuable.

The Age of the Essay —

Paul Graham on how to write an essay.

Shirky: Situated Software —

Apps rarely need to scale, so don’t spend time making them scalable. The more specific software is to a problem domain, the more successful it will be. Software that tries to do too much usually sucks.

Great Hackers

"My Beef With Big Media" by Ted Turner —

wow.