01 Apr 2005

Insects and Entropy —

How complexity killed the best bug ever created in the whole world.

tomayko.com   21:44

20 Jan 2005

Getters/Setters/Fuxors —

Python’s attributes are not Java’s getters/setters and why that’s a good thing.

tomayko.com   00:43

19 Jan 2005

Disproving Backward Time Travel (kind of) —

If it is ever discovered, we would have known about it a long time ago.

tomayko.com   22:55

06 Sep 2009

The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information —

Originally published in The Psychological Review, 1956, vol. 63, pp. 81-97. Every once in a while the internet decides to be useful and floats something old and amazing around anew. This is one of those things.

musanim.com   08:42

20 Jan 2009

Conceptual Algorithms (Presentation) —

Tom Preston-Werner shows you how to think.

infoq.com   11:28

29 Dec 2008

RUBY-STYLE —

Christian Neukirchen’s Ruby styleguide. The best I’ve seen.

github.com   18:07

12 Dec 2008

More Developers, Less Code —

I never put it together that the teddziuba that wrote at lesscode.org in 2005 was that teddziuba. This is a great piece.

lesscode.org   10:46

19 Nov 2008

Why specs matter —

I’ve linked to this before and I’ll link to it again.

diveintomark.org   07:56

19 Oct 2008

Two logical fallacies that we must avoid —

“… the implications of many of the scientific ideas and theories, whether mine or otherwise, are indeed immoral, ugly, contrary to our ideals, or offensive either to men or women (or some other groups of people). I simply do not care. If what I say is wrong (because it is illogical or lacks credible scientific evidence), then it is my problem. If what I say offends you, it is your problem.”

blogs.psychologytoday.com   19:54

18 May 2008

The Rise of Contextual User Interfaces —

Interesting look at evolution of UI and the semi-recent trend of adopting the web’s content oriented interface. Definitely overlaps with the fundamentals of “admin debris” and related ideas.

readwriteweb.com   09:21

16 May 2008

HOWTO think about problems —

“You (and I) suck. Plan for it. Expect it. Get over it.”

warpedvisions.org   15:22

05 May 2008

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)’.”

paulspontifications.blogspot.com   00:13

13 Apr 2008

Burning the midnight oil —

Ethan Vizitei on the difference in productivity found in the middle of the night vs. any other time of day. Nails it, IMO.

codeclimber.blogspot.com   11:47

07 Apr 2008

My rules of thumb for developers: less code —

Rafe kicks off a series detailing various aspects of his coding philosophy. The first is near and dear to my heart: less code

rc3.org   16:11

03 Apr 2008

Git for Computer Scientists —

Okay, I’ve read about five of these articles purporting to explain Git’s internal conceptual framework. This was the first that really made things click in any significant way.

eagain.net   07:53

20 Jan 2008

Programs on the scale of a million lines of code are getting more common. But how big is that? —

“A million lines of code is not ten times more than 100,000. It’s well-known that schedules grow faster than the code … so the schedule for developing a million lines of code is 22 times bigger than for 100,000 LOC.”

embedded.com   13:08

19 Jan 2008

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.”

cs.princeton.edu   06:50

11 Dec 2007

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.

codinghorror.com   17:48

27 Nov 2007

Depressurize the priorities —

“Most of the time you should be working on The Next Most Important Thing. But there are times when it’s okay to depart. Times when you need to depressurize after completing a dive in the stressful, complex pool of Big Problems.”

37signals.com   03:40

22 Nov 2007

What if powerful languages and idioms only work for small teams? —

“What if closures and meta-programming and expressive type systems and annotations and all of the other tools that give us the power to build powerful abstractions actually don’t scale to larger teams?”

weblog.raganwald.com   14:56

02 Nov 2007

Technical Debt —

“… coined by Ward Cunningham to describe the obligation that a software organization incurs when it chooses a design or construction approach that’s expedient in the short term but that increases complexity and is more costly in the long term.”

blogs.construx.com   06:39

11 Oct 2007

adamssl on anonymity —

Now this is an interesting theory on John Gabriel’s GIFWT.

ourstereo.com   20:23

03 Oct 2007

USING COLOR IN INFORMATION DISPLAY GRAPHICS —

Color theory for computer interface designers.

colorusage.arc.nasa.gov   12:05

02 Oct 2007

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.”

gamearchitect.net   15:32

01 Oct 2007

The Rule of Least Power - W3C TAG Finding 23 February 2006 —

“There is an important tradeoff between the computational power of a language and the ability to determine what a program in that language is doing.”

w3.org   05:11

25 Sep 2007

The Mythical Business Layer —

“It was as if its architects were given a perfectly good hammer and gleefully replied, ‘neat! With this hammer, we can build a tool that can pound in nails.’” — that is THE SINGLE FUNNIEST SENTENCE ever assembled in the history of english language!

worsethanfailure.com   08:29

08 Aug 2007

Hiring Programmers and The High Cost of Low Quality —

“There’s no one programmer who does the work of ten other programmers. One uber-programmer does just as much work as one ordinary programmer. It’s just that the results solve ten times as many problems.”

developers.slashdot.org   02:49

15 Apr 2007

YAGNI Considered Depressing —

“I actually think YAGNI and Othello’s waiting moves embody the same concept. Both are brilliant, winning strategies. Yet, there’s a certain emotional side to YAGNI and software development. We tend to get attached to our good ideas.”

vying.org   17:47

06 Apr 2007

Lecture 7b: Metacircular Evaluator, Part 2 - Google Video —

“I consider being able to return a procedural value, and to have first class procedures in general, as being essential to doing very good modular programming.” — Gerald Sussman (PS: how come nobody told me you can link to specific time offsets in google

video.google.com   19:01

02 Jan 2007

Law of Demeter —

Follow it.

en.wikipedia.org   18:16

06 Apr 2006

It's Not Software —

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

cabochon.com   09:17

13 Mar 2006

java sucks —

let’s go back to ‘97

jwz.org   12:03

25 Feb 2006

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.

physics.byu.edu   00:50

24 Feb 2006

Yak Shaving —

I do this all the time…

projects.csail.mit.edu   12:10

04 Feb 2006

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.” :)

linuxjournal.com   13:48

27 Sep 2005

Einstein's Big Idea - E = mc2 Explained —

Audio excerpts from recent PBS/NOVA program celebrating “E = mc2”

pbs.org   08:48

12 Sep 2005

George Washington's Rules of Civility —

Nice.

npr.org   09:54

27 Aug 2005

This is about Self-Reference —

Godel would be proud, I think…

singlenesia.com   08:54

06 Jul 2005

CHARLES DARWIN HAS A POSSE —

Right on…

swarthmore.edu   05:47

28 Jun 2005

Generics Considered Harmful —

Ouch! It would have been so much cooler if Java would have just dropped static typing completely.. :)

weblogs.java.net   23:28

23 Jun 2005

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

Nice!

brevity.org   06:47

07 Jun 2005

No hero —

Fuck yea, Len..

markbaker.ca   06:43

04 Jun 2005

Who knows? Maybe nonstandard arithmetic is just unavoidable —

Some interesting thoughts on Gödel’s Proof and its implications on nonstandard numbers.

recycledknowledge.blogspot.com   04:13

18 May 2005

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.”

shirky.com   01:00

03 May 2005

World of Ends —

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

worldofends.com   05:55

31 Mar 2005

Two Is An Impossible Number —

Wow, this may be the most serendipitous page I’ve come across on the c2 wiki. It starts with strategies for when generalization is okay, leads into caveman number systems, how many objects the brain can recognize without counting, God as Lisp programmer,

c2.com   09:33

27 Mar 2005

Master Foo and the Ten Thousand Lines —

Word!

catb.org   05:45

15 Mar 2005

Tim Bandits - What were Einstein and Gödel talking about? —

Yea, this is the coolest thing I’ve read in a long time. Tim: let me borrow that “Gödel, Escher, Bach” book – I’ll tear that shit up in a night, I swear…

newyorker.com   17:12

13 Mar 2005

The Selfish Class —

How programs adhere to the basic laws of Darwinian evolution.. Seems to gel with everything I’ve learned.

joeyoder.com   07:23

09 Mar 2005

Programmers' block —

Bill de hÓra describes the major flaw in high level languages like Python..

dehora.net   13:14

08 Mar 2005

Abstractions vs Patterns —

Sam Ruby trying to put a definition to the word “simple”. Seriously, it’s not as easy to define as you think.

intertwingly.net   02:12

25 Feb 2005

Rails as a disruptive technology —

Sorry, I can’t stop linking to this guy…

loudthinking.com   16:52

22 Feb 2005

Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, Video Lectures —

When did I die and how the hell did I end up in heaven? Crazy!

swiss.csail.mit.edu   06:06

21 Feb 2005

Fear Driven Development —

“… the opposite of fear may be curiosity.”

kasparov.skife.org   17:22

16 Feb 2005

Groupware Bad —

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

jwz.org   13:24

14 Feb 2005

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.”

kuro5hin.org   09:53

09 Feb 2005

Why Craigslist Works, by Craig —

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

changethis.com   02:25

Neal Stephenson?'s Past, Present, and Future —

The author of the widely praised Baroque Cycle on science, markets, and post-9/11 America

reason.com   02:19

03 Feb 2005

Dijkstra - Separation of Concerns —

Dijkstra is a complete badass.

cs-exhibitions.uni-klu.ac.at   06:36

12 Jan 2005

Iocaine Powder Explained (How to win Paper, Rock, Scissors) —

Doesn’t this qualify as a genetic algorithm?

google.com   11:26

21 Dec 2004

Basic Critical Thinking for Software Developers —

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

hacknot.info   20:06

15 Dec 2004

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One —

Finally hits 1.0. If you read one big nasty spec this year, this should be it. It’s actually full of stories and other weird stuff that make portions kind of fun.

norman.walsh.name   06:42

14 Dec 2004

Worse Is Better —

The story of Worse is Better.

dreamsongs.com   03:05

13 Dec 2004

Don't Let Architecture Astronauts Scare You —

mmmmm.. mangos.. yum.

joelonsoftware.com   01:41

30 Nov 2004

Greenspuns Tenth Rule Of Programming —

timeless..

c2.com   09:10

12 Nov 2004

Don Knuth: Musings and More —

A bunch of Knuth talks and experiments. Some video, audio, book excerpts, etc.

scpd.stanford.edu   02:51

16 Oct 2004

The Hole Hawg —

Neal Stephenson on UNIX.

team.net   03:30

09 Oct 2004

Tags elsewhere —

On del.icio.us style tags and how they differ from existing keyword and category styles of classification.

lists.burri.to   16:59

29 Sep 2004

Adam Bosworth: What is the platform? —

Bosworth gets it..

adambosworth.net   09:21

Why Your Code Sucks —

because it isn’t mine.

artima.com   02:20

27 Aug 2004

The Rise of "Worse is Better" - Richard Gabriel —

Old and still very valid. What’s the best mix of Simplicity, Correctness, Consistency, and Completeness in software design? Describes MIT and “NewJersey” approaches.

jwz.org   03:51