This is ingenious:
Conceptually, if we deconstruct a font down to it’s basic elements, we can make use of this technology for things other than type, icons.
I don’t know how you come up with stuff like this, but it sure is an awesome and clever use of technology :)
A very good explanation why we should not allow ourselves to get too attached to the work we did yesterday…
Visit: http://coderoom.wordpress.com/2010/04/22/7-reasons-to-hate-your-code/
An old, but still highly relevant rant by Steve Yegge:
A design pattern isn't a feature. A Factory isn't a feature, nor is a Delegate nor a Proxy nor a Bridge. They "enable" features in a very loose sense, by providing nice boxes to hold the features in. But boxes and bags and shelves take space. And design patterns – at least most of the patterns in the "Gang of Four" book – make code bases get bigger.
Some things are hard to explain, but I think Yegge does a fairly good job here. I think I may understand him. I haven’t written any 500.000 line codebases, but I learned object-oriented programming the Python way, and I’ve come to appreciate the zen of Python:
Simple is better than complex.
Complex is better than complicated.
Flat is better than nested.
Sparse is better than dense.
Readability counts.
and:
If the implementation is hard to explain, it's a bad idea.
If the implementation is easy to explain, it may be a good idea.
Visit: http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2007/12/codes-worst-enemy.html
On the iPhone 4 disclosure:
A few people with $5,000 managed to cut a big notch out of something beautiful on which hundreds of hard-working, talented individuals had been focusing their energy for months. One of those builders was publicly shamed by Gizmodo and his reputation is now tarnished. Yet somehow this was the best day of these journalists' lives.
And:
We need less people like that in our society.
I think it serves to illustrate the astounding lack of professional ethics in the area of journalism today. It seems all that matters is the circulation, the career. Never mind what is good, true and right.
Not all journalists are like that, of course, but it would seem that ethical journalists are becoming the exception, rather than the norm.
The Web Open Font Format, already backed by Mozilla and many type foundries was accepted by the World Wide Web Consortium yesterday, marking the first stage in its standardization. The submission included a surprising new sponsor: Microsoft.
This is awesome news. If we could get some standards on fonts for the web, we would no longer need JavaScript hacks like TypeKit.
Put simply, Gawker Media brazenly, publicly flouted the law. It subsidized a crime: the selling of stolen merchandise.
As much as I’m intrigued by the news of the new iPhone, I’m saddened by the fact that it has been publicised by way of theft. This is going to cost Apple millions of dollars. I think they should sue Gawker for every one of them.
Visit: http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/why-apple-could-sue-gawker-over-lost-iphone-story/19447570/
Fellow Dane DHH:
Ning’s problem is not a lack of eyeballs but its inability to turn them into cash money to pay the bills. Getting more of something that’s a net-negative is not going to make up for it.
It’s sad to see that there’s still an idea out there that given a big enough audience, everything will be profitable. This is not true, offline or online.
Visit: http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2284-eyeballs-still-dont-pay-the-bills
This subject is by now getting old, I know, but Jean-Louis Gassée sums my views up perfectly:
Who, in his right mind, expects Steve Jobs to let Adobe (and other) cross-platform application development tools control his (I mean the iPhone OS) future? Cross-platform tools dangle the old “write once, run everywhere” promise. But, by being cross-platform, they don’t use, they erase “uncommon” features. To Apple, this is anathema as it wants apps developers to use, to promote its differentiation. It’s that simple. Losing differentiation is death by low margins. It’s that simple. It’s business. Apple is right to keep control of its platform’s future.
Visit: http://www.mondaynote.com/2010/04/11/the-adobe-apple-flame-war/
Louis Gerbarg:
The fact is that there have yet to be any widely deployed Android phones that support Flash. That's right, Adobe has been making the case for Flash on iPhone for 3 years, but still hasn't deployed a non-lite version of Flash on any phones, even when Apple is not obstructing them.
I have no pity for Adobe. Their goal with Flash is to wrap the web in their proprietary runtime, so we can all get the joy of ponying up every time they make a new version of their authoring tools.
Visit: http://www.devwhy.com/blog/2010/4/12/its-all-about-the-framework.html
Well, Apple has earned themselves many an angry blog posts concerning their recent changes to the App Store TOS. I think Ian Samuel sums up Apple’s perspective well:
Developers who want to write software for the iPhone have to write iPhone-like software. To do otherwise will hinder the progress of the platform.
I could be angry or offended that I can’t use my favourite language (Python) to make iPhone apps. But that would be non-constructive. Instead, I think I’m going to try and learn Objective-C to see how Apple’s tools are to work with…
Visit: http://iansamuel.com/essays/progress-of-the-platform/