Code Junkies

Simple Example: You must validate the contents of a list of Widgets. The most complex case involves 3 seperate lookups from other lists, each lookup depending on the other. The least complex is a simple lookup in another list. I'd generally tackle this from the most complex case as it starts me with the most generic solution that can get scaled back in each similar, but less complicated (and separate), implementation. It may vary by the situation specifics, but I generally go after the most complicated so that I have no surprises on the less complicated one. If the most complicated one seems too complicated then I will try for something in the middle if it exists. - xero

"In 2008 Ken Schwaber estimated that “75% of those organizations using Scrum will not succeed in getting the benefits that they hope for from it.”" - imabonehead via Bookmarklet

(lisp (in (program (to (how (forgotten (have (i)))))))) - Richard Walker *popcorn*

"What is NoSQL (technically speaking)? The names of these projects are as diverse as they are whimsical: Hadoop, Voldemort, Dynomite, and others. But they are generally unified by a few things, including: Don't call them databases. Amazon.com's CTO, Werner Vogels, refers to the company's influential Dynamo system as a "highly available key-value store." Google calls its BigTable, the other role model for many NoSQL adherents, a "distributed storage system for managing structured data." They can blow through enormous amounts of data." - xero

"The new Gmail web client for the iPhone and Android was also created with GWT. At the first day’s keynote Vic Gundotra indicated that Google’s long term strategy is to move from local applications to browser based web applications on phones. GWT seems to be a major piece of that strategy. It also looks like something worth a look by web developers building sites targeted at phones with browsers that have good JavaScript support like the iPhone, Android and possibly Opera Mobile." - Richard Walker *popcorn* via Bookmarklet

"The PHP team urges the author of the article to check his facts more carefully, and to investigate where his claims of extra speed are truly coming from (as certain coding patterns, combined with specific PHP settings, can sometimes make some of the above points partially true). We also urge the author to consider the troubling security implications of his examples, at least one of which suggests an extremely dangerous coding style." - Glenn Slaven via Bookmarklet

"If you find yourself maintaining this horribly designed, hacked together legacy code from the early days of a company be thankful and bask in its glory. Without that spaghetti nightmare you wouldn’t have that job. It was that short sighted thinking that was able to get something done and create a profitable product/company." - xero via Bookmarklet

I think you have to find the balancing point, but I think it leans toward productivity instead of elegance. But, the more you forgo good organization and design, the more important automatic tests are going to be. You have to keep maintenance in mind, but you generally let getting the job done quickly win at first. Version 3 or 4 of your product is almost always a complete rewrite... more... - xero

"Many of you have been asking for the ability to call into native code from your Android applications. I'm glad to announce that developers can now download the Android Native Development Kit from the Android developer site. As you know, Android applications run in the Dalvik virtual machine. The NDK allows developers to implement parts of these applications using native-code languages such as C and C++. This can provide benefits to certain kinds of applications. The NDK provides: * a set of tools and build files used to generate native code libraries from C and C++ sources * a way to embed the corresponding native libraries into application packages files (.apks) that can be deployed on Android devices * a set of native system headers and libraries that will be supported in all future releases of the Android platform, starting from Android 1.5 documentation, samples and tutorials" - Richard Walker *popcorn* via Bookmarklet

"At present Gallio can run tests from MbUnit versions 2 and 3, MSTest, NBehave, NUnit, xUnit.Net, and csUnit. Gallio provides tool support and integration with CCNet, MSBuild, NAnt, NCover, Pex, Powershell, Resharper, TestDriven.Net, TypeMock, and Visual Studio Team System. Gallio also includes its own command-line runner, Echo, and a Windows GUI, Icarus. Additional runners are planned or under development. Third parties are also encouraged to leverage the Gallio platform as part of their own applications." - xero via Bookmarklet

"I think the real problem is that "we" (that is, we software developers) are in a permanent state of emergency, grasping at straws to get our work done. We perform many minor miracles through trial and error, excessive use of brute force, and lots and lots of testing, but--so often--it's not enough. Software developers have become adept at the difficult art of building reasonably reliable systems out of unreliable parts. The snag is that often we do not know exactly how we did it: a system just "sort of evolved" into something minimally acceptable. Personally, I prefer to know when a system will work, and why it will." - imabonehead via Bookmarklet

"10BestHosting2009.com searches the web for the top, most reliable and low cost web hosting companies, then rates them according to reliability, price, features, support, control panel and ease-of-use." - xero via Bookmarklet

Have a blackberry? There isn't an app for that... - vosey via Bookmarklet

"The Burst Engine is an OpenSource vector animation engine for the HTML5 Canvas Element. Burst provides similar web functionality to Flash and contains a layer based animation system like After Effects. Burst uses a very light-weight JavaScript frame, meaning your animations will download un-noticeably quick and can be controlled using very simple JavaScript methods. For example: the [-] logo above is a Burst animation attached to a mouseOver event using the following code... Burst.start("expand");" - xero via Bookmarklet

"This site is focused on online database learning, revolving around an electronic textbook. You can go directly to the Online Interactive SQL Tutorials. Chapter links to the textbook are as follows:" - imabonehead via Bookmarklet

"This is a simple to build device that converts your own human voice into a superior robot voice. It also includes a number of sweet features like an audio-in jack so that you can plug in all of your favorite instruments, microphones and music players, a vibrato mode and awesome pitch shifting buttons. It can be shifted two whole octaves in either direction." - imabonehead via Bookmarklet

"superior" robot voice? ;) - Mohomed Abdullahi

haha. When I listened to the demo, it sounded ok. - imabonehead

There are several in the comments as well. Favorites: Chuck Norris doesn’t have disk latency because the hard drive knows to hurry the hell up / When Chuck Norris throws exceptions, it’s across the room. / Chuck Norris can write infinite recursion functions…and have them return. / Chuck Norris doesn’t use web standards as the web will conform to him. / Chuck Norris can overflow your stack just by looking at it. / Chuck Norris knows the last digit of PI. / Chuck Norris doesn’t get compiler errors, the language changes itself to accommodate him. / Steve Jobs medical condition is Chuck Norris. / Chuck Norris solved the Travelling Salesman problem in O(1) time. Here’s the pseudo-code: Break salesman into N pieces. Kick each piece to a different city. - xero via Bookmarklet

Shhhhhh. Maybe we'll get away with something... I don't think he's seen it yet. *tiptoes* - Jason Huebel

"What’s your favorite “programmer ignorance” pet peeve?" - Brett Kelly via Bookmarklet

"The IIS Search Engine Optimization Toolkit makes it easy to analyze and assess how search engine friendly your web-site is. It pinpoints SEO violations, and provides instructions on how to fix them. The IIS Search Engine Optimization Toolkit is free, takes less than a minute to install, and can be run against any existing web-server or web-site. There is no need to install anything on a remote server to use it – just type in the URL of the site and you’ll get a report back a site analysis report with actionable items that that you can use immediately to improve it." - xero via Bookmarklet

I'm looking at their flowchart of the high level operation: it only concerns measurement of the temperature to display on the LCD, and respond to button events. It never actually turns on the burners or air conditioning. I hope the full design kit does... - DGentry