PshyMorphic's Assorted Links

Prime Directive for Software Development

2007-12-05T10:08:00.000+02:00

A proposed prime directive for software development:
Never engage in speculative development

5 Business Lessons You Can Learn From The Hip-Hop Industry

2007-11-09T08:51:00.000+02:00

Hip-Hop is everywhere. Like it or not, they are successful for a reason. This article give five short lessons you can learn from the Hip-Hop industry.

Invasion Of The Dynamic Language Weenies

2007-04-26T02:39:00.000+02:00

Invasion Of The Dynamic Language Weenies is an analysis of a recent IEEE Computer article called Developers Shift to Dynamic Programming Languages by Linda Dailey Paulson.

Dynamic languages (DLs) such as Perl, Python and Ruby is all the rage these days. All the kids are using it and if you don't you are just not cool enough. This is off course not a good enough reason to use DLs for your application. Hacknot looks at the claims of productivity by DL proponents. Is there anything special in DLs that makes these claims true or is it just hype?

From experience, it seems like a lot of the productivity gain of a language comes down to the support provided by the standard libraries and the community, and less the language features themselves. It should also be clear that certain languages are more suited for specific problems.

I don't think we will have clear answers on the many issues between dynamic and statically typed languages anytime soon, but in the meantime we should encourage and promote good science and experimentation to better pin-point the advantages of a certain language over another.

Also check out the free Hacknot Book.

Paul Graham: Why to Not Not Start a Startup

2007-04-25T02:04:00.000+02:00

Paul Graham has written a lot on start-ups recently. It is no surprise given his history as a successful internet entrepreneur and his more recent involvement with Y Combinator. His next installment is titled Why to Not Not Start a Startup.

Paul is on a crusade to convince young computer scientists and software engineers to start their own companies. The alternative is to go work for someone else, possibly in a cubicle farm. His basic argument is that students who have just completed their studies have little or no financial responsibility. They can therefore more easily afford to try to do their own thing before joining the rat race. There is off course many other pros and cons, so go read his work.

Young South Africans should be more entrepreneurial. Our country needs it badly. A major concern for entrepreneurs is still financing. We have less investors and those that are there are more risk averse and tougher on start-ups. One highlight is that the South African government is trying to promote start-ups and makes funding available. Lets hope it makes a difference.

I think if I read his work 6-8 years ago I would have been very tempted to go the start-up route. The question is actually what is stopping us, myself included, not to still do it?

Paul Graham: Microsoft is Dead

2007-04-24T01:52:00.000+02:00

In Paul Graham's recent article Microsoft is Dead he explains why Microsoft is becoming irrelevant to start-ups. He argues that more and more start-ups are not even considering what Microsoft is doing and don't consider Microsoft as a possible partner/investor/buyer of their company.

I also imagine that many recent, especially Web 2.0, start-ups also don't use Microsoft 's development tools and platforms.

Also see his clarification Microsoft is Dead: The Cliffs Notes.

Wisdom vs. Intelligence

2007-02-27T08:29:00.000+02:00

Paul Graham on Is it worth being wise?

Intelligent people is not always considered wise. Paul's article tries to explain why that may be.

Most intelligent people also has this insatiable thirst for knowledge. One are never happy with what you already know.

Joel on Customer Service

2007-02-22T10:21:00.000+02:00

Joel Spolsky talks about customer service.

Founders at Work

2007-02-16T08:26:00.000+02:00

Founders at Work - Stories of Startups' Early Days is a new book by Jessica Livingston. She is one of the partners Y Combinator, along with Paul Graham, Trevor Blackwell and Robert Morris. Y Combinator is a new kind of venture firm that specialises in funding early startups. They have been behind ventures such as Reddit. Visit this wikipedia link for more information.

The book contains interviews with a number of famous IT related technology companies. The interviews with Joel Spolsky (also see Joel on Software) or FogCreek and Steve Wozniak of Apple fame is available online. The interviews are very interesting and the rest of the book looks just as good.

Memory and future thought go 'hand-in-hand'

2007-01-26T02:18:00.000+02:00

Researchers has used imaging to pinpoints brain regions that 'see the future'. It seems that memory of past events and the ability to envision the future are related. It might therefore suggest that people who remember the past better, might be better at envisioning the future.

State-based and interaction-based unit tests

2007-01-25T04:34:00.000+02:00

A blog entry about State-based vs. interaction-based unit testing at Simply Complex. Also follow the links in the Further Reading section.

Guardian's Life Lessons from Science

2007-01-24T07:47:00.000+02:00

Guardian has an article about Life Lessons from prominent Science figures.

Steve Yegge on "The Pinocchio Problem"

2007-01-23T04:57:00.000+02:00

Steve Yegge on The Pinocchio Problem. An article about 'living' versus 'dead' software systems. A good read.

Astronomical Society of Southern Africa

2007-01-20T02:06:00.000+02:00

The Astronomical Society of Southern Africa has some information for Southern African observers.
Check out the news, monthly events and deep sky sections. They also publish the yearly Sky Guide Africa South.

Strong Bad Emails

2007-01-16T17:05:00.001+02:00

Strong Bad Emails (see Wikipedia) is a classic flash animation series that is still going strong (and bad). I think it is time to remind people of this classic again. Be sure to check out the Trogdor episode (see also Wikipedia) .

Comet C/2006 P1 McNaught

2007-01-16T09:45:00.001+02:00

Comet C/2006 P1 McNaught (see also Wikipedia and SkyMaps) is all the rage the last couple of weeks. From this week though it is finally visible in the Southern Hemisphere. I'm looking forward to seeing it once the weather in Cape Town clears up.

Astronomy Picture of the Day

2006-12-22T11:08:00.000+02:00

One of my favourite daily websites is NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD). Everyday a new astronomy related picture with description is posted. One gets to see some really stunning pictures.

You can also look at past post from the APOD archive.

TrueCrypt

2006-12-20T05:07:00.000+02:00

TrueCrypt is a free disc encryption tool. It has a lot of features and support a number of major ciphers, such as AES, BlowFish, TwoFish, etc.

Steve Yegge's Blog

2006-12-18T01:05:00.000+02:00

I enjoy Steve Yegge's blog posts quite a bit. Steve works for Google and talks about many things. Including Lisp, Emacs and Agile, but the posts I enjoy most are the ones where he talk about improving yourself.

He also has an older blog of material he wrote while still at Amazon.

CxOne Basic

2006-12-15T03:41:00.000+02:00

CxOne is Construx's (Steve McConnell's company) agile framework of templates, checklists, patterns and other tools for software development. A free, for limited use, version called CxOne Basic is available.

It covers configuration management, requirements, design, construction, management, process and testing. It looks interesting enough to evaluate.

Construx also has info regarding professional development for individuals, organisations and industry.

Dilbert Board Game, Happy Hour is 9 to 5.

2006-12-14T02:08:00.000+02:00

All the Dilbert fans should take note that there is now a Dilbert Board Game available. You can buy it online from ThinkGeek.

Alexander Kjerulf, Chief Happiness Officer, just release his first book, Happy Hour is 9 to 5. You can get in either paper or electronic format. You can even read it online for free.

Google Web Toolkit

2006-12-13T02:12:00.000+02:00

Google Web Toolkit (GWT) 1.3 Release Candidate is now open source.

GWT is a Java software development kit to develop dynamic web applications using AJAX.

Microsoft SDKs for Robotics and Games.

2006-12-12T02:27:00.000+02:00

Microsoft has the following free SDKs available for student and hobby programmers:

Colour Theory and Fast Thoughts, better mood.

2006-12-11T03:27:00.000+02:00

GUI developers need to know how not to abuse colour in their applications. DevSource has a good article on Colour Theory for Developers.

An intriguing blog entry about how faster thinking may improve your mood.

Dilbert Fix

2006-12-09T01:58:00.000+02:00

Now for your Dilbert fix. You can see the last month's Dilbert cartoons online. The site also has some media (games, wallpaper) and other funny things like the yearly weasel polls (2006 results).

Scott Adams also has a highly entertaining blog that he updates daily. He rips off everything, while also providing lots of though provoking ideas.

Computing at the movies and EE vs CS.

2006-12-08T09:39:00.000+02:00

Some humorous links today.

Computing in the movies:

What code DOESN'T do in real life (that it does in the movies)
Top 20 Hackers in Film History
Servers in the Movies - Our Top Ten
Ten Servers that Changed the World (Not humorous, but still cool)

From Philip Greenspuns site:

Electrical Engineering vs. Computer Science

Thanks to Andre for pointing these out.