pacemkr

I've been thinking about this. Saying "I'm a software developer" just doesn't communicate what I do, even though programming is... well, what I do. Thanks for reframing the problem succinctly.

You thought about this, so how do you describe your profession?

I think I'm one of those people. Performance of Firefox has always been completely unacceptable to me.

When Firefox came out I continued to use the Mozilla browser. (I wonder if anybody remembers that one.) At that point I couldn't understand why people were so excited about Firefox. To me it looked like the Mozilla browser with a new icon, half the features, double the bloat, and half the speed. I distinctly remember that when Firefox came out Mozilla was a much better browser!

I was expecting something more innovative.

All it is is a javascript like language with classes, interfaces, optional types, and some extra built in data structures. A new runtime, biggest obstacle being adoption, just for that seems a bit much.

I've been using their API and I have to say it has to move slightly faster if that's to happen. As they've said in the announcement, it's been a year since the last update. Admittedly my app is not a realization of their vision per se -- mine is a Dropbox client, not an app using Dropbox as storage -- but the API is the same.

Good updates though, ability to get a share link, search results. Both are features that users of my product have been asking for.

It is annoying. Generally happens to me when I "miss" the thing I was searching for and go too far. This is what I do:

    Ctrl + a, Ctrl + k (move to beginning, delete to end), Enter

Going to a new line, resets that index.

I'm sure there is a better way, but its muscle memory for me.

There is an excellent podcast with Gilad Bracha on Newspeak at se-radio:

http://www.se-radio.net/2009/07/episode-140-newspeak-and-plu...

It was one of the most memorable and interesting podcasts that I have ever heard. Newspeak will likely remain one of those languages that I really want to learn, but won't find the time for.

Considering the speakers, I'm actually very interested in what Dart is like.

I think I will give this a try. Thank you for writing this and taking the time to release it.

Browsing codebases that I am not familiar with is the exact use case for me. For navigating my own project, I do fine with MacVim + Terminal + "mvim in new tab in existing window conf" [1]. But for exploring an unfamiliar codebase, it's too cumbersome.

---[1]---

  alias mvim="open -a MacVim.app"
  In MacVim Preferences set "Open files from applications" to:

    "in the current window"
          "with a tab for each file"

Then, in Terminal you can do, "mvim file.ext" to open file.ext in a new tab in the existing MacVim window (or new if no window).

Don't use the Like button.

There, problem solved.

If your startup isn't social and free, it isn't hip. If you don't have a Facebook page and seven shades of "Like" buttons, you are destroying your business. Just stop.

Stop putting that social media flare (crap) on your website. Your users don't care, because sharing a link is not an unsolved problem.

I think it's more of a licensing issue. This is where they have to step up. Enyo needs an open license. I don't even know what it is right now, but I assume its not OK to use elsewhere, yet.

In it's current state it also wont run in Chome without --allow-file-access-from-files and --disable-web-security flags.

--allow-file-access-from-files to load local resources, I presume. --disable-web-security to allow cross-domain requests for the service bridge.

I was actually thinking QML too when I started using Enyo. There is a huge difference though, QML is yet another language. "We should totally reinvent CSS and HTML!" If I had a nickel for every time that happened...

The difficulty of running QML on a webOS device, or Enyo apps on Android or iOS, is not technical. It's more about look and feel. One glance into Qt code (not QML, Qt proper) and you can see how painful it is to make a single app look native across platforms.

Here is where I think Enyo has potential. It should be possible to style Enyo for different platforms AND to easily include components that implement OS specific behaviors and paradigms.

The built in integration only allows you to open documents. Not pictures, videos, music, etc. It also does not allow you to upload new files.

Most of your points are already covered.

1. You could do this from day one. You didn't have to include Mojo or any other device specific framework. index.html was enough (you would also need appinfo.json for metadata and packaging.) With Enyo, even if you use the framework, there is no longer a need for any specific directory structure.

2. They have CouchDB (really not sure, it is a JSON object store though) running and accessible to all apps via a service bridge. This db is also backed up to the cloud for when user restores or changes devices.

3. Same service bridge. Which is nothing more than an AJAX call to a specific url.

4. They already run in Chrome with Enyo. With Enyo, I think this is actually possible.

5. Or keep it as a huge source of revenue. Nobody but HP's marketing dept wants webOS on printers though, I'll give you that. Think John Deere acquiring Ferrari and putting their engines into lawn mowers, because "it's the logical thing to do."

I'll add 6.

6. You can write your own Node.js services that are accessible via the same service bridge mechanism.

webOS is the mobile OS we should be cheering for to survive. It is slightly ahead of the curve and is about to be killed off. The news about Mozila WebAPI are an indicator.

I've published a Dropbox client for webOS written in Mojo, the previous webOS framework, and have started an Enyo rewrite for the Touchpad. I have an opinion from both a consumer side and the developer side.

1. Somebody should wake up and take RIM's lunch, not Apple's. Build a thin candy bar webOS device with an excellent keyboard and a decently sized screen. Palm went all in on the Pre form factor instead of Pixi, which I maintain was their biggest mistake to date.

2. Deliver on the webOS promise to developers. Mojo wasn't it. Surprisingly, Enyo is! My hat is off to the Enyo guys.

"Just use jQuery" is the new "just use RegEx." I loooove jQuery, but it doesn't really help you in managing a huge application. There is a reason why people use backbone.js, knockout.js, javascriptmvc, and the like, in addition to jQuery.

Enyo lets you assemble your apps from components. I'd be the first to say that my bs meter went live when I heard that. 99% of the time, "its modular" is an empty promise. However, for version one, Enyo is bang on. I'll be honest though, the thought "another fucking framework..." _has_ crossed my mind in frustration.

Yet, I am staring at my webOS mobile app running in Chrome right now -- inspector working and all -- and it's like staring into the future. _This_ is the way mobile apps are meant to be built. _This_ was the promise.

This brings me back to the article re: packaging. I package this enyo app in a second's time and it's up running the same code on the device or emulator, and it all feels native to the OS. As long as the code is the same, I don't care if you package it in a cup cake.

Enyo is actually a very good idea. All they have to do is give it an appropriate, free to use without restriction, license.

More power to them, but why would I want to replace the best part about this device?

I use Skype a lot, so that would probably be my goto voip provider. Assuming that they offer something like a landline.

300 minutes wouldn't be enough for me, but:

  $60 for 900 min
  $30 for unl. data (lucky me)
  $10 for 500 texts
  $17 in taxes (NYC)

Verizon. Pretty much the same plan was slightly more expensive on AT&T.

Tether might still work, for now: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2011/08/verizon-blocking...

Thanks for mentioning that it's Sprint. This answers my question further down the page.

Virgin might be it for me. I was looking at them before, but was traveling a bit at the time. Verizon was really the only option.

Coverage seems to be the biggest problem/non-problem with Virgin. I had to dump AT&T after two iPhones, because the service turned to shit. I am on Verizon right now and coverage has been great. Prices, not so much (still less than AT&T!) Do you know which underlying network Virgin use? Surely they don't put up their own towers.

The ridiculous state of wireless data (tethering, sms) has finally driven me to get rid of my smartphone. Well done AT&T/Verizon.

I am:

* Porting my number to Google Voice.

* Getting a voip "landline."

* Getting a new number with the cheapest possible wireless plan + dumbphone. Sprint still not evil?

* Routing my calls using Google Voice to the landline/dumbphone, depending on where I am.

Frankly, I'm sick of paying $120/mo and getting fucked around every corner. I dont NEED this you know; the non-phone part of this phone is a convenience, not a necessity.

I'll let the market/regulators figure this out. In the meantime, I'll be fine not checking my email every five minutes and staring at yet another screen when I'm not in the house/office.

If anybody has recommendations re: my plan of action, I'm all ears.

I can't disagree with much of what you said. However, you are being too critical of Drupal.

"the chunks of functionality you download are not likely to match your needs perfectly, so you're forced to make due with software that's almost what you want"

Drupal starts you off with 80% of the product functionally complete (!), for free, and leaves you with the spit and polish jar to squeak out the other 20. I find that this 80/20 rule is true for even very complex products. The lazy developer will never do that remaining 20%; this says nothing about Drupal.

You can name a function according to a convention and reach into any part of Drupal, or a contributed module, to pull that specific string that you need. I'll be blasphemous and say that not having to instantiate half a dozen objects just to dive through their properties to achieve the same result -- as you would likely have to in a "proper," purely OO CMS -- is very refreshing. The result is the same and the code is readable.

"Code quality is often abysmal."

True for one out of ten new modules that I encounter; and you are free not to use those modules. The heavy weights: CCK, Views, etc. are excellent.

"the site later allowed websites to merge the toolbar with their own user account systems — which has fared better. "

Exactly. And this puts them in an entirely different category from Meboo, etc. Anybody who ever ran a forum and has tried putting a real time chat on it will know this. TC got this slightly wrong; the only real competition out there is RealChat. There are simply no other solid solutions out there. I do this search every year and come up empty handed. As for RealChat, it is too expensive.

My thoughts exactly. It looks like something that I would build by hand (messy) as opposed to something that comes out of a factory. I guess it doesn't necessarily mean that it will be unreliable, but I can't help but think so.

All would be forgiven if it wasn't $40. I was going to get a bunch of these, but at this price point it just doesn't make sense.

Here you go: http://www.edn.com/blog/PowerSource/40512-Remote_Phosphors_P...

Doesn't look like a high quality circuit to me.

I've seen their review of the Leaf. Clarkson was anticipating the car running out and talking about it while looking at the dial, which he pointed out. What made it "unexpected" in the program, as this article claims, must have been lost on me. There was a point to be made and they let the car run out to make it, again, to me that was obvious. The points made were valid:

* The infrastructure to recharge this thing in the middle of a trip is not there.

* You better be prepared to wait a good number of hours to charge it.

* You better know how far you're going and note how much charge you have left before you head out.

* You will have to replace the batteries after some number of years and it will cost a lot of money.

* Electricity is the future, but these cars are not it. (Yes, they actually said that.)

Which one of these points is all of a sudden not valid?

I'm sorry, the review was spot on.

I have an app in the webOS app store. Palm/HP have been absolutely great about payouts. There have been two problems with the payments so far, both due to technical issues, and they have been addressed promptly and professionally (they sent us money).

Last issue was just last week, where their online interface reported inflated sales numbers. A few days ago I received an email saying that HP will send us the difference in the next payout, even though the actual payouts were accurate based on actual download numbers.

They also had the Hot Apps contest running where both of my apps won. The payouts were prompt, they even sent more to take care of PayPal fees. So in the end I got the exact dollar amount in that I won in my bank account.

They've been good to developers in general.

Minor correction, it's dash r:

  pip install -r requirements.txt

This is exactly what I need. Thank you!

Can I use pip to just install the dependencies without packaging my project as a module? I understand that pip installs "my module" to site packages or a directory under virtualenv. This is not what I need. I don't have a "my module" to install. I just need to make sure that the dependencies are installed on the machine/virtualenv that I'm using for development.

I studied the requirement file documentation and I couldn't find a solution. It seems that to take advantage of this feature in pip I have to write a setup.py, and as I've mentioned that really doesn't make sense for my type of project. Or am I misunderstanding something?

I'm dipping into both Rails and a Python project right now (non-Django), both for the first time, and had difficulty "listing required packages to go along the source" in Python.

In Rails/Ruby I can use Bundler:

  git clone
  bundle install
  [do development]

I'd like to do the same for a python project:

  git clone
  _something_ install_my_dependencies
  [do development]

I looked into pip, but it seems I have to package my src into a Python module and install that. setup.py doesn't make sense for my project since it's not a module meant for redistribution. I intend to use py2exe. Basically I just need a way to install dependencies for development.

  foreach thing in file
    pip install thing

is the best that I can come up with. This is admittedly not terrible, but I feel like there is a better way and I just don't know about it.

From the article under number 4:

"They encourage up-and-comers to spend extravagantly; they extend lines of credit to their rising stars. You need a big house with a jumbo mortgage; you cannot pull up to a business meeting in anything less than the best luxury car. It is part of their corporate culture."