thalur

I like what they've done to improve the page. The only thing that sticks out a bit is the "yet" in "... is not yet participating". It sounds a bit pushy, like they are trying to pressure the company into participating.

I think it's referring to an email quote in the article.

Its entirely possible that it's something to do with my browser - I was looking at it from work where we have to use ie6 :(

It's not just about being physically able to install something (i.e. having admin privileges), we aren't allowed to install (or even write) anything that is "network aware" for security reasons.

Certainly a very novel (to me) definition of coupling and cohesion - I had to re-read the coupling section again, and I'm still not confident that I've fully understood it.

I may have misunderstood, but I think its lacking the idea that change doesn't necessarily propagate in both directions between two coupled elements. Taking the wire protocol example from the article, you can change one endpoint without that change propagating to the other, so long as you don't change the protocol element which connects the two endpoints. This then highlights the need for good abstractions and interfaces to break up the consequences of making changes.

Just a little thing: if I click on a twitter name, it takes me to a page which says "this domain is still available".

Also, I agree with the idea of splitting up the domain and twitter names - it was far from obvious to me at first look to see which was which. Either that or move the legend to above/below the filters as it appears off the bottom of the page at the moment.

Isn't that just as bad then?

I second this, although it can be a bit disconcerting when it suddenly changes the colour temperature. Also, it doesn't affect the mouse cursor for me, which ends up appearing slightly bluey green in the evenings.

I agree, but I think it's something we may come to regret. While I don't see hackers unionizing, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the "it's just a job" programmers do, and as they count for the majority of programmers, that might leave the rest of us in an awkward position (or not?).

but can you name them all? ;)

I suspect you hadn't been indoctrinated on GOTO being the one_true_evil at that point. I remember writing programs on my TI83 during maths and physics classes, but BASIC on a BBC was where it all started for me. Lots of GOTOs there. >:)

(as a web programming novice) I think the problem with the web in this context is there are still some significant hurdles to getting set up, e.g. getting a server to host your webpages (unless you only want your friends to be able to see it when your PC is on). If you could get rid of these barriers...

I think if someone could provide a browser-based all-in-one solution with language+IDE+hosting+tutorials, then that would fulfill most of his criteria. You could type a few lines, instantly view the page and then send a link to your friends (who can view it at any time).

But its also quite small compared to how long you might expect it would take to make a game.

Which immediately makes me wonder how easy it would be to scale chops' site to service other MMOs. If you could get it to the point where you can release a fully-featured guild website on the launch day of each new MMO you might just be on to something :)

Isn't that what happens when you write (poor) safety critical software in C++?

Well said. There's one thing I would add if you're doing defence work which is about security. The complications brought on by working with classified data can be very frustrating: limited or no internet access, limits on the software you can use, hassle presenting results at conferences etc, having to double check everything you write/say to the outside world to make sure you haven't said something you shouldn't. And no, knowing secret stuff isn't worth the hassle - most of it isn't even interesting anyway.

I think that looks quite cool, particularly the timeline view. While I'm not sure I would present my CV in such a way to a prospective employer, I might include a link. It would be interesting if there were a way to take that data and use it to generate custom CVs for each job; i.e. where you pick and choose the relevant data and it generates an outline CV for you.

If you get a 404, try looking at the CV he's created here: http://www.coderscv.com/timeline/Ben-Northrop.htm

As long as you can remember which dimension you left that important document in...

I would say that talent is how good you can be at something without having to try (i.e. without hard work), and that as such it is a continuous quantity rather than a binary one. When talent runs out, the only way to get better is through hard work. In a way, I think being too talented at something is a handicap because you never learn how to work hard, and so you are unable to progress any further than your talent will take you.

Interesting if true, but it reminds me a bit of the xbox360 vs ps3 vs wii "which sold most" fan fights of the past where each side quoted only the most favourable numbers for their favourite. I guess the real challenge will be when Android results come out (presumably not until the next quarter?).

"You could say that work, like deliberate practice, is often mentally demanding and tiring. But that's typically not because of the intense focus and concentration involved. Rather, it's more often a result of long hours cranking out what we already know how to do. And if we're exhausted from that, the prospect of spending additional hours on genuine deliberate practice activities may seem too miserable to contemplate. "

That I can agree with :( A very interesting article once you get into the description of deliberate practice and how to implement it.

I don't particularly want more sleep, but I would like to be less tired all the time; how does that factor into his question?

If you follow the link to the BBC article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7671046.stm

It looks like they aren't recording the content of the messages, just times and dates etc. The worrying is that they are already doing it, and the proposal is to extend the duration the data can be kept for, and to make it centrally searchable (paragraphs 5 and 7).

I use one of these: http://keyovation.com/ at work. It's substantially cheeper than the Maltron, but missing a few bits, such as a separate numeric keypad, and I'd really like to get control, alt and shift keys in the gap between the two halves.

Cool idea. I wonder how sensitive it is to the location, and how well it deals when it doesn't know its location?

Also, the iPhone bashing is getting rather tedious and the Android phones aren't even out yet!

One of the hardest bits can be working out what the easy problems are in the first place.

Creating a good product because your greed says it will get you more money is ok, but I think the point is that if you flip it round - create a good product because you want your product to be good - you get a better product and potentially more money.

They also seem to define teamwork as "doing what your boss tells you without pointing out ways to do it better" and leadership as "passing on your boss's vision to the poor souls working for you, while not passing back any complaints/problems to your boss".

I think it will be interesting to see the variety of rendering paradigms that come from this, but on the other side, it seems like the transition will be a bit of a nightmare - having to produce games with a both DirectX engine and a software one to cope with two different sets of hardware. It would also be nice if game developers put more effort into the gameplay than the graphics, but I guess I'll be waiting a while longer for that...

As an aside, has anyone tried getting something like erlang to run on a GPU? I think it would be useful to be able to harness all the computing power of one (or more) PCs with a common (high level) language which is designed for that purpose.

Snap. Also, the tour thing doesn't load on the PCs here at work (probably the firewall), so I still don't know what it is! The site could do with a bit of simple plain boring old html text which tells us poor people behind firewalls what all the fuss is about :)