...more recent posts
My roomate for 3 years in college, D.R., was here over the weekend. We hung out on Friday night. He wrote today saying that he always seems to end up drunk on wine when he visits. All I can say is that it must be his fault because that hardly ever happens around here otherwise.
He's a real programmer doing some interesting things out in California. His company employs extreme programming. I've read some about this, but I've never talked to anyone who actually programs this way. The main idea involves pair programming.
All code to be included in a production release is created by two people working together at a single computer. Pair programming increases software quality without impacting time to deliver. It is counter intuitive, but 2 people working at a single computer will add as much functionality as two working separately except that it will be much higher in quality. With increased quality comes big savings later in the project.Seems cool, but my intuition accords with his findings: it's a good way to go if the people involved are very skilled programmers. On the other hand, putting me together with someone else on my level wouldn't really be very helpful. I wonder if it's something specific about coding that allows this to work, or could this approach benefit other pursuits?
The best way to pair program is to just sit side by side in front of the monitor. Slide the key board and mouse back and forth. One person types and thinks tactically about the method being created, while the other thinks strategically about how that method fits into the class. It takes time to get used to pair programming so don't worry if it feels awkward at first.
Cringely is urging Apple to port OS X to intel. Although this idea keeps being brought up periodically by various people outside of Apple, it is never going to happen. The notebooks and iMac might still sell, but the pro machines - which is where the biggest margins are for Apple - would be utterly devastated. People don't buy those machines for how they look, they buy them for the Mac OS. Despite what Cringely thinks, these hypothetical intel boxes would be Macs if they were running OS X, and the pros would buy them like mad because they'd be much faster and much cheaper.
But the larger issue is with support. Apple has a great advantage in only having to support a very small hardware set. Windows has the basically impossible task of running on countless different manufacturers hardware. Just supporting all the video cards alone might be beyond Apple's ability. Getting a port working is one thing, making it stable across the entire range of possible hardware (including every single combination of all those pieces) is completely different.
This must be a joke. If it's not, and they can actually deliver on their plan (which, admittedly, isn't very clearly spelled out,) the world of music is about to change forever. A handheld wireless p2p music player with 1 mb/sec download speed (according to the original link on memepool, although I can't find that number on their site) with no recuring costs after your initial purchase of the player. Like an iPod (both have 5 gigs of storage) but with a free wireless broadband connection, handwriting recognition, and something like a gnutella client baked in. And if that already isn't unbelievable enough, it's only going to cost $199! Doesn't seem possible, but I'll keep my eye on it. (Requires flash and a little patience - click on 'Learn more about Musit')
Scriptingnews points to this 3-column, liquid, CSS layout that degrades gracefully (even) in navigator 4. That's just what I need. Thanks. But all that javascript! For some reason I'm always suspicious of javascript. Still, if you're going to use it this seems like the best kind. My biggest question is: don't most people who still use navigator 4 keep javascript off? In fact, don't most people have javascript off (unless your browser lets you selectively keep it on, like Mozilla?) I wonder if there are any stats on this.
As soon as Mozilla hits 1.0 I think we can stop catering to navigator 4.x. Or that's what I keep telling myself. These HTML problems are not very interesting to me. Of course there will still be problems even with navigator 4 out of the picture.
Mr. Wilson treats us to a sermon on Lent from his Central Park pulpit.
The ever mysterious Big Jimmy Fingers and I are talking Moxi server and the future of DRM and the computer over here.
If we're to believe him, Mr. Barrett saved a seized iMac hard drive by putting it in the freezer for a few minutes. I'll file that under options of last resort.
The Handspring Treo is shipping. Finally. I still can't figure out what the monthly costs will be. MB actually said last night, out of the blue, that she needs a palm pilot. And it's clear she needs a cell phone (although I think she sometimes likes being the last one in the world not to have one.) So maybe this is the one.
Well it turns out my friends S and V did order the new iMac. That is most excellent news. And not just that, but they bought a Canon G2 as well. Nice. Still some weeks before the iMac ships. I made them promise to invite me out for a weekend when it comes. I'll bring the Apple flavored Kool-aid.
Who did I hear (Dave? Alex?) call Enron the crooked E ranch? Maybe you have to be familiar with ranch names and brands (the hot searing kind, not the MBA kind,) but if you're not just trust me, that's funny.