Mar 29, 2011

Gosling @ Google

Just read this: http://nighthacks.com/roller/jag/entry/next_step_on_the_road
Now, a while ago, both Bloch and Gafter joined Google only to have Gafter leave for M$ last year. Now, since Google is more and more just the Microsoft of the 90's, why would Gosling join them ?

Mar 24, 2011

Big-Brother in sheep's clothing

Take a look at one of the latest Facebook initiative: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10150114910218920 .
Now, is it just me, or a will  a "software driven network" allow for much better control and inspection, Big-Brother style ? (have a look at the name of the companies who already joined the Open Networking Foundation)

Mar 9, 2011

Development Ignorance

Good talk by Dan North on how being aware of your ignorance for various aspects of a project, can indeed help you: http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Deliberate-Discovery

Mar 7, 2011

Drone-based software development

As I'm growing older, I'm starting to question more and more whether top-notch code quality and design are really necessary for a successful product.
Don't get me wrong, I'm still all in favor of the craftsmanship stuff, but given the fact that clients don't care about the code but the end-product and that most of developers I come across now-a-days are just drones, you have to start wondering...

Joshua Kerievsky's recent post on this topic: http://tinyurl.com/5vnx3mx

Mar 3, 2011

Conscious Design ?

Check out this good post by Michael Feathers: http://michaelfeathers.typepad.com/michael_feathers_blog/2011/03/data-rich-development.html

He rightfully raises the question of whether or not any kind of conscious design happens anymore in software projects, as opposed to 2-3 years ago. All of this, due to the hype of the Agile methodologies which, when adopted by drones, get interpreted of just banging out code, without much thought.Also, you get a lot of "framework-driven" design, where just by adopting a framework you code in a certain way, not really bothering with the core principles. Speaking of core principles, have look at this "old-school" site with a lot of valuable resources: http://www.laputan.org/

...and please stop being just code drones and actually start thinking about the code you write.