Juixe Techknow » TechKnow

Retweet June 2010

TechKnow — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 06:32:34 +0000

From time to time I just blast tweets about software development, project planning, team dynamics, or whatever else comes to mind. Here is a synopsis of recent tweets and rants. If you want to follow the conversation follow me at techknow and/or juixe and I’ll be sure to follow back.

Software Development

Craftsmanship is not a computer algorithm.
If models can be super, what can programmers be? Leet?
Just like you’re not supposed to go to a book by its cover don’t judge an application by its installer
Some people call it cheating, I call it romantic A/B testing.
Eric Schmidt’s tie is selected by a computer algorithm that tests over 80 different hues of blue based on his current location and weather.
I’m not implemented yet.

Team Leadership

If you don’t remember when you took a vacation last, you need a vacation!
Money buys opportunities and experiences but not talent or happiness.
Sometimes work/life balance feels like juggling eggs and frying pans on a tight rope as the audience throws carnival rings at your head.
Perfection is a deception.
Be scrappy, not crappy!
Most people don’t search beyond the first page of the search engine results’ page anymore.
Thoughts can’t be stolen, only forgotten!
The truth is never complete.
Some cover up mistake by making a bigger mistake.
Facts are nether negative or positive but they are often interpreted as such.
People can find offense in anything.

Product Placement

If you want you iPhone 4 to get better reception just don’t touch it or use it.
And then Steve Jobs said, “Let there be multi-touch.”
Eating Cheetos and tweeting on an iPad/iPhone is not a good idea. Finger food and finger computing don’t mix.
If Steve Jobs was president and the BP Oil Spill happened in his watch he would say, “Not that big of a deal. Steve Sent from my iPhone.”
Steve Jobs should run NASA.
If Steve Jobs always wears a black t-shirt, does he always wear tidy whities?
I wish iTunes could organize songs by mood in addition to genre or album.
Can’t wait until there is a Face Time Roulette service for the iPhone 4!
AT&T and Apple are using the police as PR enforcers.
Twitter feels like it was programmed by state programmers in Soviet Russia in the 70’s, it has constant disruptions, is not reliable, etc.
Mr. Zuckerborg, tear down this walled garden.
Bill Gates should come out of retirement and run Facebook.
Scientists should invent self cleaning toilets like they have done for self cleaning oven.

Quote

Not that big of a deal. Non issue. You are holding it wrong. – Steve Jobs
Privacy means people know what they are signing up for in plain English. Some people want to share more data. Ask them. – Steve Jobs
No one single answer is ever the answer to everything. – South Park
Our Science is great. – South Park
The devil is in the implementation. – Leo Laporte
Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand – Kurt Vonnegut
I hate BP, but I admire them too, in the same way I respect the work ethic of serial killers. – Scott Adams
I have a theory that you should invest in the companies that you hate the most – Scott Adams

Retweet May 2010

TechKnow — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 04:20:41 +0000

Software Development

Tests? We ain’t got no tests. We don’t need no tests! I don’t have to show you any stinkin’ tests!
Test. Code. Debug. Refactor. Repeat.
Party like a rock star, code like a _why.
Code has a center of gravity.
There are features that become products, products that become companies, and companies that become revolutions.
To increase productivity when working with buggy software tools, don’t focus on how it should be done but the work around to get it done.
Can you imagine only getting paid if there is no bugs in your ode?
One developer’s bug is another user’s loss of faith in technology.
Delivery dates for feature sets that there are no specs is a death wish list.
Running software trumps unwritten specifications.
I drop fools like I drop database tables, with one SQL statement.
Memories are backward compatible.
I dream in quantum bits.
My dreams are hosted on the cloud.

Team Leadership

80% required in swimming is just to have your head above water, the rest is about moving forward.
I know Google offers employees 20% time, that must be why 80% of their products feel like 80% done.
Having your head in the clouds is better than your head in the sand! Hold up your head up high and you will see further.
Make your own path, build your own bridge, be your own light.
Make work be more wow!
Future proof your thinking.
Meeting don’t generate momentum.
It only takes a single dash to turn a minus into a plus.
Some set out to follow a leader, others follow his vision, and still others his path. Why not triangulate his geolocation based on all of these?
A high IQ does not equate with success. I developed a new algo to measure likelihood of success, Kick-ass Quotient, or KQ instead of IQ!!!
Sweep me off my feet, not under the rug.

Product Placement

If Zuckerberg would not have created Facebook, he would have been just another picture collector on Craigslist.
If Facebook would had been invented in the time of Hitler, Zuckerborg might had been a collaborator, aka Little Fuhrer, and would have geolocated Ann Frank
Facebook is said to release geolocation check-in feature soon, default setting is to notify your parole officer or ex your current location.
Why isn’t common sense the default at Facebook when it comes to users’ privacy rights.
BP handling of the oil spill is what I called fail whale, I mean if you kill a whale it is an automatic #failwhale.
Two guys walk into an Apple store to buy an iPad… This is not a joke, this is a tragedy, they walk empty handed because they are sold out
Happy Quit Facebook Day!!!
Flash, there is no app for that.
Can you imagine a 20 inch iPad? This shall come to pass.
The iPad is the iPC.
At Home Depot, just came from Office Depot. Are these stores like related? Can’t wait for Gansta Depot!
Disney wants to kill your creativity!
People used to clock-in to work, now they check-in.
Which is the most hated tech company, Apple, Google, Facebook, Abode???

Quote

I love the smell of napalm in the morning! – Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore
You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. – Rahm Emanuel
Billionaires rule supreme. – P. Sainath
We made the buttons on the screen look so good you’ll want to lick them. – Steve Jobs
I wish developing great products was as easy as writing a check. If that was the case, Microsoft would have great products. – Steve Jobs
Ahhh, what an awful dream. Ones and zeroes everywhere… and I thought I saw a two. – Bender
A documented bug is not a bug; it is a feature. – James P. MacLennan
The invisible hand of the market is actually a very visible bunch of grubby paws if you really look. – P. Sainath
Languages shape the way we think, or don’t. – Erik Naggum
Shawty is a eenie meenie mo lova – Sean Kingston
If at first you don’t succeed – call an airstrike. – Banksy
Lots and lots of blogs does not replace lots and lots of sales. – Larry Ellison
Baby there is a shark in the water. – VV Brown
The market is no longer driven by shareholders. The market is driven by formulas. – @mcuban

Favorite Programming Quotes 2010

TechKnow — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 18:27:15 +0000

Jobs don’t scale. Whatever you do on your job, it will never bring you 4x or 8x or more money. Switching jobs might help, but I guess you will agree there’s a limit.
Roman Snitko

Programmers aren’t born, they’re compiled.
deadapostle

Advertising is mind pollution.
John Leach

Google Buzz is the new bright shiny spinning object destined to destroy my productivity. I don’t need any more of those. That’s the difference between Microsoft and Google in destroying productivity of able and willing people: Google uses carrots, Microsoft uses sticks.
Randal L. Schwartz

Every time an engineer joins Google, a startup dies.
Chris Dixon

There is no movement without the first follower. See, we are told that we all need to be leaders but that would be ineffective. The best way to make a movement, if you really care, is to courageously follow and show others how to follow.
Derek Siver

Google is a threat to everybody in the web space, to some extent. I supposed anyone can dream up some sort of a nightmare scenario where the whole might of Google pursues you as a individual business and it is game over but every entrepreneur lives under that threat.
Alex Algard

Hate marketing is a very strong and powerful thing, especially in the internet, You can try as much as you want to get positive press but negative press is so much easier and so much more viral.
Timothy Sykes

If I could make the same amount of money but wake up until when I can’t hold in my pee any longer, I will be a success.
Phil Kaplan

When you have a company name that is to descriptive about what you do, you don’t stand out.
Phil Kaplan

Don’t turn on monitization, typically, until it’s going to be significant.
Phil Kaplan

The answer to the question “where do good ideas come from” is always the same, the come from bad ideas. If you come up with 20 bad ideas you get one good one.
Seth Godin

So this engineer is converting the site from one that runs on a scripted language to one that runs on a compiled language. However, if you went to go talk to him about basketball, you would probably have the most awkward conversation you’d have with a human being in your entire life. You just can’t talk to these people on a normal level. If you wanted to talk about basketball, talk about graph theory.
Anonymous Facebook Engineer

Lawyers can’t tell you you can’t do something. They can warn you about risks, and in extreme cases tell you that something is such a bad idea you’ll need to get someone other than them to do it but the judgment call of whether the risk is worth it is the entrepreneur’s.
Bram Cohen

From pitch perspective, the more you wear your idea, the more it fits you and your comfortable with it, the easier it is for somebody like me to say tell me more.
Brad Feld

We know from painful experience that letting a third party layer of software come between the platform and the developer ultimately results in sub-standard apps and hinders the enhancement and progress of the platform. If developers grow dependent on third party development libraries and tools, they can only take advantage of platform enhancements if and when the third party chooses to adopt the new features. We cannot be at the mercy of a third party deciding if and when they will make our enhancements available to our developers.
Steve Jobs

Really great blogs do not take the place of great microprocessors. Great blogs do not replace great software. Lots and lots of blogs does not replace lots and lots of sales.
Larry Ellison

The next time someone asks us for a favor, we’re less likely to do it given how this turned out. Hopefully, if you’re the one asking, you’ll understand. I want to help you, really, but you may just be too stupid to accept it without threatening to sue me later. You’ll understand, I’m sure. Right?
Michael Arrington

I try to shrug it off as a minor annoyance that whenever I do something successful, every capitalist out there wants a piece of the action.
Mark Zuckerberg

Every application will be designed from the ground up to use real identity and friends.
Mark Zuckerberg

We are working hard to build a service that everyone, everywhere can use, whether they are a person, a company, a president or an organisation working for change
Mark Zuckerberg

By the way, what have you done that’s so great? Do you create anything, or just criticize others work and belittle their motivations?
Steve Jobs

The iPad makes using a computer less of a commitment and that has important implications for the way I compute.
Fred Wilson

A good enough first version will take longer to produce with $170K than it would have with $0K.
Jason Fried

You want attention after you’re good, not before. Obscurity is your friend when you’re just starting — especially when you don’t even have a product yet.
Jason Fried

[I]n the history of computing, we know that its not the number of apps that make a platform, but the existence of “killer apps.” Whether it was VisiCalc, or Lotus 123, or PageMaker, or Microsoft Office, the truth is users don’t really want hundreds of apps, they want one or a small number that are really meaningful.
Hank Williams

Walking on water and developing software from a specification are easy if both are frozen.
Edward V Berard

Linux is only free if your time has no value
Jamie Zawinski

The trouble with programmers is that you can never tell what a programmer is doing until it’s too late.”
Seymour Cray

Retweet April 2010

TechKnow — Sun, 02 May 2010 15:04:29 +0000

Software Development

Any software feature request should be broken down to 90% thinking and 10% coding.
Multiple-touch is the greatest things since buttons.
If a developer fools you once, shame on you, because they are usually fooling themselves when it comes to giving accurate estimates.
Don’t take developers estimate at face value.
Recommend The Rubyist for the Developers Directory on Tumblr: http://www.tumblr.com/directory/recommend/developers/rubyist
Many non-programming software users don’t understand the meaning of concatenated or null so don’t use these in labels in your UI.
I like to provide solutions that don’t involve complaining.
If Heraclitus is right and you never step in the same river twice, then you never write the same program twice.
Bugs keep my code humble.
A bug’s ingenuity is proportional to a developer’s ego and self importance.
Bugs like to in build nests out of spaghetti code in untested corner cases.
Working running code is just one corner case.
I use dead laptop drives as coasters.
My emotions are user generated.
I om nom nom nom on memes.
The interweb is my inspiration.
I CAN HAZ DREAMS OF INTERWEB MEMES

Team Leadership

When life gives you lemons, you may make lemonade. When life gives me lemons, I make myself some limoncello.
New motto/slogan: Don’t be a robot, unless you are 20 feet tall and can transform into a fighter jet.
Dream big or wake up.
The Law of Big Consequences: Large consequences are often the effect of making considerable decisions in a big rush.
Laughter is the duct tape equivalent of emotions, it can be used to patch up bad feelings or misunderstandings.
Manual, Error Prone, Time Consuming. Pick none!
When people dig their own hole they can’t get out of it by digging deeper.
Fight the power, and fight the hype.
A key skill in life is to know when to end a conversation.
Nothing is how you thought of it originally, it is up to you to make it better.
If you have time to lean, you have time to clean.

Product Placement

Amazon knows what books you bought for the Kindle, how often and for how long you read, can add and remove books, and read your bookmarks, notes, and highlights…
FaceBook, Inc = F.B.I.
Apple wants to design multiple-touch devices, Google wants to crawl content, Facebook wants to own your social graph and associated data.
Facebook is really dumbing down the web with the like button.
Facebook’s Open Graph is not really open. If you don’t own the platform, can look through the source, can own the data it is not open!
Did someone just unlocked the Foursquare Sellout Badge at Yahoo HQ!
I’ve had enough Lifetime movies for one lifetime.
The world according Ronald McDonald is made out of corn meal.
The McChicken nugget is the worst thing since sliced bread.
Peeps are the most disgusting artificial food product.

Qoute

One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain. – Bob Marley
I don’t like negotiating with people I can’t beat up. – Goldberg
We live in an amazing world and it’s wasted on the crappiest generation. – Louis C.K.
Beware of artists they mix with all classes of society and are therefore most dangerous. – Queen Victoria
He eyes are the nipples of the face. -The House Bunny

Software Engineering in Pictures

TechKnow — Sun, 02 May 2010 05:52:10 +0000

In a typical day, software engineers, use diagrams, charts, and a ideograms to represent the software systems we work on. The biggest problems with software can also be described visually, such as the following image which tries to explain problems of software engineering.

Software Engineering Explained

When software engineering is that complicated, just imagine how the software application produced in such an environment looks like.

How Software Looks Like

Creating a clean, simply to use, functional application is harder than you think. Only a few companies have been successful with simplicity. Most enterprise applications look like a mosaic of buttons and text fields.

Stuff That Happens UI

Here is a screen shot showing the complexity of a software application.

FileMatrix UI Complexity

If you have any images, graphics, diagrams, or charts that illustrate the complexity of software engineering feel free to share in the comments.

PHP Creator is a Terrible Coder

TechKnow — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 22:19:23 +0000

Rasmus Lerdorf, the Danish creator of the PHP programming language, recently tweeted the following bit of hubris.

For all the folks getting excited about my quotes. Here is another – Yes, I am a terrible coder, but I am probably still better than you :)

That sounds like something that DHH would say, who also happens to be a Danish programmer. In one hand he did invent a new programming language, in the other it was PHP. In one hand he made web programming accessible to thousands of developer, in the other hand the code produced by most of these developers is unreadable and unmanageable.

Of course, a great many folks took the troll bait and commented on the validity of the tweet. My favorite comment was from
Entropy on Reddit.

Kenny G plays the saxophone better than I do, but that provides little solace for his countless victims.

I was not able to find additional background to this tweet, but I can only imagine he tweeted it in good fun, and not in my milkshake brings all the developers to the yard, and their like, it’s better than yours.

More Hats, More Problems

TechKnow — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 02:27:14 +0000

Software users didn’t take Knuth in college and you should not expect them to have a Computer Science degree to understand how to use your application. There is no worse assumption that a software programmer can make than to assume that end users know what you are talking about, especially when there is so much miscommunication involved in specifying, designing, implementing, testing, and releasing a software application within an internal team. Your users don’t understand your language, they don’t understand what you mean when you say object-oriented, exception handling, concatenated document, application server log file, null pointer, database query and they don’t care so don’t use these expressions in labels or descriptions in your UI! If you have to explain your User Interface to a end user, your are doing usability wrong. Forget leaky abstraction, there is nothing worse than leaky implementation details in your UI. If your users have to use suspended disbelief and take your word for it to understand how your User Interface works, you should go back to the drawing board.

One of the reasons why the User Interface and User Experience is so horrible in applications, especially internal and enterprise applications, is that they are done by programmers, usually prototyped quickly, and shipped soon thereafter. The truth is that programmers have to wear multiple hats, depending of your company size, these included tester, computer programmer, domain expert, UI designer, type editor, IT, security guru, database administrator, system architect, document writer, and more. In addition of having to fill all of these roles, there usually must be done in a tight deadline with many technology risks, unknown factors untested partners, and already late dependencies.

The simple fact is that the more hats a programmer wears the less productive he will be. If you have programmer having to manage your version control system, update your application UI, and debug memory you are not getting your monies worth. The more hats you have developers wear, the more time it will take to context switch, the more time you spend tracking down issues, and the more you pay in the end.

Working Code is Just One Corner Case

TechKnow — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 14:24:02 +0000

A use case is just one corner case, and developers working with code very often test just for that one corner case. A corner case can be described as a program error or software bug that occurs outside of normal use, or caused by parameter values and environments outside the intended acceptable range. I’ve learned that corner cases are more common than what developers like to admit, so much so that working code is just another corner case.

In my experience, the number one source of corner cases are assumptions hard code and baked into the source code, like assuming that your users have five digit zip codes, or use an English alphabet, or are based in a specific timezone, etc. Sometimes corner cases arise because someone cut a corner, didn’t check if an input parameter fit a certain criteria, was of a specific format, length, or within an acceptable range. Yet with all the assumptions we inadvertently leave behind in our code, I’ve seen developers take great offense and defend their code with the fervor of a religious zealot by saying, “you are not supposed to enter non-numeric values.” Even with the most stringent process and under tight deadlines, developers have been known to regress to the “if it compiles, ship it” mentality. You can cut corners in the design and implementation of a software program, but you most often will not cut the corner cases where bugs like to linger, hide, and build nests out of code. The number of corner cases is proportional to the complexity of an application.

Retweet March 2010

TechKnow — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 05:43:30 +0000

Software Development

Security pet peeves: captchas, security questions, having to login after changing my password.
A supercomputer won’t solve the incompetence of bad programmers on a deadline.
All software is in beta.
The Like button needs to be killed.
\-: “premature optimization is root all of evil.” (-: “That’s what she said.”
This must be a record. I just improved our app’s memory consumption by 80%, some 400MB, by changing one line of code.
I love technology because I can now blame my misspelling on my iPhone.
Where 2.0 is the new meme. Is your website Where 2.0 aware?
Building a community and building a business around a community are not the same thing.
The linked list was recently patented, I’m going to patent something critical to civilization, like calculus or pottery.
Dear debugger, I wish you could introspect my feelings and put a breakpoint on my heart break.
A slew of computer bugs are caused by assumptions made by the programmer.
You know things are bad when you get error code 0000.
Bugs grow organically.
It is possible to make spaghetti code out of Obeject Oriented Programmmmmming?
Rule of thumb: use immutable objects as keys to hash maps otherwise get to you your debugger.

Team Leadership

The best ideas are free.
No matter what, you will never be less busy.
Let’s be honest, anywhere from 10-30% of a resume is a stretch.
So as not to forget anything, remember nothing.
When you give someone else time, you waste you own.
Don’t give any answer, give the right question.
If you have a one trick pony, ride it until it is ready to be put to pasture.
Problems are meant to be solved only if they can’t be ignored.
The one best possible thing you can do to make any situation better is to not make it worse.
One can lead by asking questions, just as well as giving orders.
If you build it, they will come. But if you make it to complex or change it to often, then they will leave.
The secret ingredient is to believe there is a secret ingredient.
I don’t express myself best when speaking, but when reflecting.
Praying may not change the world, but it can change your perspective which is helpful to change your world.
Folks usually want the what first but I think that the why and the how is more important than the what.

Product Placement

Facebook announced a major investment by the CIA. It was reported that the US Gov will push for Facebook Connect as a National ID program.
PayPal just sucks. I can transfer money to former Soviet Bloc countries faster than I can between PayPal and my bank.
Spam is like a staple in Hawaii. So it comes as no surprise that Mahalo is one of the most spam ridden sites online.
My suggestion to cable companies: give away basic cable to every American with on demand features. Add value outside the cable box.
Which will provide better value/info for businesses, yelp or foursquare?
The current Apple Appstore approval time is rand() * Months.
McDs should make a tofu McMuffin.
A sign at a Palo Alto church: redeem your soul, there is an app for that.
Purple Cow Thinking: don’t be boring, safe is risky, design rules now, very good is bad.

Quote

If there is a limit, you should, you must test it. – Seth Godin/Purple Cow
Vision without execution is hallucination – Thomas Edison
Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. – Herman Cain

Apple iPad Top Resources

TechKnow — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 07:17:18 +0000

The iPad has garnered the most press I have seen for a electronic device since, well, the iPhone. Just after a day after it’s release, it has already been jail broken. Here is a list of my favorite iPad reviews, resources, articles with tips and tricks, etc. I hope you are reading this in your new iPad!!!