Sun
May
11
Mind Vomit
Wed
May
7
“ The practice is pervaded by the reassuring illusion that programs are just devices like any others, the only difference admitted being that their manufacture might require a new type of craftsmen, viz. programmers. From there it is only a small step to measuring “programmer productivity” in terms of “number of lines of code produced per month”. This is a very costly measuring unit because it encourages the writing of insipid code, but today I am less interested in how foolish a unit it is from even a pure business point of view. My point today is that, if we wish to count lines of code, we should
not regard them as “lines produced” but as “lines spent”: the current conventional wisdom is so foolish as to book that count on the wrong side of the ledger.
E.W. Dijkstra from On the cruelty of really teaching computing science
Tue
Apr
29
Archaeopteryx: A Ruby MIDI Generator
A little overstated and rambling, but a lot of fun.
Hurting Code for Fun and Profit
A must watch for anyone who writes software.
Wed
Apr
23
Twitter / john_lam: rubinius spec runner is WAY...
Can anyone guess how much code Mr. Lam has contributed to the Ruby specs/spec runner?
Tue
Apr
22
TED | Talks | Clifford Stoll: 18 minutes with an agile mind (video)
I see this getting passed around the net a lot. I think it’s crap. Other people disagree. Either way it’s quite a contrast to Mr Lessig.
TED | Talks | Larry Lessig: How creativity is being strangled by the law (video)
If Lessig told me up was down I’d believe him. (Note, that’s not a comment on the content of his presentation, but rather his skill as a presenter.)
VotePA 2008 Pennsylvania Primary Action Center - Get Voter Help Here!
If you live in PA don’t forget to vote today.
Mon
Apr
21
Expelled Exposed
Believe what you will about creationism/id vs. evolution, but from what I have seen so far “Expelled” seems to be a rather dishonest film.
Sun
Apr
20
ack -- better than grep, a power search tool for programmers
Just added this to my programming toolbox.
