Software essay list I

I have been busy for the last few weeks, hence the lack of blogging.

Joel Spolsky of the Joel on Software website has a compiled some essays on software development into a book. Based on the books he chose for his book list, I expect that his choice of essays will be as good as his choice of books.

I would recommend that you buy the book, if possible, but, if like me you don't have the cash for the book, you can read the essays online.

Here are links to the first few essays from the book:

• Style Is Substance
  
• Award for the Silliest User Interface: Windows Search
  
• Excel as a database
  
• ISCOC04 Talk
• Autistic Social Software
  
• Why not just block the apps that rely on undocumented behavior?

More to follow...

Good clean fun

I watched Noot vir Noot, the Afrikaans TV music quiz show, last night. It has been going for years, and, although the music is not the type of stuff I would normally listen to -I only decided to watch because one of the contestants was quite pretty- it is nice to see that there are still television shows that can be enjoyed by the whole family.

Don't believe everything that you read in the papers

There was a fairly big news story today, and I happen to know some of the people involved. Because of this, I know that the coverage, particularly from the newspapers has been ludicrously inaccurate.

The amount of bullshit produced by the mass media is astounding.

Ooh shiny!

I attended a wedding ceremony the other day, and the chap officiating described the event as a "sanctimonious occasion". No one else seemed to have noticed the malapropism, and most were probably impressed that he used a difficult word in his speech.

Big words impress people. Jargon intimidates the feeble minded. Fancy graphics can mask crappy functionality.

Too many people value style over substance and pay the price in the long run.

Blindingly obvious observations about corporate website content (that some people still don't know about)

• I surf the net looking for information that is useful or interesting to me. I use web applications to get things done. I expect that most people do the same. I am not awed by eye-candy, but I appreciate an aesthetically pleasing website as much as the next person.
  
• Presentation is important, but if your corporate website doesn't have useful content the it will probably be a white elephant.
• If your website's navigation scheme makes it difficult for search engines to follow your links you will lose business.
• If you use obscure jargon to describe your business, instead of saying what you do in simple English, you will probably lose search engine hits
  
• If you have spelling and grammatical errors on your site, your company will look unprofessional, and even the best site design won't compensate for that
  

Monopoly

I played Monopoly with some friends today. We used the newish version of the game, which has updated property names. The best part was that no-one cheated- making this the first time I ever participated in a clean game.

The only thing I dislike about the new version is that it takes time to get used to all the additional zeroes on the banknotes, and there were a few mix-ups during the game, as 50000 notes were confused with 5000 notes. I don't get why the values were inflated- they are still unrealistically low, and they just make the game more difficult to play

Poor traffic enforcement

Minibus taxi drivers seem to be able to get away with dangerous driving without much being done to stop them.

Taxi drivers are not the only inconsiderate and reckless road users; the following dangerous habits also need to be cracked down on:

• People who, seeing a line of cars in the right-lane of a two-lane highway, passing a truck, decide to use the left-lane to overtake these cars. They then try to force their way back into the right-lane when they reach the truck, causing the other vehicles in the right lane to have to brake suddenly.
• Truck drivers who violate lane restrictions and minimum speed rules.
  
• Morons who don't treat broken robots as four-way stops (from what I've seen, Durbanites, in particular, ignore this rule)
  
• Idiots who do u-turns on highways by crossing the median island
  
• Pedestrians who run across highways.
  
• People who drive in the emergency lane.

That old time religion

I would like to congratulate Roman Catholics on the election of their new pope.

According to reports, he is conservative, which is exactly what is required from a religious leader.

Religion needs to call people back to the straight and narrow, and not follow them into debauchery. I also believe that many people have a poorly developed sense of right and wrong, and that the fear of eternal damnation is an excellent way to curb whatever criminal predilections they might have. Therefore, the election of a pope not given to wishy-washy moral relativism is a good thing.

Most useful computer stuff

Like many people, I install or use lots of different websites and programs, looking for stuff that makes life easier and computing more enjoyable. The following are my top websites and applications:

1. Google. Still the best search engine


2. Gmail. The Google approach to email.


3. Wikipedia. An open encyclopedia.


4. Mozilla Firefox. A free web browser.


5. eMule. Filesharing client, similar to eDonkey.


6. Blogger. Quick and easy personal website creation.

Royal wedding

I can't believe I'm writing about this, but after hearing cruel remarks the whole week about the marriage of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles, especially on 94.7 Highveld Stereo (the low-point was when a DJ played a horse sound-effect while discussing the woman), it was refreshing to see a sensible article on the topic.