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In this installment we talk to Jesse Liberty, a well-known developer, author, instructor, podcaster and currently a Developer Evangelist for Telerik. We talk to developers about their backgrounds, projects, interests and pet peeves.
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It turns out you don’t have to be employed as a programmer to use programming at your job. Necessity is the mother of invention.
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My goal for Johnny-Five is to create a framework for programming Arduino Robots with nothing more then JavaScript. I believe that JavaScript, inherently asynchronous and the platform that Node.js has built around this paradigm, is the perfect environment for writing evented, streaming programs for controlling the highly synchronous world of hardware. The 4th rule of robots: program them in the language you like best.
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Many people don’t expect pairing, itself, to be a skill. They don’t realize that they’re going to have to learn new ways to think, to problem solve, to be creative, to filter their perceptions, and even to converse. Since they don’t realize this, they get surprised. And then they set themselves up to make that learning hard, and quit when they get poor results and find pairing to be hard while learning. It takes two to tangle.
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I've never really used it beyond a couple projects at school, but I hate pair programming. Mostly because I hate having someone looking over my shoulder. Only in the physical sense though, something about having someone looking over my should just makes me freeze up. If what I typed was duplicated to another monitor somewhere not directly behind me, or something to that effect, I'd be fine it.
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CoffeeScript has a number of other nice features, and it's always evolving. I understand that some people simply don't like it, which is fine, since a lot of what it offers is subjective. However, I'm baffled that people dismiss as being nothing but syntactical sugar. It's less verbose and improves readability. That's a win in my books. What do you like - or not like - about CoffeeScript?
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In Architectural Smells I argued that there are architectural smells in the same way that there are code smells (aspects of a system that indicate but not guarantee a possible issue) and the example I gave was caching. I also think that VM size is an architectural smell. 4GB ought to be enough for anybody.
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For a long time, some Microsoft officials have privately griped that PC makers don’t present Windows in its best light. They clutter desktops with icons that are often little more than ads for third-party products; include confusing utilities that duplicate functions already in Windows; require lengthy setup; and configure PCs in ways that slow them down. Signature PCs get rid of the bloatware... for a price.
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DJ Sures, mastermind behind the EZ-B Bluetooth Robot controller, sent in a really interesting build where he controls a robot with a 1983 TRS-80 computer. The robot in question is [DJ Sures]‘ adorable WALL-E we’ve seen before. WALL-E takes out the TRS-80.
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Once you’ve mastered a particular language, you’ve also mastered a means of thinking. You understand how to decompose a problem into knowable units, and you learn how to intertwine those units into pleasant and functional flow. There is no doubt in my mind that this is an essential and valuable skill for anyone to learn and master. However, there is a language you could master that teaches many of the same lessons, appears far more forgiving in terms of syntax, and has immediate broader appeal. The language you can learn is your own. Writing is the connective tissue that creates understanding.
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The best argument for learning to code appeared this morning, when it turned out that Judge William Alsup in the Google case could program, and learned Java in the course of the trial, and wasn't going for Oracle's claim that a short range-checking function was days of work. I object(!);
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Server teams are made up of the people who write and maintain the code that makes servers go, as well as those who keep that code working. When things go right, nobody notices, and they get no praise. When things go wrong, their phones ring at 3 in the morning.... It's a thankless job. Sysadmins of the world, unite!
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It's time to hook your WiFi up to "t-rays"[^]. Well, it will be once they iron out wrinkles and scale it up.
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Pretty cool.
The 10m limit won't matter much as we move away from needing routers. It seems WiFi chips themselves will start acting as a router (even while being a traditional WiFi). They already partially do this in most smart phones (one or the other).
In addition as more and more devices become "Smart" devices they tend to have WiFi. For example TVs, Blu Ray Players, Phones, Consoles etc etc
Heck even home appliances will have WiFi. So in your house 10m will not be a problem. You will likely have multiple "routers" with in every 3m even.
Computers have been intelligent for a long time now. It just so happens that the program writers are about as effective as a room full of monkeys trying to crank out a copy of Hamlet.
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Microsoft is changing their Visual Studio 11 User Interface[^] because of all your whining and complaining.
Thank you.
m.bergman
For Bruce Schneier, quanta only have one state : afraid.
To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you must also be well-mannered. -- Voltaire
In most cases the only difference between disappointment and depression is your level of commitment. -- Marc Maron
I am not a chatbot
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A couple of points.
1. This story has already been covered here in the Insider News, as well as being done to death elsewhere on the forums.
2. People did not whine and complain about the interface. They raised legitimate concerns. Treating them as though they are petulant children who can be talked down to is the type of condescension that got Microsoft into this trouble in the first place. When a seasoned professional who uses your tools all day long tells you that you are going to make them less productive, you'd better believe they have valid reasons and that, perhaps, you don't know better than they do.
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A couple of rebuttal points.
1. I have not seen this story covered or anyplace else. I don't generally go to the soapbox so it may have escaped my attention there.
2. I am with the whining and complaining group regarding the VS11 interface. I think I've even posted by objections to it around here someplace. Microsoft has always talked down to the developers. I still remember those helpful diatribes from Mike Blaszczak in the golden age of MFC. Frankly, some developers need to be talked down to, that is to say, they need a little humility.
3. Finally, I wasn't concerned with the changes so much as the article itself: how it was written, its choice of words. Hence, the title of my message. I am just so impressed with how opacity of the language used by some "technical" writers, specifically, the use of "high energy" and "low energy" as opposed to "exciting" and "boring".
m.bergman
For Bruce Schneier, quanta only have one state : afraid.
To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you must also be well-mannered. -- Voltaire
In most cases the only difference between disappointment and depression is your level of commitment. -- Marc Maron
I am not a chatbot
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Michael Bergman wrote: 1. I have not seen this story covered or anyplace else. I don't generally go to
the soapbox so it may have escaped my attention there.
In this very forum. Link[^].
It was also posted out in the newsletter, so you should have received it there.
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not listening to me obviously. I wanted Metro to be optional on desktop, like Windows Media Center, now it's spreading to the apps that I frequently use 
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This localtest.me trick is so obvious, so simple, and yet so powerful. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are other domain names like this out there, but I haven’t run across them yet so I just ordered the domain name localtest.me which I’ll keep available for the internet community to use. Here’s how it works. Master of your own (test) domain.
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Most of my readers are probably aware that Windows 8 is on the horizon. What I propose to do in this post is argue for a simple proposition...every developer who would like to put some additional money in their pocket owes it to themselves to learn the What, Why, and How of the Windows Store. You can write an app for that!
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In the ‘80s a few giant database companies cornered the market. They did this by promulgating fear, uncertainty, and doubt amongst managers and marketing people. The word “relational” became synonymous with “good”; and any other kind of data storage mechanism was prohibited. Should the database be the heart and soul of the design?
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Of the design? No. Of the implementation? Maybe.
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You really only do three things in programming:
1. Set a storage location to a value.
2. Test a value in a storage location.
3. Jump to a part of the program which will do either #1 or #2.
If not the database, then the data storage. Everything else is fluff.
m.bergman
For Bruce Schneier, quanta only have one state : afraid.
To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you must also be well-mannered. -- Voltaire
In most cases the only difference between disappointment and depression is your level of commitment. -- Marc Maron
I am not a chatbot
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Michael Bergman wrote: Everything else is fluff.
Great. Now I'm a fluffer. 
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