Us developer sorts have an unusually hard time coming up with ideas. Often, non-technical folks have lots of ideas, but no ability to make them, and technical folks have the ability to build things, but no idea what to build. Both are rather humbling in their own way. Why is this? I think its partially due to the nature of our work, and […]
Recruiters and business leaders looking to hire software developers have a problem. No, it isn’t that coders are arrogant babies with superpowers and totally unrealistic job expectations. The problem is how recruiters communicate to the developers they hope to hire. Instead of enticing them and trying to buy their love with flamboyant company cultures that have more to do with […]
There are those who feel arbitrary line limits are a bothersome, vestigial construct of the bygone age of punch card programming. Why must we continue to constrain ourselves to archaic requirements imposed upon us by the technological limits of days gone by? I shall tell you why, for I am not one of those people. Here are the reasons why […]
Considering a role as an employee or co-founder at a young company? Here are some questions to help you size it up. Some may be more appropriate for the leadership, others may be better for employees. Comments or additions welcome. Business What problem does it solve, and what is the value that it seeks to add? What would that be […]
Have you ever been using an app with keyboard shortcuts that didn’t make sense? And the app didn’t allow you to change the keyboard shortcut to something more reasonable? Well, it turns out that Mac OS X allows you to override app keyboard shortcuts and create your own. Here’s an example. The hotkey for cycling conversations in Skype troubles me. […]
When scaling an AngularJS app, large data sets can cause the $digest() cycle to run slowly. There are a number of performance optimizations you can make, such as being careful with $watch() and $filter(), using one-time binding, or hunting down expensive operations with Batarang. But sometimes, even with these improvements, an app with a lot of data can feel sluggish due to […]
I love code documentation. Here are some reasons: 1. It reduces cognitive load when maintaining legacy code (helps you figure out which button to press faster). Docs communicate how the code should be working at a specific point in time, and this can reduce debugging time when tracking down a bug. 2. It communicates intent. This helps future developers to respect […]
Wondering which one wins when it comes to eCommerce? Here’s a chart to help you size them up. Shopify WooCommerce Model Commercial, hosted, all-in-one solution Free open source plugin Site www.shopify.com www.woothemes.com/woocommerce Speed to set up prototype Few hours Couple days Out of the box functionality High Medium Customization via Plugins Low High Shipping Flexibility Excellent – charge by […]
Money is a powerful motivator. To acquire it, Americans worked around 257,000,000,000 hours last year. In the short history of web browsers, a number of unethical things have happened, largely motivated by money. These include: businesses pursuing profit by means of monopolistic bullying, the use of closed source software to obstruct technological progress, profit at the expense of those you claim […]
Find a sustainable pace and keep people in tempo with it. Your job as a leader is to protect your people so that they can keep doing their job day-in and day-out. And this means finding a sustainable pace, setting that pace as the leader, and then keeping your people accountable to not run too fast or too slow. Leaders who […]