Embrace the Constraints « carpeaqua
A great blog post by Justin on thinking about what your next application needs, but also what it doesn’t need. Worth the read.
Embrace the Constraints « carpeaqua
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Category Archives: Development
On the state of computing
(Via Ranchero.)
Brent makes some great points on Steven’s essay, both worth the read.
I often think similar things about the state of development software these days.. Xcode and Interface Builder, while great, still aren’t as far as I was hoping we’d be by now.
When I try to help young people get into Mac programming, I realize just how complicated it still is. Learn C. Learn about objects. Learn Cocoa. Learn Interface Builder.
It just seems too hard, doesn’t it?
I don’t know of a solution. Do you?
Always consider the future when writing code…
I’ve been writing a LOT of code these days.. it’s great actually, I have loads of responsibly and freedom.. and a paycheck, which is good in this depression.
I just ran across this wiki about the Newton 2010 date problem (Props to StevenF) – after 18:48:31 on January 5, 2010 a NewtonScript int variable overflows, and well, problems happen.
I know when we were working on the Newton in the late 90′s, we weren’t really considering 2010 – in reality who really does? That was 14 years away, we were bound to still be around by then, right?
Well, maybe not. Maybe your code is going to last that long. Maybe some structures or patterns you’ve designed seem fine, but have some upper boundary that you’d NEVER HIT.
Start looking for those problems now. If you find them, stop, and spend the time to fix them. If you can’t because of a fixed API… well.. what do you do then? Make sure you fail gracefully.
Daring Fireball: Untitled Document Syndrome
The key in Gruber’s argument is this:
And those of you who object to these generalizations — those of you shaking your heads and saying to yourselves, No, I very much do want to specify by hand the file name and location in the hierarchical directory structure for every bit of data on my system — are almost certainly, I would wager, computer programmers. To argue that users should embrace manual file system management for every bit of data they wish to store is to argue against human nature.
My parents, in fact almost every non-programmer I’ve met doesn’t get documents. Often they don’t get folders either.
Worth remembering when writing your next indie Mac hit…
FriendDA
(Via Rands In Repose.)
A must read if you have great ideas and you want to share them with friends…
Slow-growing trees
(Via Manton Reece.)
If you procrastinate forever, just because you won’t see results anytime soon, you’ll find yourself looking back 10 years later and wishing if only I had just planted that tree / started that new software project, it would have been done by now.
In other words, don’t let the weight of potential work stop you from doing the right thing.
Justin’s Post on Being Indie…
I’ve officially been indie since the end of April and have had varying degrees of success. …
(Via carpeaqua.)
Well well worth the read…
C4[2] Registration Open
(Via rentzsch.com: Tales from the Red Shed.)
I went last year, and I highly recommend it if you are an indie developer, or want to be an indie developer. This year, I won’t be able to attend, for a very good reason of which I will get into later on in the month.
Update: Ya, I should get caught up on things – it’s sold out… at least the videos should be available later on in the year.
Thinking Like a Cocoa Programmer
Thinking Like a Cocoa Programmer
First and most importantly, the Cocoa programmer’s focus is always the end result for the user, not the academic sophistication of the code.
(Via Theobroma Cacao.)
CocoaHeads Portland – Core Animation Demos
Tonight CocoaHeads Portland meets at Extensis in downtown Portland.
The topic is Core Animation, folks will be showing little examples that they’ve written, and what they learned about Core Animation.
5:30 pm – snack and chatting before we start
6:00 pm – Q&A Session (bring your Cocoa questions)
6:30 ish – Show and talk about Core Animation
7:30 ish – finished, hang out time
Feel free to arrive at 5:30 pm for some snacks and chatting before we start up. If you arrive late (past 6pm), you will need to call my cell phone and we will send someone down to let you in.
Apologies for the late details – join our Google Groups list to get the very latest:
http://groups.google.com/group/pdx-cocoaheads
Extensis Portland (Google Map Link) – 1800 SW 1st Ave, Portland, OR – Suite 500
Update: Thank you for the very cool demos and good discussion – and the hangout time afterwards! I hope to post code later on in the month.