Early in my career, I prided myself on my ability to absorb a lot of information and stay up-to-date on programming tools and techniques. I learned C++ before any of my colleagues did, and knew more about its intricacies than they did. I implemented ActiveX control containers before most people …
Are Web Developers Real Programmers?
The native-vs.-webapp hubbub from a couple of weeks ago got me thinking about why "web developers" are looked down upon by "real programmers."
I'll admit that I've held that prejudice myself. I looked at client-side web development back in the mid 1990's and decided that it wasn't for me …
Quick-and-Dirty Guide to QUnit
I'm playing around with JavaScript in my spare time, and have started creating a web app. As I usually do, particularly when learning something new, I am using a test-driven development approach. I looked at a few JavaScript unit-testing frameworks, and decided to go with QUnit, the testing framework used …
Stack Overflow Careers
Finding a good job, or finding good employees, has always sucked. The guys at Stack Overflow are trying to make it suck a little less with their new service: Stack Overflow Careers.
What differentiates Stack Overflow Careers from all the other job-board web sites is that candidates' CV's are linked …
Not Quite NaNoWriMo Review
Last month, I committed to do a lot of writing. Let's see how I did.
I was going to write one blog entry per day. I actually did 22 entries during the 30-day month of November. Not 100%, but not too bad.
My other commitment was to get a new …
Switched from Firefox to Safari
JavaScript: The Good Parts
As a result of the recent hubbub about web apps, I decided to get myself up to speed on JavaScript and CSS. Knowing Douglas Crockford's reputation as the JavaScript guru, I read his book, entitled JavaScript: The Good Parts.
It's a good book. The basic idea is that while JavaScript …
The Houben Case and Facilitated Communication
The media has been reporting that a Belgian man who has been in a coma for 23 years is now able to communicate thanks to "assistance" from an aide who holds his hand while he types on a keyboard (or actually, while they type on a keyboard).
Here are a …
iPhone Video Output
A common problem for iPhone developers is demonstrating the apps they've developed to others. Showing it on an actual device only works well if you are showing it to one or two people. Showing it in the iPhone Simulator running on a Mac takes a lot of setup, and may …
Native Apps vs. Web Apps
This week, there was a lot of chatter in the blogosphere about the prospect of writing web apps for the iPhone instead of developing native apps.
The furor started with Peter-Paul Koch's profanity-laden rant entitled "Apple is not evil. iPhone developers are stupid.". In this post, PPK asserts that most …