“sometimes fate likes to tease and laugh at you”
- Linda Sheridan
I though that is was a great little line that we all experience. 
…you’ll Realize that the programing world has passed you buy. I was reading Joel Spolsky’s latest article this morning and was compelled to mention it here. Joel talks about how the future of AJAX will lie in a as of yet created SDK that will compile to javascript and allow one source to resolve all our current cross-browser issues. It is an interesting argument that if the googles of the world don’t create it themselves then some punk kid will.
I for one hope that this does come true, but I will go further to say that it is already happening. We have libraries out there, like jQuery, that already handle a lot of the cross-browser issues that we as AJAX developers experience. The one issue that Joel mentioned which I think is a big one is the CSS one. I would hope that in the future that one of these libraries pick up on this as they have with the way JS behaves on different browsers.
How do you tell your daughter how beautiful she is?
You tell her that she is the type of beauty that pull your heart out of your chest and puts it on your face to bask in the sunlight of her beauty. You tell her that she will never be in the dark because of the bright twinkle in her eyes. You tell her that you can bask in the glow of her wonderfully vibrant soul forever. You tell her that you love her.
- me
Let me answer this right from the get go. No, it is not bribery. In the very first line in the afore linked to Wikipedia entry it states that it is a “crime implying a sum or gift given alters the behavior of the person in ways not consistent with the duties of that person”.
I am writing about this because of an article written by Joel Spolsky, a well known software developer and writer. He states that it is unethical for a blogger to accept a “review” laptop from Microsoft, who recently have been sending out laptops with the new vista OS installed. I think that he is speaking from a totally inexperienced perspective and without that knowledge is ignorant of something that has been standard ethical practice for many years in the “review” industry. The argument that he should of stated is “are the bloggers that are accepting these ‘review’ laptops altering their behavior in ways not consistent with the duties of that blogger”. This is where we get foggy. If the blogger has nothing to do with software or say the Information Technology industry. Then yes it would be unethical to accept this gift.
BUT Joel goes on to argue that he deems it unethical for him to accept this “gift”, implying that any other blogger that accepts the gift is also unethical. Well as some one that has a better reputation and experience then me in blogging about software development I think he is a prime candidate for reviewing Microsoft’s new windows operating system. He is free to decline the “gift” and to cast the gift “giving” by Microsoft in a negative light. But to call accepting the gift by other bloggers a crime is truly stretching the word “bribery” to it’s foggy limit. While I agree that Microsoft is deserving of the “bribery” accusation I do not think that bloggers should be cast in the same light.
I was reading the blog sphere and I came across this article that I find to be a great way to think about what programing is and and what processes we all use to make what we make. I design and code enterprise applications and to date I have never used the same methodology twice but I have used the same tricks to help me along the way man times.
The article talks about how when the author was studying some very productive teams that they did not use a single methodology over and over again but used what they needed at the time. I find that I follow the same less trod path of discovery of tricks and is mentioned int he article. By tricks let me give you and example, to map out the flow of and application I used the post-it notes on a wall. Simple straight forward and just a trick.
Well I have finally decided to post again and I just had to share some highlight pictures from my recent Italy trip.
http://picasaweb.google.com/ian.sheridan/Italy2006Highlights
This article make my heart ache. I read it and see that I do not work for an organization that understands what Joel Spolsky talks about in his article The Development Abstraction Layer. I hope to one day work in a development shop like that. So if you want to know what I am talking about take a look at that article.
*sigh*
After being here for well over 4 years I have finaly been noticed. I had done some Ajax research and I wanted it in a place that I could get to it where ever I was. So I placed it up on my website here. To my amazement it has been noticed.
It all started with Leland Scott including me in the list of sites he used in his research. Then moved on to other authors talking about his article. My view on this is that it is interesting where Web 2.0 is going. I say that it is what terminals were ment to be. With the ability to truely leveradge the modern design of applications today on a distributed network. No longer will you have to buy a whole sweet of to run on all the computers in your office. You will now be able to purchase access to them on a monthly basis or per use OR just a server to hook up to your network with the web application you want on it. The one Web2.0/Ajax application that has captured the number one spot my most used website list is GMAIL. The prime example that always comes to mind when thinking on this subject. It’s nothing special. The application is not earth sharttering but it works perfectly and I use it every day.
So thank you all and I hope that what I have made to help me has helped you.
LOL A great song for the geek in all of us.
HAHA I was reading this fellows post about drinking like a Russian and while reading the comments I ran across this great comment:
Raw eggs, shots of olive oil, sticks of butter - are you trying to drink or get the shits? Good grief - just give me a case Bud and a bucket of KFC…
LOL this just tickled my funny bone.
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