Something I’ve been thinking about a lot recently is the idea of simply trying harder with everything I choose to spend my time on. It seems like an elusive thing, the idea of optimal focus and maximum effort. However, I think there is something to be gained from stopping for a moment and considering how focused we are when we do our daily activities.I think two things apply here: single-mindedness and massive effort. To truly excel at something, we need to be very focused. We can have different things we are striving to succeed with, but when we are working on one thing, we should be c...

I often argue that professionals should share their knowledge online via blogging.The catch is that virtually anything worthwhile in life takes time and effort, and blogging is not an exception to this statement. So before committing your energy to such an endeavor, you may rightfully stop and wonder what’s in it for you. Is blogging really worth it?In this article, I briefly illustrate some of the main benefits that directly derive from running a technical blog.1. Blogging can improve your communication skillsCommunication and writing, much like programming, are skills honed through co...

As a systems administrator, I tend to think about source code and computing platform in large numbers. Computers however are getting smaller and more powerful, and the reality of computers that we put in or on our body as a normal daily routine is coming closer, and for many is already here. When our safety, our liberty, and our sense of humanity are tied to programmable devices, should we not only hope, but expect that we should have the right to examine how these devices function? Last August Karen Sandler, the executive directory of the GNOME foundation gave a short talk about her implante...

I've always considered myself a bit of a software junkie. Nothing excites me more than a great piece of new software.Some of my best childhood memories are our trips to Grandma's house, where I'd have access to a computer with a dial-up connection that I'd use to obtain freeware and shareware.I'd bring 4 or 5 floppies with me and try to cram all the games, waveform editors, and utilities that I could sneaker-net home.Luckily today, excellent software written with passion oozes out of the app ecosystem. OS X and the App Store really fuel an economy of software built for humans by people tha...

Recently there was a question on the forums asking why we encourage usage of HttpRequestMessage<T> / HttpResponseMessage<T> in the signature of a web api implementation. The point made in the post is that if you have an ICalculator contract which your API implements, then it’s violating SOC / inappropriate to have those messages as params and in the contract. The argument is valid when looking at HTTP from the standpoint of an RPC mechanism, which is actually a quite common view.Not of the HTTP authors though. If you read Roy Fielding’s dissertation you will see very ...

Well.That took rather longer than expected.We have, finally, moved, into the new Fog Creek office at 535 8th Avenue, officially ten months after I started pounding the pavement looking for a replacement for my grandmother's old brownstone where we spent our first few years, working from bedrooms and the garden.Most software managers know what good office space would be like, and they know they don't have it, and can't have it. Office space seems to be the one thing that nobody can get right and nobody can do anything about. There's a ten year lease, and whenever the company moves the last pers...

Google. It’s one of the most common household words in today’s modern society, and yet for a company that is used by most of us essentially as an algorithm, it tends to trigger a highly emotional response when overheard. It’s a dream job for college students nearing graduation, a highly coveted invitation to lunch by friends and colleagues who work near campus, and the bane of existence for those who produce content for the Internet. For several years, most of the public has seen quick glimpses of the life of those who work at Google: offices filled with primary colors, co...

I am a decent programmer. I know a decent amount of computer science theory, I can type correct code fairly easy. I don’t let my classes expand too much. But I still struggle some with math, and I have a tendency to have too many cross-dependencies in my code.I used to think I was an awesome programmer. One of the best. After I made a game in the first programming lesson in school, I got told to don’t bother showing up for the rest. I was the one who taught all my friends what big O notation is and how it’s useful, or why hashmaps can have an effective constant speed if us...