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  Why Software Projects are Terrible and How Not To Fix Them

If you are a good developer and you’ve worked in bad organizations, you often have ideas to improve the process.  The famous Joel Test is a collection of 12 such ideas.  Some of these ideas have universal acceptance within the software industry (say, using source control), while others might be slightly more controversial (TDD).  But for any particular methodology, whether it is universally accepted or only “mostly” accepted, there are a multitude of o...

   Software,Development,Debug,Design     2011-11-21 10:27:05

  A Fun Approach To Creating More Successful Websites

As Web designers and developers, each project we work with has a unique set of goals and requirements. But one goal we have for all of our projects is that we want them to make an impression on people — we want the websites that we create to be memorable. A fun experience is often an enjoyable one and an enjoyable experience is usually a memorable one. Therefore, it stands to reason that one of the ways to create a memorable experience is to make it a fun experience. In this article,...

   Web design,Elements,UI,Success     2012-03-05 05:10:07

  Comparing Floating Point Numbers, 2012 Edition

We’ve finally reached the point in this series that I’ve been waiting for. In this post I am going to share the most crucial piece of floating-point math knowledge that I have. Here it is:[Floating-point] math is hard.You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly hard it is. I mean, you may think it’s difficult to calculate when trains from Chicago and Los Angeles will collide, but that’s just peanuts to floating-point math.Seriously. Each ti...

   Floating point number,Comparison,True value     2012-02-23 07:11:03

  Native Audio with HTML5

Once upon a time, audio on the web lived primarily in the world of third-party browser plug-ins like Flash, QuickTime and Silverlight. This was not a bad world, but it had its issues.For one, most plug-ins require the user to install them, but not all users are willing (or able) to install them. Also, many players built with these plug-ins are inaccessible, making it difficult for folks who use assistive technologies to access the audio or alternative content.Then there are the front-end design ...

   Audio,HTML5,Built in,Audio tag,Video     2011-10-13 13:04:07

  JavaScript Attack/Defend

As developers and designers we work hard to build visually attractive, fast and easy to maintain applications. Our goals are to make sure the applications we build stick to users and keep them coming back for more. Security is not always at the forefront of our minds. No one intentionally builds insecure software but often a lack of security knowledge leads developers to build vulnerabilities into their applications. In this article we are going to examine two web security attacks, how they are ...

   JavaScript,Attack,Defend,Security,Cross site     2011-10-13 13:09:11

  C++11 multithreading tutorial

The code for this tutorial is on GitHub: https://github.com/sol-prog/threads. In my previous tutorials I’ve presented some of the newest C++11 additions to the language: regular expressions, raw strings and lambdas. Perhaps one of the biggest change to the language is the addition of multithreading support. Before C++11, it was possible to target multicore computers using OS facilities (pthreads on Unix like systems) or libraries like OpenMP and MPI. This tutorial is meant to get you st...

   C++,Multithreading,Standard 11,Demo     2011-12-18 00:50:35

  HTML5 and Accessibility

Accessibility for people with disabilities is a legal responsibility in many countries. It's also the right thing to do, and one of the characteristics distinguishing professional developers from the WWWs: WYSIWYG-wielding wannabes. But for many, accessibility has been a somewhat black art, requiring adding extra stuff to your code like alt text, table summaries, ARIA information that can be difficult to test by developers who are not assistive technology users themselves.The arrival of HTML5 ha...

   HTML5,Accessibility,Video,Music,Canvas     2011-08-19 08:13:44

  Developing Game Audio with the Web Audio API

Caution: This article discusses APIs that are not yet fully standardized and still in flux. Be cautious when using experimental APIs in your own projects. Introduction Audio is a huge part of what makes multimedia experiences so compelling. If you've ever tried watching a movie with the sound off, you've probably noticed this. Games are no exception! My fondest video game memories are of the music and sound effects. Now, in many cases nearly two decades after playing my favorites, I still c...

   Web Audio,HTML5,Game audio     2012-04-15 01:25:23

  Ruby is beautiful (but I’m moving to Python)

The Ruby language is beautiful. And I think it deserves to break free from the Web. I think the future of Ruby is firmly stuck in Web development, though, so I’m going to invest in a new language for data analysis, at least for now. This is a look at the fantastic language I came to from Java and a look at a possible candidate. (Update: I’ve since written a followup.)Java to RubySix years ago, I added Ruby to my technical arsenal. I learned C++ and Java in high school, and I p...

   Ruby,Java,Python,Comparison,Advantage,Ruby vs Python     2011-11-01 07:18:11

  40+ Techniques to enhance your php code

1. Do not use relative paths , instead define a ROOT path Its quite common to see such lines : 1require_once('../../lib/some_class.php'); This approach has many drawbacks : It first searches for directories specified in the include paths of php , then looks from the current directory. So many directories are checked. When a script is included by another script in a different directory , its base directory changes to that of the including script. Another issue , is that when a script is being ru...

   PHP,Quirk,Trick,Efficiency,Techniques     2012-04-10 13:06:55

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