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  Building a Modern Web Stack for the Real-time Web

The web is evolving. After a few years of iteration the WebSockets spec is finally here (RFC 6455), and as of late 2011 both Chrome and Firefox are SPDY capable. These additions are much more than just "enhancing AJAX", as we now have true real-time communication in the browser: stream multiplexing, flow control, framing, and significant latency and performance improvements. Now, we just need to drag our "back office" - our web frontends, app servers, and everything in between into this cen...

   Web design,Real-time web,web stack     2012-02-15 05:54:41

  Selling Yourself: Why? and How!

I know many good developers who are under the impression that they either don’t have to sell themselves, or selling themselves is wrong, but is that really true?First let me clarify by defining what I mean by “selling yourself”. I don’t mean “selling out”, I mean marketing yourself, what you’re doing and what your skills are. Especially to your organization.I don’t need to sell myself, my code speaks for itself.Really? Do you think your pristin...

   Sell,Developer,Skill,Show,Resume,CV     2011-08-10 03:19:34

  Why we don’t hire .NET programmers

Skip my post and read this one instead.  It says the same thing, but less offensively.  (Or, rather, more offensively to Facebook and Google employees, less offensive to .NET developers, though the underlying message is the same.) Tuesday midnight edit: After >500 comments, >1000 tweets, and >1000 Facebook likes, I’m closing comments on this thread so we can all get back to work.  The very last comment takes the cake, however, and is a fitting close.  Th...

   ASP.NET,High level,Low flexibility,Weakness     2011-12-20 08:43:28

  A Different Kind of Technical Interview

Everyone who's been programming professionally for a while knows the standard format of the technical interview. You go in, there's a whiteboard in the room, and you write code on it to answer questions.Everyone also has the same basic complaints about these interviews. In a normal work environment, you have access to an API or search engine, but at a whiteboard you don't. Whiteboard questions generally don't include much in the way of overall design, and they're typically limited to simple algo...

   Interview,Programming,Methods,Pairing     2011-06-04 07:56:21

  Ten things I want Siri to be able to do for me

Now that I've had my iPhone 4S for a couple of days, I'm amazed with what Siri can do. I've asked a number of questions -- real ones, not questions like "What is the meaning of life?" -- and have been totally impressed with how my interaction with the iPhone has changed. But there are more things I'd love to be able to do with Siri, which is the reason for this post.Everyone should understand that Siri is currently a beta product from Apple. A lot of the things I'm talking about here should happ...

   Siri,iPhone 4S,AI,Tweet,Four square,Intelligent agent     2011-10-17 11:24:37

  Why Javascript is a Joy

I’m probably a bit biased – being a front-end web developer for a few years will do that – but I really enjoy writing Javascript. I’ve recently retreated from pure coding the last few months, but I got an opportunity this past week to jump back into some tasks, and it has reminded me how fun it is to dive into our[1] front-end codebase. Yes, Javascript can be surprisingly elegant yet completely infuriating, and all on the same line of code; for a long time, ...

   JavaScript,Speed,Simplicity,Malleable     2012-03-26 15:00:31

  Short SASS tutorial

If you learned CSS before, you should know that CSS is not a programming language. You can use it to design webpage style, but you cannot use it for programming, i.e, CSS is what designer uses, not what programmer uses. Programmer may think that CSS is very troublesome, it has no variables, no conditional statements, it just allows line-by-line description of HTML elementsLuckily, CSS preprocessor appear which makes CSS programmable. The general idea of CSS preprocessor is using a programming la...

   CSS,SASS,programmable,variable,condition,comment     2012-06-22 08:38:18

  #46 – Why software sucks

No one makes bad software on purpose. No benevolent programmer has ever sat down, planning out weeks of work, with the intention of frustrating people and making them cry. Bad software, or bad anything, happens because making things is hard, making good things doubly so. The three things that make it difficult are: Possessing the diverse skills needed not to suck.Understanding who you’re making the thing for.Orchestrating the interplay of skills, egos and constraints over the course of...

   Software design,Sucks,Software industry     2012-03-19 13:10:37

  12 Things A Programmer Really Needs To Know

How do you answer the question, “what do I need to learn to be a good programmer?” I have written posts trying to answer that question, typically focusing on the languages that you should learn or the algorithms and other techniques you need to know. What about the rest of a programmer’s life? This is a less serious look at the life of a programmer. So, what does a programmer really need to know?Caffeine â€“ You need to find your preferred caffeine delivery system. M...

   Tips,Programmer,How,What,Logic     2011-08-31 08:46:32

  What Level Programmer Are You?

Everybody's talking about how programming is the skill that we all are going to need. [Except those folks who might feel that most programming could be turned into wizard-like tools. Insert long discussion about Strong AI.] But what's a programmer? Is the guy who set up his own Apache Web Server a programmer? How about the guy who created a complex Excel spreadsheet? The guy who made his own RPG level? Minecraft players? When we say "Everybody is going to have to know programming" what, e...

   Programmer,Skill,Level,Criteria     2012-02-08 10:07:41

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