Today's Question:  What does your personal desk look like?        GIVE A SHOUT

SEARCH KEYWORD -- System::String

  Programming Achievements: How to Level Up as a Developer

How does a good developer become a great developer?Forget greatness for a moment: How does a decent developer become a good developer?There is no definitive path from Step 1 to Step n. Heck, it's not even clear what Step n is. And as logically-minded developer types, the lack of a well-defined route can make for a daunting journey from novice to master.I've spent a fair bit of time over the last few years bumping up against this conundrum. What's next? How do I go from being a goo...

   Good developer,Great developer,Comparison,Knowledge,Skill,Platform     2011-11-09 02:12:58

  The 15 Golden Rules of UI design and flow.

Last night a good friend of mine showed me the latest Need for Speed game on the iphone / ipad. Quite an impressive feat of rendering and a relatively good game to boot. However, the front end, wow, a classic case in UI mis-engineering. Loads of stats, pages and pages of bits and pieces to wade through – a classic case of over stimulating the player with lots of decisions they have no business making – stuff that will significantly change their game play experience but being...

   UI design,Game design,Feature     2012-04-05 12:20:18

  Your Code is My Hell

It occurred to me recently that my experience as a Rails developer may be somewhat unique.I often get brought in to help preexisting Ruby/Rails projects evolve and mature in a sustainable way. As a result, the vast majority of Ruby projects I’ve worked on have been well-established by the time I arrived. In fact, offhand I can only think of one commercial greenfield Ruby project I’ve participated in. All the rest have been “legacy” from my perspective, in the ...

   Code style,Clean code,Code paradigm     2011-09-15 08:39:16

  Why I Hate Android

Why do I hate Android? It’s definitely one of the questions I get asked most often these days. And most of those that don’t ask probably assume it’s because I’m an iPhone guy. People see negative take after negative take about the operating system and label me as “unreasonable” or “biased” or worse. I should probably explain. Believe it or not, I actually don’t hate Android. That is to say, I don’t hate the concept of Androi...

   Android,Hate,Feature     2012-01-10 07:19:27

  What have been Facebook’s greatest technical accomplishments?

To maintain a large website which gets billions of requests er day and keeps very fast response speed is not an easy task. Many big companies are trying best to improve user experience by adopting different techniques. There is a question on Quora which asks "What have been Facebook’s greatest technical accomplishments?". There is a person who worked in Facebook before provided an answer which helps us understanding how Facebook handles huge amount of traffic each day. Here is the answer f...

   Facebook, Design, Efficiency     2013-01-15 07:32:07

  Ajax file upload tutorial

Step 1 - AJAX file uploadAJAX file upload tutorialFirst of all I have to say that to create a pure AJAX file upload system is not possible because of security limitations of JavaScript. All of the Ajax upload systems I know use some third party tool/package or only mimics the AJAX feeling. Even so it makes file upload process a bit nicer. In the next section I will present you a solution which imitates the AJAX process, but uses a normal upload process and iFrames.The concept: Create a simp...

   Ajax,File upload,PHP,Tutorial,IFRAME     2011-04-22 13:34:33

  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

  Design Secrets for Engineers

If you are a designer like me, you must be asked on a regular basis to “make it look pretty.” The request can stroke your designer ego, making you feel like a design rockstar with super powers to make this world a more beautiful place. This is especially true at startups, where you are one of the few, maybe the only designer there. However, it can also be really annoying–almost degrading at times. Thoughts like “why the hell can’t engineers do this on their o...

   Design,UI,pretty,engineer,designer font     2011-10-24 11:18:25

  The Great Tech War Of 2012

From left: The late Apple cofounder Steve Jobs, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google CEO Larry Page, and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. | Photos courtesy of David Paul Morris/Getty Images (Jobs); Justin Sullivan/Getty Images (Zuckerberg); Chip East/Reuters (Page); Mario Tama/Getty Images (Bezos).Gilbert Wong, the mayor of Cupertino, California, calls his city council to order. "As you know, Cupertino is very famous for Apple Computer, and we're very honored to have Mr. Steve Jobs come here tonight ...

   2012,Tech war,Facebook,Apple,Google,Amazon,Tablet,Cloud,Analysis     2011-10-17 11:06:25

  About HTML semantics and front-end architecture

A collection of thoughts, experiences, ideas that I like, and ideas that I have been experimenting with over the last year. It covers HTML semantics, components and approaches to front-end architecture, class naming patterns, and HTTP compression. We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. T.S. Eliot — “Little Gidding” About semantics Semantics is the study of the relationshi...

   HTML,SemanticsCSS,OO CSS     2012-03-16 08:42:55

RECENT