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  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

  In praise of impractical programming

Although it’s become a cultural mainstay now, I still remember when I first saw that thick book — the one with the wizard on the cover — about a school for magic where wonders are easily conjured by those who know the proper spells. Of course, I’m talking about the Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs. There was that other book with the spells, but the “Wizard Book” sincerely claimed to teach magic. For the past few years, I’ve been ...

   Impractical Programming,Structure,Scheme,Practical     2011-12-05 12:28:58

  Google Dart? Don’t bet against JavaScript

Procotols, programming languages and operating systems all compete in a constantly evolving software ecosystem. Out of that ecosystem only a few technologies truly have staying power and survive over the long term. An example? How about Ethernet? It’s been a survivor over the last thirty years despite existing in a constantly changing landscape that’s been populated with many worthy competitors. Ethernetâ€...

   Google Dart,JavaScript,Comparison,Future     2011-12-06 09:49:39

  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

  Why I Quit My Job to Start a Tech Company

Back in November of 2006, before NY Mag and TimeOut put startups on the cover, before the “tech bubble”, before Twitter and Foursquare were popular, before working at a startup in NY was considered a reasonable thing to do, I was a private equity investor for a $1.6 billion fund called Quadrangle Group. It was just my third year out of college and I made a little over $250,000. For a Brazilian immigrant who spent most of his childhood kind of worried he would have to do physica...

   Start,Company,Creative,Innovation,Techno     2011-08-16 08:38:35

  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

  Some hidden XSS injection vulnerabilities

XSS injection refers to a Web page generates some unexpected executable js codes based on user input  and these executable codes are executed by web browser,i.e, the source code sent to web browser by the server contains some illegal js codes, and these illegal js codes are related to user's input. Common XSS injection vulnerabilities can be fixed with some functions such as htmlspecialchars(escaping HTML special characters) and strip_tags() or similar, but there are some hidden XSS injecti...

   XSS,PHP,Security,Code,JavaScript     2012-08-27 20:32:08

  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

  How much money do you *really* need to start your company?

I keep hearing startup entrepreneurs tell me “We need funding. If we just had $XXXk of investment, we’d be killing it right now.” I press them with one question: what would you do with the money if you had it? Inevitably the question is met with a blank stare. Most of the time people haven’t thought about it. The answers that do come feel a little half-baked:“Buy a bunch of ad words to get people to our site – that’s all we need”“Build th...

   Business,Startup,Investment,Money,Ad     2011-09-26 11:16:35

  Device Experiences & Responsive Design

Most recently LukeW was the Chief Product Officer (CPO) and co-founder of Bagcheck which was acquired by Twitter Inc. in 2011. Luke is also the author of the book Mobile First and was Chief Design Architect (VP) at Yahoo! Inc. While the task of designing Web applications and sites for multiple devices can be daunting, two techniques can make the process more manageable: classifying device experiences and designing/building responsively. Here’s how these two approaches can work toge...

   User experience,Device,Responsive design     2012-03-31 00:10:31

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