Archives for October 2007
Stationery
I never thought there’d be anyone who appreciates stationery like I do. But the author of Rands In Repose apparently does. And so do hundreds of his readers.
Like the Rands In Repose guy, I settled for the Pilot G-2. I prefer the 1.0 mm nib however. It isn’t that great but there just isn’t anything […]
The Essence of Software Development
This is what I had been trying to articulate, but of course, Steve McConnell says it much better:
At its essence, software development consists of working out all the details of a highly intricate, interlocking set of concepts. The essential difficulties arise from:
the necessity of interfacing with the complex, disorderly real world;
accurately and completely identifying the […]
Effortful Study
An article in Scientific American states that “… what matters is not experience per se but ‘effortful study,’ which entails continually tackling challenges that lie just beyond one’s competence.”
One might think that the field of software development offers ample room for exertion: witness the plethora of programming languages, frameworks and methodologies that are continually being […]
LOLCODE
Do you know lolcats? You don’t? Ha, I didn’t either until a few minutes ago. Anyway lolcats are simply pictures of cats doing cute things, along with big funny “catspeak” captions.
And now there’s LOLCODE: a programming language laced with lolcat phrases and Internet slang that has fun as its main objective. Apparently there are already […]
Pride and Prejudice
I just finished Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice for the second time, paying close attention to the language this time round. (The first time I read it was about a decade ago). I love it. I wonder what makes it so good, compared to today’s chick-lit?
I don’t think it’s the storyline. It might be a […]