October 2005 Archives

Google Base is coming soon, apparently. From the screenshot, it seems like some sort of Craigslist knock-off. It makes a lot of sense, but I mostly can't wait to see how they implement it. Will it be generalizable to non-items? To more general information storage and retrieval? Let's wait and see! {via}

[UPDATE: In a completely unprecedented move, Google has publicly commented on this—even if rather obliquely. I'm not sure what to make of that. From the Google Blogoscoped entry, it sounds a lot more robust than a comparison with Google Sitemaps would warrant.]

I don't normally do those inane profile-type quizzes, but the regional differences in American English has always been an interest of mine. So I took it and discovered that I am "80% General American English, 10% Upper Midwestern, and 10% Yankee." This is definitely not accurate because there were a couple of questions where I used two of the options though there wasn't an option for that. For example, I grew up saying "carmel" but I've since taken to calling it "care-a-mel" because that's how the word is spelled for crying out loud. Also, I use "pop" and "soda" pretty interchangeably as I do "puh-jawm-uhs" and "puh-jam-uhs." I picked the one that sprang to mind quickest since that's probably what I'd call it in a pinch, but it left me a little unsatisfied. {via}

I just finished watching the last episode of the TV show, Wonderfalls, which has been playing on LOGO for quite some time now. I've been completely enamored of the show ever since I discovered it airing, but I didn't want to write up anything until I had seen the entire run. You know, some shows peter out after awhile and I didn't want to sing its praises prematurely. Since it was cancelled by Fox after 13 episodes, I didn't have to wait too long to contribute my paean.

Now that I've seen the whole thing, I'd like to sing its praises. Loud and to everyone. This show is simply the best show I've ever come across. Bar none. There you go.

Okay, there's some people that aren't going to cotton to such a bold statement. What about Firefly, what about Star Trek: The Next Generation, what about Get a Life!, and so on. All good shows; heck, all great shows. But one shows got to be the best and I think you couldn't go wrong with Wonderfalls.

Now that I have your attention, allow me to attempt to explain its plot. The show centers around Jaye Tyler, played adroitly by Caroline Dhavernas, a twenty-something who works at a Niagra Falls gift shop as a cashier and lives in a trailer park. She's got a philosophy degree from Brown, but she's something of a slacker. Everything's nice and boring, which she wants, until one day a deformed wax lion from one of those machines present at nearly all tourist traps tells her to return a quarter that a lady dropped. She complies—after questioning her sanity—and a chain of events takes place as a result of her action. This convinces her that something odd is afoot.

After being commanded to do several more things by other inanimate animal figures, she starts to believe she's going crazy. Each thing she does at their behest ends up being exciting and unexpected. She tries to resist their urging at one point but relents after they drone a stereophonic version of "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall." She gives up any resistance after that and rarely questions the wisdom of their requests throughout the series.

There's a variety of subplots that play out over the course of the series, but I couldn't possibly do them justice. Suffice it to say that they do not detract one bit from the main plot line, which is artfully developed across the entire set of 13 episodes. The theme, if I had to pin it down, is that you should accept your destiny because it might lead you to something worthwhile that you'd never considered before. Okay, that's a horrible theme—on account of there being no destiny—but it's very well developed and presented. One could probably also make a convincing case that the animals' talking is actually Jaye's subconscious but that could just be reading into things.

The most amazing aspect of the show is the character development. There's seven main characters and several regular ones. As the show progresses, you can really identify and empathize with the characters. In fact, I found myself predicting what a given character might do or how he might react to a situation. Further, their personalities are very nuanced and complex: Jaye and Eric, her romantic interest, for example, are individually complex and their relationship is fascinating to watch grow. Maybe it's just me, but I've never encountered a show that had such a rich story and backstory.

It's a shame that Fox cancelled the show when it did but I'm glad that I was able to see it this way instead of being restricted to the four episodes that they actually ran out of order. I would heartily recommend this show to anyone that likes intelligent comedy and interesting psychologies.

[UPDATE (1/17/2006): I just finished watching the entire series again—I bought the DVD set for Christmas—and I now think it's even better than I remember. Watching a series sequentially instead of disjointedly allows one to appreciate the character development much better. Watching episodes with subtitles allows one to catch the very subtle and witty dialogue. My next viewing will be with commentary so I can get the full Wonderfalls experience. Sadly, I don't see this coming to the big screen à la Firefly.]

Here's some excellent articles and blog entries I've been collecting:

• "Complete" and "Freeze" Aren't: an elaboration of the problems with "functional milestones."
• People Who Lower Productivity: I am still struggling to understand the situation at my previous employer that prompted me to leave for Go Daddy. Understand that I think it was the best move I've ever made and have absolutely zero regrets, but I don't like leaving lingering question marks over episodes in my life. I'm still not sure that this fully explains the person in question, but it's getting me closer.
• "Why Software Sucks": I loved Scott Berkun's writing when he was usability guy at Microsoft but he's really come into his own as an author writing about project management.
• Set Your Priorities: I'm not a big fan of the democratic approach to feature planning. I believe, like the big man himself, that you should primarily decide your own feature set. Taking polls and focus groups doesn't work because most people don't know that they want or need a feature until it's in front of them. There are people, to be sure, that have ideas of their own but they're hard to find. In fact, I've never seen them in the wild and I'm starting to believe that their description falls within cryptozoology. Joel's exercise is definitely another approach to feature planning, but I'm not sure that I like it's much better. Not everyone that would be involved is vested in the company's long-term strategic interests, comprehends the market, or is visionary and imaginative. It's a fact of life. I'm not saying that the decision-makers that normally do such things are any of the above but there's a better chance that they are.
• Baby Steps to Synergistic Web Apps: some thoughts about truly taking web applications to the next level—a cliche that I abhor though its utility is clearly why it's become shopworn. The author suggests that we need a Web equivalent to interapplication communication akin to the operating system's clipboard model. I think Flock is a start to this, but I'm pretty sure that I don't want the interoperation to occur at the browser level.
• Startup School: lots of notes on the Web about this conference: here, here, here

So I've long said that I'm not going to buy another Macintosh until they went quad processor. It seemed to me that if they could have two CPUs they have could have four. Why wouldn't I wait for some monster of a machine before plunking down the Mac premium?

They finally make one, but it's on a CPU that they've publicly deprecated. Oh sure, it'll be around forever and blah, blah, blah. As someone who bought a 68040-based Mac a month before Apple unveiled the PowerPC chip, I'm not going to be relegated to the Mac ghetto again. Once the Intel-based CPUs exist across the line, the formerly slavered-over G5s will be like the G4s were when the G5 was announced.

The other major objection, that four cores is four cores, forgets that Apple can't take a step back performance-wise when they move the platform. The bar has been set and anything in the future will have to be a step up. Since I am not currently hurting for a new computer, I can wait. Nay, I must wait.

One of the best things about this new blog product is that we had the second mover's advantage. By that I mean that we could learn from the earlier competitors and make decisions informed by their experiences, not that we aped the competition.

Having been a consumer of blogging technologies for years and years, it was incredible working on the blogging engine I've always wanted. It's not exactly as I had envisioned—compromises must be made and sometimes, *gasp*, my vision was wrong—but it's very, very close. The best part was getting to work on technologies that I previously had only been a consumer of; the feed wars, for example, were never fully real to me because I had always just used the provided templates.

[NOTE: The views expressed on this website/weblog are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Go Daddy Software, Inc.]

Suffice it to say, I will be moving this blog over to the new product as soon as it's publicly available (well, maybe a little bit before that ;-) instead of Textpattern as I had planned.

I'm happy to say that I can finally discuss what I've been working on for these last four months. Bob Parsons, my employer, spilled the beans on his blog in a comment. The Go Daddy Personal Website and Weblog Guidelines state that I cannot "disclose any information that is confidential or proprietary to the company or to any third party that has a relationship with the company." That means I can confirm its existence though I can't go into any further details.

[NOTE: The views expressed on this website/weblog are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Go Daddy Software, Inc.]

This blog entry by Matt Warren on the next version of C# after 3.0 had better be a joke. I just flashed back to Applescript reading the example.

Marchitecture: ooo, I love this term for an "architecture produced for marketing reasons, normally by a vendor." At my last job, this would have been so useful.

I'm doing a final sprint this weekend to complete the project by Monday. I'm going to work a regular shift during the day, work from home tonight, and then work whatever it takes tomorrow to get the thing done. The more and more I work on this app, the more convinced that it's destined for greatness. The first release will should give a solid impression and each successive release will only strengthen it.

[NOTE: The views expressed on this website/weblog are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Go Daddy Software, Inc.]

So Google's added an online RSS aggregator to their Google Labs. I was excited to say the least and quickly imported an OPML version of my Bloglines subscriptions (numbering 279 at present). I figured that I'd switch in a heartbeat if it was cool like Google Maps—you know, a whole new way of looking at feeds. After the import, it said that I had 211 feeds so there's the first blemish.

After trying to mimic my Bloglines style of reading feeds and failing miserably, I took the tour to see what the developers had intended the flow to be like. Uhh, nothing much there. Slugging through the interface, I was confronted by numerous slowdowns. As near as I can figure, this is geared towards someone with a limited number of subscriptions that likes to browse each item one by one.

The initial screen you're dropped into after importing or adding subscriptions reads like a long chronological list of feed items. By default, they're sorted by relevance, which has no meaning since I haven't given Google a context to determine what is relevant or not. Further, I carefully organize my feeds into folders (called labels by Google Reader) so that I can read a folder at a time, thereby making my huge feed collection digestible. The imported labels are nowhere to be found on the initial screen. I have to click on "Your subscriptions"—an odd formulation for "my" feed reader—and that adds a little table above the regular feed reading interface where I can see labels and the feeds they contain. If I click on a label, it appears to bring up the feeds it subsumes into the reader interface but it's hard to say.

So, for me, Google Reader is a no go for the following reasons:

1. I couldn't possibly deal with its slowness. It would be beyond maddening over time.
2. I want labels on the front page so that I can easily read the feeds they hide.
3. There needs to be a way to view all the items in a feed or folder of feeds at once and mark all of them read. My general feed reading style is to scroll through a dozen feeds worth of items in one long page, looking for things that strike me. Feeds aren't email: there's just too many items to scroll through one by one.
4. Google Reader is missing the helpful little details that Bloglines has: the Firefox extension for easy subscription, the subscriber count on every feed, Citations (oh, what a lovely feature), the item counts on the folders and the individual feeds, and countless other little UI niceties that make for a more satisfying experience. Granted, Google Reader is still in its infancy but I'm certainly not growing to stick around to raise it.

[UPDATE: Oh, one thing that it does have is excellent Javascript obfuscation. I have to hope that there is an automatic step that transforms nice, well-documented Javascript into this. If there isn't, then I hope the QA process is extensive since I could see typographical errors being really serious business with that.]

Educating Others: I wish Mark were blogging again. I'm poring through Dive Into Python and I am constantly reminded of how enjoyable a writer he is.

[UPDATE (10/13/2005): Apparently, his generosity knows no bounds: HOWTO Put Porn On Your iPod.]

Burn this into your memory, Bill Brown: null is not a comparable value in SQL. " null" IS NOT true. Grrrr.

[UPDATE (10/20/2005): Uhh, "= null" is just as bad. Geesh.]

One last burst of crunch time. We're due to have the new application complete by Monday. That's aggressive, but feasible if we all pull together and do the work. Regrettably, the app is currently wending its way through QA and that makes things a bit more complicated. The hours I'm working are quite a bit more reasonable and I'm doing most of the overtime from home, so my family hasn't been as affected as they were last time.

I was recently reflecting on how far we've come since I finished the specification on June 9th and started active development on June 15th. We've tripled the team's size (heh) and written an app that spans 14 projects in the VisualStudio solution consisting of way over 50K LOC. There's three Windows services (four if you count that other one), 47 tables, and 190 stored procedures. That's about as specific as I can get at this point. It's easily the proudest I've ever been of my development chops and the overall product created.

Better still, we had a company-wide webcast on Monday where Bob increased vacation time for newbies like me from 2 weeks to 3 and decreased the tenure required to use it from 6 months to 1! All the other levels of seniority also saw their weekly totals jump one or two weeks per year, effective immediately. I remember watching it and thinking, "What other company bumps up vacation time like that?!" He also finally added developers to the quarterly prize giveaways, a nice nod even though I didn't get any dough. Two people on my cube aisle did, though, and a guy in dedicated hosting that I know also won so at least I could feel good for my colleagues.

[NOTE: The views expressed on this website/weblog are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Go Daddy Software, Inc.]