What first programming language should learn a wannabe programmer? When I was a beginner, we were supposed to build our computers ourselves: layout and make the board, buy the chips, solder them on the board, test and debug the hardware, organize a ROM with some operating system… When we were ready, we could turn on the …
Category Archives: tech-and-biz
Visual Studio 2011 User Experience
Just watched the sneak peek video: They have desaturated IDE chrome UI so that it is mostly monochrome now (i.e. no colors in the toolbar buttons), with occasional splashes of Metro-nesque deep blue colors, and I find it the most successful Visual Studio UI redesign ever. First, it is stylish. Second, it channels the focus on the colored …
Software Development Culture Test
This is a test of your organization software development culture. The answer ”a” gives you 0 points, “b” gives 1 point, “c” gives you 2 points, etc. Sum all the points. You can spent as much time as you want to. 1. Software Design Approach. You need to program a new feature. a) You read a manual, a book …
Adventures in embedded C land
Preface I don’t think of myself as a software developer. My motivation to learn and work in software development was based on the idea of building things. But if you think about it, software alone is not a “thing”, it is just a component of software product. Even worse, it is an invisible component nobody …
iScreen
Before we start, I’d like to remind that this post, like all other posts on this site, reflect only my personal opinion, not of my employer. There are more and more rumors that Apple will announce a new TV set around March next year, and the press speculates about its features and look. Well, I think, …
Open Source: past perfect?
What motivates people to create open source software? On the one hand, efforts required for it are greater than those couple of days spent by students on solving their toy assignments, on the other hand it is almost impossible to sell, and it is very hard to do “consulting” kind of business around it. So why is it worth …
Product or Platform
The infamous internal-accidentally-turned-external post of Steve Yegge (now deleted, but saved for history in many places, for example here) is a typical rant. You know, that kind of rants where you start writing about one big topic, then jump to another unrelated one, and then bounce in-between trying to come-up with a resume reasonably combining …
Bungee
Switching jobs is always stressful. But changing from web development with Microsoft technologies to embedded Linux development is like bungee jumping. Not that I’ve ever jumped bungee. But I like overstated comparisons :) Seriously, judge for yourself. Before, I was proud that I’ve ever compiled Linux kernel from its sources before (which is untypical for a hardcore …
Security of Web 2.0
There are quite a lot white papers about security on software level. You know, all those situations when an attacker sends some information not in the format expected by the software, and the latter fails; or passing some pieces of code in the registration form in places not intended for that and ending up with executing …
The Secret of a Great Software Architecture
Software architecture is art of expressing business with technology. Technology has its limitations. If you pursue business goals without getting in touch with the technology, you will hit its limitations. When business hits technology, the latter won’t be hurt. The former will. Business has not unlimited time and budget. If you evolve technology without getting in touch …
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