March 2004

30Mar2004

Three Minor Velocity Peeves

Now to be fair, these are minor niggles, and two of the three are very clearly pointed out in the Velocity documentation as places in which the language does not behave the way you'd expect it to. Given that you've been warned, any mistakes you make as a result are your fault, right?

25Mar2004

What is a Robot?

Or maybe I'm just making it one. Is the general consensus that "Robot" as defined by the exclusion protocol means "Indexing spider"?

22Mar2004

You know you've lost it when...

You know you've completely lost it, though, when after failing to get the pointer to cross between computers the first time, you slam the pointer harder against the side of the screen, with the unconscious belief that if you just push hard enough, it'll make it across the gap.

21Mar2004

Charles' Rules of Argument

If I get in an online argument these days, I inevitably just end up annoyed that this thing is taking up too much of my time, and that the _other_ party in the argument obviously has all the spare time I don't have any more.

19Mar2004

In Defense of Wiki Markup

Against a collaboration software that combines the expressiveness of HTML, the simplicity of WYSIWYG and the seamless networking of SubEthaEdit, all in a package that people actually want to use regularly, we have wikis. Wikis have the advantage of... well... existing.

18Mar2004

Buying a Sofa

When you buy furniture you tell yourself: "That's it. That's the last sofa I'm gonna need. Whatever else happens, I've got that sofa problem handled."

16Mar2004

Discontinuation

As I examined each of my issues with the concept of continuation-based web programming in enough detail to write about them, I discovered they weren't really problems at all... that is, all but one.

15Mar2004

Times When I am Truly Happy

I still run Linux at work because I can't program without the Unix tools around me, and every time I use Cygwin I feel the immense philosophical disjunct between the Unix tools and their Windows environment. But I think the above explains why at home, I turned my last Linux box off last week, and now it sits unpowered next to its year-idle Win2k counterpart.

14Mar2004

Google Evil?

I've always basically believed that Google were genuine about their "Don't be evil" credo, despite recent growing pains and stuff-ups.

11Mar2004

Frameworks, Good Code and the Opposite of YAGNI

As a programmer, you're responsible for the code. If any of these other things get screwed up, your project may well be doomed. If any of these other things are done well, your project may succeed despite bad code. But at the end of the day, your job is to make the best of what _you're_ being paid to do.

11Mar2004

Introspection is the Enemy of Blogging

I've allowed myself time to think about them. The inspiration has faded, but in thinking I've given myself even more ideas that I need to perspire over before the article is done. And that's what kills them.

02Mar2004

Defending YAGNI

YAGNI tells us not to implement features blindly or architect clever "flexible" solutions just in case: it asks us to keep in mind that there is a cost to everything, and that we should prioritize development of things we know we need over things we might need later.