Tag Archives: bitrot

How Ning made me a chump and how you can avoid it

Pals, User Experience, , , , , , , , ,

The problem with Software as a Service is you don’t own it.

You get it for free, but you don’t have a stake and you don’t have negotiating power.  Instead, try to work with services that give you an exit plan or that have the safety stamp of an aGPL license. 1

Who cares?

Vim pretties up with the Vivid Chalk theme.Let me back up and tell you a story about a social network I created.  Two big-time development bloggers, Jeff and Scott, were writing posts back and forth about how what colors they liked in their text editors and what fonts they used.

I’m not kidding, this is important in a job where most of what you do is sip coffee and type.  I’ve certainly killed some time messing about with how I color my  source code. Continue reading How Ning made me a chump and how you can avoid it →

  1. The Autonomo.us project has a great list of alternatives that either AGPL or CC or something you can use.  Check out this guide to replacing what you are using now with services that keep you free.  (back)

Why the Business Hates the Software Developers

Dev, Incentives, , , , , ,

Inspired by “Why I Hate Frameworks” “Why I Hate Frameworks”

So I wanted a custom spice rack, one that would really help my restaurant, but I didn’t want to build it myself.  I’m no carpenter.  I hired one though.
“Can you build me a spice rack? Here’s what I need – “
“Just a sec,” he interrupted. “I’m going to start building some hammers while you talk.”
“Don’t you already have some hammers?”
“Sure, but those were for past projects.  There’s better ways to build hammers these days.”
“Here – I have a hammer already.  It got left behind by the guy who hung the pictures in the restaurant.  Use this.”
“SIR! I don’t think that using a framing hammer is going to help us develop this spicerack.  Please!”