December 10, 2004
Grok Headline matches for December 10, 2004
December 27, 2004
December 27, 2004
12/27/2004 12:57 PM
In response to the emergency in Asia,
Fog Creek Software will donate
50% of all revenues earned this week (Dec 26 - Jan 1) to Oxfam. You can also make a direct contribution yourself.
December 06, 2004
December 06, 2004
12/19/2004 03:24 PM
Tamir Nitzan tries to explain.
First, the word he mentions (pronounced "davka") has
a couple of different meanings, depending on context. But the slang
meaning he refers to can loosely be translated to "in spite". For
example - "why won't you let your little sister have the toy?" Answer:
"davka" (embodying "I won't give her the toy BECAUSE she wants it so
much").
As for the expressions (pronounced "rosh katan" -
little head, vs. "rosh gadol" - big head). This expression comes from
the IDF, and as most military language, doesn't quite translate into
normal language. A "rosh katan" (literally "little head", and I
actually think it is the original expression which derived most likely
from "pinhead", the contrast later came in as a complement) is someone
that does exactly what he's told. For instance, someone might be told
to clean the barrel of their rifle. A "rosh katan" will strictly clean
the barrel, perhaps leaving it useless because the trigger mechanism
has sand in it, whereas a "rosh gadol" will clean the entire rifle and
lubricate it so it's ready for use and doesn't rust. Another example:
you tell a soldier to "go notify so-and-so that we will be ready for
inspection at 1600". By 1700 you're curious, so you ask him "did you
notify?". His answer might be "well I called his office and left a
message". A "rosh gadol" would likely say: "I called his office but
got his voice mail, so I left a message. I called back an hour later
but still got voice mail, so I called his cell phone and left a
message there too. I tried him again an hour after that and he assured
me he will be here by 1600. I called him again 20 minutes ago and he
said he was on his way but stuck in traffic" (a real "rosh gadol"
would have notified his C.O. of all this without being asked of
course).
Let me elaborate here... this is exactly right. Rosh
katan is sometimes used in parts of the former British Commonwealth as
labor action referred to as "work to rule." For some reason you can't
go on strike, so you very carefully do your job exactly as prescribed,
in a cussedly literal-minded way. "You told me to clean the toilet.
You did not say to tell you when I was done. Therefore in
accordance with your instructions I cleaned the toilet and stayed
there in the toilet room waiting for further instructions." Someone
who is working to rule can always demonstrate that no matter how many
orders you give someone, they can probably make themselves 100%
useless while still obeying every order you give them. This
passive-aggressive behavior is quite frowned upon in the Israeli army
where the slang rosh katan (small head) describes it.
However, it is often one of the only ways to resist authority in a
system which is likely to penalize direct disobedience with swift and
harsh penalties.
For example, if I assign a bug to a developer I expect
them to:
-
reproduce the bug
-
if it's not immediately reproducible, make a good faith effort to
figure out why it's happening to me instead of just assuming that I'm
doped up on anti-allergy medication and hallucinating it
-
find the root cause
-
do some searches to see if the same errors were made elsewhere in
the code
-
fix them all
-
test the fix
-
think about whether this bug might be causing serious
implications for a customer who needs to be told about the
fix
-
etc.
That's the Rosh Gadol behavior. Possible Rosh Katan behaviors would
be
-
resolved-not-repro. You can always get away with this once
without even trying to repro the bug, because later you can pretend
you didn't understand the bug report.
-
without even reproing the bug, make a change to the source code
that seems like it would fix it and resolve it as fixed. If it wasn't,
I'll catch it when I close the bug, right? And if it's really still
broken, surely another tester will find it.
Rosh Gadol of course is quite the opposite: taking initiative and
doing what is desired, not what is requested. Eric Sink alluded to it,
in the difference between programmers
and developers.
Back to Tamir.
Lastly there's MSF. The author's complaint about
methodologies is that they essentially transform people into
compliance monkeys. "our system isn't working" -- "but we signed all
the phase exits!". Intuitively, there is SOME truth in that. Any
methodology that aims to promote consistency essentially has to cater
to a lowest common denominator. The concept of a "repeatable process"
implies that while all people are not the same, they can all produce
the same way, and should all be monitored similarly. For instance, in
software development, we like to have people unit-test their code.
However, a good, experienced developer is about 100 times less likely
to write bugs that will be uncovered during unit tests than a
beginner. It is therefore practically useless for the former to write
these... but most methodologies would enforce that he has to, or else
you don't pass some phase. At that point, he's spending say 30% of his
time on something essentially useless, which demotivates him. Since he
isn't motivated to develop aggressively, he'll start giving large
estimates, then not doing much, and perform his 9-5 duties to the
letter. Project in crisis? Well, I did my unit tests. The rough
translation of his sentence is: "methodologies encourage rock stars to
become compliance monkeys, and I need everyone on my team to be a rock
star".
Exactly true. Daniel on the discussion group found a
classic quote from Herman Wouk's Caine Mutiny:
"The Navy is a master
plan designed by geniuses for execution by idiots. If you're not an
idiot, but find yourself in the Navy, you can only operate well by
pretending to be one. All the shortcuts and economies and common-sense
changes that your native intelligence suggests to you are mistakes.
Learn to quash them. Constantly ask yourself, 'How would I do this if
I were a fool?' Throttle down your mind to a crawl. Then you'll never
go wrong."
The trouble with MSF is that it starts with a group of
successful developers, who are successful because they are
resourceful, intelligent, experienced, well-meaning, and have plush
private offices with doors that close, and then attempts to claim that
if impose some of their "best practices" on your team of unskilled
developers, you will achieve the same results. It's like Daniel Boulud
selling a manual to McDonald's fry cooks. "Out of potatoes? Try Yams.
Throw in a bit of rosemary. Toss and serve with a lime-basil aioli
dipping sauce. Yum." It's just Best Practices, right?
December 15, 2004
December 15, 2004
12/19/2004 03:24 PM
All these p
eople gr
iping about how writing software isn't fun anymore probably didn't
notice that here in the northern hemisphere, we're only about a week
away from the shortest day of the
year. Install some bright lights, drink some coffee, take a
vacation in Tahiti, and tell me in April if you still think software
development is depressing.
Google
Suggest
I had to change my home page back to regular Google due to a fairly
blatant usability bug in Google Suggest. Repro steps:
- Move your mouse so it's over the "Google Search" button
- Type "Joel"
- Click the mouse button immediately
The bug: often, the timing is such that the Google Suggest popup
appears after I type Joel but before I click the mouse, so I think I'm
clicking on the "Google Search" button intending to search for, say,
Joel, not that I would search for myself, after all, I'm
right here, but I'm really clicking on the popup listbox item for
"Joel Turner", whoever that is. Any relation to Tina? Or Bachman?
I still think Google Suggest is important—I'm sure they'll fix
this little problem. It's important not for searching, but because
it's going to teach web users to expect highly responsive user
interfaces:
- If you have a website that shows a map, and the user clicks to
zoom in, they're going to expect the map to zoom in, quickly—they
will no longer tolerate the full-page-reload-and-scroll-to-the-top
that Mapquest has conditioned them to accept.
- If you show a list, and let people click on the column headers to
sort by different columns, they're no longer going to tolerate the
full-page-reload-and-scroll-to-the-top that certain unnamed bug
tracking applications have conditioned them to accept.
- If you have an email application, and you show people a list of
email and give them a button to delete email as spam, they're going to
expect virtually instantaneous response time, not the
full-page-reload-and-scroll-to-the-top that most web email programs
have conditioned them to accept.
That's what I meant by "raising the bar."
More Google
Attention, FogBugz competitors: a court has ruled that you are welcome to continue to
advertise your products when people search for FogBugz on Google. I actually don't think
there's anything wrong with this although it does show a certain lack
of class, mm, don't you think? You don't see Wal*Mart advertising when
you search for Tiffany.
December 17, 2004
December 17, 2004
12/19/2004 03:24 PM
Mer
cury News: “Accounting rule makers handed down long-awaited
final guidelines Thursday that will force companies to deduct the
value of billions of dollars of employee stock options from reported
profits starting in mid-2005.”
Here's some old discussion of what this means.
The old Silicon Valley hands are unhappy with the general concept
of expensing stock options, and one reason they often give for this is
the difficulty of figuring out the value of stock options. But anybody
in the investment industry, and indeed, anyone with a rudimentary
understanding of financial accounting knows that accounting for the
value of an illiquid asset is always a problem yet something you
always have to do anyway, and just because the value of stock options
changes over time or because it is not possible to fix exactly does
not mean it shouldn't be accounted for consistently.
December 16, 2004
December 16, 2004
12/19/2004 03:24 PM
“When you're setting a price, you're sending a signal. If
your competitor's software ranges in price from about $100 to about
$500, and you decide, heck, my product is about in the middle of the
road, so I'll sell it for $300, well, what message do you think you're
sending to your customers? You're telling them that you think your
software is ‘eh.’ I have a better idea: charge $1350. Now
your customers will think, ‘oh, man, that stuff has to be
the cat's whiskers since they're charging mad coin
for it!’”
Camels and Rubber Duckies
December 04, 2004
December 04, 2004
12/19/2004 03:24 PM
I just ordered a copy of The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax, which, among
other things, debunks the stories about how Eskimos have lots of words
for snow.
Now for the bit that only Hebrew speakers are going to
understand.
No matter how debunked Whorf is, I'm still convinced that Israelis
are more likely to do things דווקא,
simply because they have a word for it. And I have been forced to
write entir
e essays simply because I cannot find any other way to convey to
English speakers the difference between ראש גדול and ראש
קטן. All I wanted to say was that methodologies encourage ראש
קטן and I need everyone on my team to be ראש גדול.
To someone who has never learned Hebrew it takes me two or three
books to explain that. M
SF is a fraud–an attempt to consolidate all the ראש גדול
things Microsoft programmers do in a set of rules which are supposed
to work if you force ראש קטן bizonim to implement them.
And it’s never going to work.
I have been trying to translate this simple concept to English for
years and am just about ready to give up. The Joel on Software award
for excellence in technical translation will go to the person who can
best express the preceding two paragraphs in English!
December 25, 2004
December 25, 2004
12/25/2004 05:06 PM
Auggie Wren's Christmas Story, by Paul
Auster, was the inspiration for the movie Smoke.
December 03, 2004
December 03, 2004
12/19/2004 03:24 PM
See that little picture of the books on the left hand side? It used to
be 42,241 bytes long. 34,885 of those bytes were in a useless
"application block" that some photo editing program put there. Thanks
to
Dennis Forbes, who posted an explanation and a
free utility to remove the unneeded bloat, it's now only 7354
bytes.
December 08, 2004
December 08, 2004
12/19/2004 03:24 PM
Scott Rosenberg interviewed me for Salon. “The connection between software
and Yiddish humor may not have been evident until Joel Spolsky began
writing his Joel on Software essays and blog in 2000.”
December 02, 2004
December 02, 2004
12/19/2004 03:24 PM
Interesting seminar. We had about 700 people in the audience. From
my P.O.V., it was way too short -- I could have talked about this
social interface design for hours. And the Electric Cloud stuff was
interesting enough but admittedly unrelated to my own topic which made
the whole seminar kind of out of whack.
December 13, 2004
December 13, 2004
12/19/2004 03:24 PM
Upcoming Joel on Software meals:
di
nner in Bellevue, WA on January 18th and
lu
nch in Toronto January 21st. Please RSVP so I can get a count.
These are always very informal geek-out sessions, lots of fun and a
chance to meet other readers in your area.
December 23, 2004
December 23, 2004
12/24/2004 01:14 PM
Brett has written up instru
ctions for upgrading PHP to the latest version and getting it
working with FogBugz. These instructions should be useful to anyone
who needs to upgrade PHP due to the recent
security flaw.
Happy Fifth
Tomorrow is the fifth anniversary of Joel on Software!
Job Openings
Organize my life and run the office at Fog Creek Software: Exe
cutive Assistant / Office Manager.
And don't forget, when you're home for the holidays and you see all
your cousins, siblings, and aunts who have been away at college: we
have great
summer internships, so please encourage them to apply!
News - December 27, 2004
News - December 27, 2004
12/28/2004 02:59 AMG4 Tech TV Dec 28 2004 6:04AM GMT
Quake IV December 31, 2004?
Quake IV December 31, 2004?
07/04/2004 09:15 AMThe Lockergnome Universe for December
2004
The Lockergnome Universe for December
2004
12/19/2004 03:41 PM
Lockergnome's Windows Fanatics:
Smile, and the World Emoticons
with You
Lockergnome's IT Professionals:
Windows Server 2003 Auditing
Lockergnome's Web Developers:
Send those worms home to roost
Lockergnome's RSS & Atom Tips:
Technorati This Favelet
Lockergnome's OS X Fanatics:
CLIX v1.4
Lockergnome's Linux Fanatics:
Drop Those Terminal Windows
Lockergnome's Political Geeks:
Statement From the Green
Party Presidential Campaign Concerning John Kerry's ...
Lockergnome's Hardware Help:
Hardware slump predicted
Lockergnome's Technobabble:
Online Background
Check: Just The Facts, Jack
Lockergnome's Media Center:
Casio Exilim EX Z50 Review
Lockergnome's Game Invasion:
Atari Flashback
Lockergnome's Mobile Lifestyle:
Text input methods
for Tablets and Ultra-portables
Lockergnome's Search Engineer:
Handbook of Latin American
Studies (HLAS)
Lockergnome's Net Patrol:
Boulder Pledge
Lockergnome's Tech News Watch:
Hacked in Four Minutes Flat
Windows File of the Day:
Burn Rubber
This Fortnight in Perl 6, December 1 - 6
2004
This Fortnight in Perl 6, December 1 - 6
2004
12/19/2004 03:27 PMMatt Fowles summarizes the Perl 6 mailing lists: the Perl 6 language
list discusses a shiny new syntax update, and the Parrot list
discusses what is and isn't up for grabs.
This Fortnight in Perl 6, December 7-20
2004
This Fortnight in Perl 6, December 7-20
2004
12/29/2004 08:11 PMMatt Fowles summarizes the Perl 6 mailing lists: the Perl 6 language
list discusses hashes, classes, and variables; the Perl 6 Compiler
list launches code; and the Parrot list fixes lots and lots of bugs.
This Fortnight in Perl 6, December 21 -
31 2004
This Fortnight in Perl 6, December 21 -
31 2004
01/06/2005 08:10 PMMatt Fowles summarizes the Perl 6 mailing lists with the final summary
of 2004. What's on the lists? Patches, design decisions, and lots of
theory.
Benjamin Rosenbaum - Journal for
December 2004
Benjamin Rosenbaum - Journal for
December 2004
01/01/2005 12:21 PMBenjamin Rosenbaum: Tsunami Relief: Charity Efficiency and
Transparency Ratings .. rates the charities .. get a good rating ..
guide
benjaminrosenbaum.com/blog/archives/2004_12.html#000151
track
this site | 3 links
Independent Status Reports (20 December,
2004)
Independent Status Reports (20 December,
2004)
12/22/2004 01:21 AMDecember 2004 Bandwidth Report Now
Online
December 2004 Bandwidth Report Now
Online
02/01/2005 08:51 PMThe Bandwidth Report is a monthly roundup of connectivity trends in
the US and elsewhere. Each month's bandwidth report offers the latest
statistics in Internet connectivity and broadband trends.
php|architect: December 2004 Issue
Released!
php|architect: December 2004 Issue
Released!
12/19/2004 03:19 PMJust a quick note to remind all of those out there looking for the
latest from
php|architect - their
December 2004 issue has
been released.
"Protest Over 'Homeland Security U' -
December 24, 2004 - The..."
"Protest Over 'Homeland Security U' -
December 24, 2004 - The..."
12/26/2004 04:42 PMAMD Athlon XP Heatsink roundup: December
2004
AMD Athlon XP Heatsink roundup: December
2004
12/29/2004 09:31 AMProtest Over 'Homeland Security U' -
December 24, 2004 - The New York Sun
Protest Over 'Homeland Security U' -
December 24, 2004 - The New York Sun
12/26/2004 03:17 AMstudents at the Borough of Manhattan Community College .. Protest Over
‘Homeland Security U’ .. New York
Sun
nysun.com/article/6767
track this
site | 3 links
December 2003 Zillman Column - Online
Shopping 2004
December 2003 Zillman Column - Online
Shopping 2004
11/18/2003 07:52 PMDecember 2003 Zillman Column - Online Shopping
2004http://virtualprivatelibrary.blogspot.com/Online Shopping
2004.pdfhttp://www.zillmancolumns.com/
The December 2003 Zillman Column is now
available and is titled
Online Shopping 2004. This
column brings together the many resources for shopping online
including ShoppingBots during the upcoming holiday period as well as
throughout 2004. This is a "must" read for anyone even thinking about
doing some shopping on the Internet! Shop until you drop with the
ShoppingBots!
This Week on perl5-porters (29 December
2003 / 4 January 2004)
This Week on perl5-porters (29 December
2003 / 4 January 2004)
01/05/2004 02:50 PMAt the turn of the year, and in accordance with the grand schedule of
things, occurred a code freeze for perl 5.8.3. Read below for the rest
of the discussion that took place on perl5-porters.
The Australian: Gerard Baker: Tsunami
must be fault of the US [December 31,
2004]
The Australian: Gerard Baker: Tsunami
must be fault of the US [December 31,
2004]
01/01/2005 06:33 PMthe US military base located on the island of Diego Garcia somehow
knew but didn't do anything to alert anybody else .. 'Tsunami must be
fault of the US' .. Gerard
Baker
theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,11813903%5E
7583,00.html
track this
site | 3 links
eGain Announces Conference Call for
Quarter Ending December 31, 2004
eGain Announces Conference Call for
Quarter Ending December 31, 2004
02/01/2005 09:05 PMMarket Wire Jan 31 2005 1:44PM GMT
A Top Kofi Annan Aide Insults Israeli
Leader - December 30, 2004 - The New
York Sun
A Top Kofi Annan Aide Insults Israeli
Leader - December 30, 2004 - The New
York Sun
12/31/2004 12:43 PM"After the incident in Dubai two weeks ago, Mr. Annan promised
him in a private conversation that Mr. Brahimi would not repeat such
statements," .. A Top Kofi Annan Aide Insults Israeli Leader ..
today's reason to despise Kofi Annan
nysun.com/article/6940
track this
site | 4 links
Rocketinfo, Inc. to Present at the
Small-Cap Discovery Conference in New
York City on December 9, 2004
Rocketinfo, Inc. to Present at the
Small-Cap Discovery Conference in New
York City on December 9, 2004
12/17/2004 06:28 PMMarket Wire Dec 7 2004 10:59PM GMT
Geac Computer Corporation Limited - 2004
Second Quarter Results - December 4,
2003
Geac Computer Corporation Limited - 2004
Second Quarter Results - December 4,
2003
12/05/2003 02:09 AMCanadaIT.com Dec 5 2003 1:08AM ET
CBS News | Mexican City Bans Indoor
Nudity | December 22, 2004 18:00:19
CBS News | Mexican City Bans Indoor
Nudity | December 22, 2004 18:00:19
12/25/2004 05:00 PMyou can go to jail naked with your favorite peeping Tom .. Mexican
City Bans Indoor Nudity .. a law banning indoor nudity .. someplace
other than Texas .. CBS News ..
CBSNews
cbsnews.com/stories/2004/12/22/world/main662584.shtml
track
this site | 3 links
U.N. official slams U.S. as 'stingy'
over aid - The Washington Times:
Nation/Politics - December 28, 2004
U.N. official slams U.S. as 'stingy'
over aid - The Washington Times:
Nation/Politics - December 28, 2004
12/29/2004 07:42 AMwe, as individuals, come through every time we are asked .. UN
official slams U.S. tsunami aid as 'stingy' .. the evil of low tax
rates .. American "stinginess" .. Washington Times .. tacky ..
Link:
washtimes.com/national/20041228-122330-7268r.htm
track this
site | 9 links
V2N52 December 27, 2004 Current
Awareness Happenings on the Internet:
Social Informatics
V2N52 December 27, 2004 Current
Awareness Happenings on the Internet:
Social Informatics
12/29/2004 07:35 AM
Social Informatics Subject Tracer™ Information
Blog
This edition of Current Awareness
Happenings on the Internet by
Marcus P. Zillman, M.S.,
A.M.H.A. December 29, 2004 V2N52 discusses the latest
Subject Tracer™
Information Blog Social Informatics. Click on the
below audio posting to hear an audio by Marcus P. Zillman on this
latest Subject Tracer™ discussing online social networking
resources and sites available on the world wide web. View this Subject
Tracer™ Information Blog at:
Social
Informatics Subject Tracer™ Information Blog
http://www.SocialInformatics.
net/
V2N51 December 20, 2004 Current
Awareness Happenings on the Internet:
Online Social Networking
V2N51 December 20, 2004 Current
Awareness Happenings on the Internet:
Online Social Networking
12/22/2004 01:18 AM
Online Social
Networking Internet MiniGuide
This edition of
Current Awareness Happenings on the Internet by
Marcus P. Zillman, M.S.,
A.M.H.A. December 20, 2004 V2N51 discusses his white paper
Online Social Networking - An Internet MiniGuide
Annotated Link Compilation . Click on the below audio posting to hear
an audio by Marcus P. Zillman on this very exciting white paper
featuring many excellent resources and sites for online social and
business networking ... the next wave of the Internet! View this white
paper at:
Online Social Networking - An
Internet MiniGuide Annotated Link Compilation
http://zillman.blogspot.com/2004/09/online-social-networki
ng-internet.html
Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah
Marshall: December 26, 2004 - January
01, 2005 Archives
Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah
Marshall: December 26, 2004 - January
01, 2005 Archives
12/30/2004 06:28 AMPresident's latest response .. blaming Bill Clinton .. this bit of
crud:
talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_26.php#004306
track
this site | 4 links
"Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah
Marshall: December 28, 2003 - January
03, 2004 Archives"
"Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah
Marshall: December 28, 2003 - January
03, 2004 Archives"
12/31/2003 03:51 AMAuthors who detailed animal- shelter
life in need of stories By GENEVIEVE
BOOKWALTER SENTINEL STAFF WRITER
December 28, 2004
Authors who detailed animal- shelter
life in need of stories By GENEVIEVE
BOOKWALTER SENTINEL STAFF WRITER
December 28, 2004
12/30/2004 08:41 AMOne at a time... stories of shelter
animals
santacruzsentinel.com/archive/2004/December/28/local/stories
/07local.htm
track this
site | 3 links
Grok Description matches for December 10, 2004
GrokA matches for December 10, 2004
December 10, 2004
