December 03, 2004

Grok Headline matches for December 03, 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:

1. reproduce the bug
2. 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
3. find the root cause
4. do some searches to see if the same errors were made elsewhere in the code
5. fix them all
6. test the fix
7. think about whether this bug might be causing serious implications for a customer who needs to be told about the fix
8. etc.

That's the Rosh Gadol behavior. Possible Rosh Katan behaviors would be

1. 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.
2. 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 10, 2004

December 10, 2004 12/19/2004 03:24 PM

I didn't think I'd be changing my startup page again for a long time.

Looks like I was wrong. Check out Google Suggest.

Lemme explain why this is so cool. First of all, it saves you keystrokes entering your search terms. That's the externally cool thing.

The internal cool thing is that it's one of the first prominent uses I've seen of the IFRAME XmlHttpRe quest technique of going back to the web server for more data while the user interacts with a page. This has been possible for a long long time, but web developers have been mostly ignoring it. Rob Whelan exp lains how it's done.

The latency of web UIs, in which everything you do is a slow round-trip that requires completely refetching and rebuilding the web page, is one of the reason web UIs feel so clunky compared to native GUIs. Google is very publicly raising the bar on the quality of interfaces that people will expect from web pages.

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:

1. Move your mouse so it's over the "Google Search" button
2. Type "Joel"
3. 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 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 AM
G4 Tech TV Dec 28 2004 6:04AM GMT

Quake IV December 31, 2004?

Quake IV December 31, 2004? 07/04/2004 09:15 AM

The 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 PM
Matt 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 PM
Matt 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 PM
Matt 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 PM
Benjamin 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 AM

December 2004 Bandwidth Report Now
Online

December 2004 Bandwidth Report Now
Online 02/01/2005 08:51 PM
The 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 PM
Just 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 PM

AMD Athlon XP Heatsink roundup: December
2004

AMD Athlon XP Heatsink roundup: December
2004 12/29/2004 09:31 AM

Protest 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 AM
students at the Borough of Manhattan Community College .. Protest Over ‘Homeland Security U’ .. New York Sun

nysun.com/article/6767
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December 2003 Zillman Column - Online
Shopping 2004

December 2003 Zillman Column - Online
Shopping 2004 11/18/2003 07:52 PM
December 2003 Zillman Column - Online Shopping 2004
http://virtualprivatelibrary.blogspot.com/Online Shopping 2004.pdf
http://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 PM
At 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 PM
the 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
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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 PM
Market 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
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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 PM
Market 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 AM
CanadaIT.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 PM
you 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
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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 AM
we, 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
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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 AM
President's latest response .. blaming Bill Clinton .. this bit of crud:

talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_26.php#004306
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"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 AM

Authors 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 AM
One 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 03, 2004
GrokA matches for December 03, 2004

December 03, 2004