Especially with a code base that is mature, assumptions correctly made years ago can be terribly difficult to deal with later when the current and new assumptions reign. Writing code that lasts even 5 years and “is robust” is what everyone wants to do for sure, but the recipe for doing just that is not […]
As with most forms of art, there are those pieces of music or sculpture or painting that you’ll dislike. Perhaps what they portray or teach don’t match with your ideals of right and wrong. You’ll disagree on a moral level. Perhaps they bring forth memories of the past. Maybe they just look or sound chaotic […]
I just found this great quote by Dee Hock, founder and CEO of VISA. I ask each person to describe the single most important responsibility of any manager. The incredibly diverse responses always have one thing in common. All are downward looking. Management inevitably has to do with exercise of authority — with selecting employees, […]
I’ve visited a lot of places around the world, but I’ve only really lived in a few places. I grew up in Redmond, Washington, the Redmond before Microsoft. The little town with one stop light on Leary Way and fields next to the Library where I would ride my BMX bike. I grew to love […]
Microsoft’s recent introduction of Live Mesh is a perfect example of a core difference between Apple and Microsoft. Apple is, at heart, a product company. Microsoft is, at heart, a platform company. Both produce products and platforms, but the way they approach the problem and communicate with developers is decidedly different. With Live Mesh Microsoft […]
A few tweets ago, (I always feel weird referring to Twitter in the past tense) I posted: Why are the unintelligent or uninformed so arrogantly confident while the intelligent and well informed so often unsure and apprehensive? There is something very human to thinking you know more than you really do about a subject or […]
Here’s a blast from the past. As Xcode continues to improve as the default IDE on the Mac and for the iPhone, the majority of Apple’s current developers don’t even how CodeWarrior saved Apple. With the release of the iPhone SDK, I think it’s not far fetched to imagine Apple’s WWDC attendance tripling. Someone sent […]
You don’t have to understand calculus to appreciate this entertaining story: A teacher, trying to explain what a theory is, asked this question: “If you take a letter half the distance to a mailbox and stop, then start over going half the remaining distance and stop, then repeat the process over and over, theoretically will […]
When I was a little boy my Mom had me memorize this little poem: Stick to your task ’til it sticks to you;Beginners are many, but enders are few.Honor, power, place and praiseWill always come to the one who stays. Stick to your task ’til it sticks to you;Bend at it, sweat at it, smile […]
Business Week’s recent cover story on Lenovo’s new ThinkPad X300 laptop caught my attention. Can you imagine spending 2 years working on a super thin, super light laptop for release in February 2008 and then have Apple announce the MacBook Air on January 15th? What a commotion must have been had at Lenovo after Jobs’ […]
David Weiss 