« September 2003 | Main | November 2003 »
October 28, 2003
New blog tweaks
I've added two new tweaks (they're not significant enough to be called features) to my blog. Just for the heck of it.
The first I actually added a few months ago, but wanted to let it run for a while to make sure it worked reliably. It is my dynamic "Most Popular" list. This list shows the top 10 most popular (counting the number of requests--not including Google and other search engines) posts to my blog over the last 3 months. It's updated daily. It's interesting to see what people read. Unfortunately, I haven't figured out a way to count anything but archived posts, so the list does not include what people read via RSS feed or articles on the first page of my blog. But it's still interesting.
The second is more recent (just completed today). I've tweaked my list of favorite blogs to show how recently they've been updated. This is refreshed every hour, so it should be fairly accurate. It'll save people from having to click on a link if it's not been updated recently. Maybe it'll also encourage some of those blogs to get more current (heh, I posted the last two days, so I can criticize now).
If there's interest, I will write up how I did these two tweaks. Any other (cool) tweaks you'd like to see?
Posted by pete at 1:50 PM | Comments (1)
24
starts again tonight.
I started watching this show last fall. I wouldn't say it's the best show I watch (there were a few uncomfortably hokey moments last season). But the format of the show is pretty unusual.
This season, once again, will cover only a single day in the storyline (the 3rd day of the whole storyline). I'm starting to wonder if these people ever sleep more than a few minutes. Considering what's going on in the story, I guess it's plausible that people don't sleep (much).
Posted by pete at 9:45 AM
October 27, 2003
Can open source bring credibility to I.T.?
Joe Firmage writes in CNET News about his perspective on the SCO debacle. The second half of the article got me thinking about differences between the academic, scientific world and the commercial I.T. world.
The progress of science over half a millennium has been founded upon the notion of "open source"--a model in which the brightest minds contribute their work to the community for the betterment of humankind. Scientists across all major disciplines publish their insights in the public domain, climbing upon the shoulders of others and enabling others to climb upon theirs.
The "open source" approach, using a more scientific approach to I.T. starting at the most fundamental level--how innovations are developed and communicated--is becoming critical to the future viability of I.T. This may seem like an obvious thing, but open source still has a "fringe" status by the majority of the I.T. industry, and the focus on open source (at least by the general population) is mostly about the "free" part, with a sprinkle of "better quality."
In addition to the oft-made (wishful) science vs software industry comparisons, think about how much better (maybe just different) software would be if the methods and even the developers themselves became successful through peer review.
What if software developers gained credentials not just through vague (often unpresentable/unchallengable) job/project references in a resume, but through published work as well, like scientists do? And not only were developers expected to contribute to their employer's success, but to the advancement of the software industry in general?
So, as a software developer, my reputation would be established through a combination of openly-verifiable credentials (most often open-source projects I contribute to), which would help the industry in general, my employer, and myself. And my employer could feel confident about my skills, my productivity, etc, separately from the often-uninformative interview.
If anything, the scientific process has proven over millenia that open, verifiable collaboration results in more innovation (often called a "bigger pie") than the closed environment the software industry lives in today--and the wide-spread distribution of basic research information creates bigger, longer-lasting opportunities for companies than they can possibly create by themselves.
The most significant contribution of open-source to the I.T. industry will very likely be that OSS keeps the I.T. industry from imploding from it's own fear of collaboration and short-sited intellectual property restrictions.
Posted by pete at 2:14 PM
October 5, 2003
DOET: The book I didn't know I'd been looking for
I ran into a book this weekend that I had heard mentioned a few times, but never expected would be like a long-lost friend.
How could I not buy a book that starts out like this:
This is the book I have always wanted to write, but I didn't know it. Over the years I have fumbled my way through life, walking into doors, failing to figure out water faucets, incompetent at working the simple things of everyday life. "Just me," I would mumble. "Just my mechanical ineptitude." But as I studied psychology and watched the behavior of other people, I began to realize that I was not alone. My difficulties were mirrored by the problems of others. And we all seemed to blame ourselves. Could the whole world be mechanically incompetent?
The Design of Everyday Things takes a look at the frustrating designs of the 20,000-30,000 common things we use on a regular basis, and recommends ways to design things that humans can use more effectively. At first, this may targetted at mass-marketed consumer products, but I (and the author) argue that the following principles can (and should) be applied to anything that humans will interact with:
Donald Norman (a former Apple Fellow and VP) makes a compelling argument that the only time these principles aren't used is when designers (I use that term loosely) are oblivious to them and their importance.
I am excited to finish the book (which isn't hard to read), and start applying the principles to the projects I work on. I think there are many opportunities to make networks (and a lot of other products and technologies) more intuitive to design, operate and use.
Posted by pete at 11:02 PM