Monthly Archives: April 2014

Code longevity

I recently wrote about the impending centenary of applied computing; a time when we could reflect on the first hundred years to make it easier for people to progress beyond our position into the second hundred years. This necessitates looking … Continue reading

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Preparing for Computing’s Big One-Oh-Oh

However you slice the pie, we’re between two and three decades away from the centenary celebration for applied computing (which is of course significantly after theoretical or hypothetical advances made by the likes of Lovelace, Turing and others). You might … Continue reading

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Intuitive is the Enemy of Good

In the previous instalment, I discussed an interview in which Alan Kay maligned growth-restricted user interfaces. Here’s the quote again: There is the desire of a consumer society to have no learning curves. This tends to result in very dumbed-down … Continue reading

Posted in iPad, iPhone, learning, tool-support, UI | 1 Comment

How much programming language is enough?

Many programmers have opinions on programming languages. Maybe, if I present an opinion on programming languages, I can pass off as a programmer. An old debate in psychology and anthropology is that of nature vs nurture, the discussion over which … Continue reading

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On too much and too little

In the following text, remember that words like me or I are to be construed in the broadest possible terms. It’s easy to be comfortable with my current level of knowledge. Or perhaps it’s not the value, but the derivative … Continue reading

Posted in advancement of the self, architecture of sorts, OOP, software-engineering, tool-support | Leave a comment

Some so-called expert

There’s a comedy sketch being frequently tweeted called The Expert. Now, all programmers will be aware that there is nothing funnier than interpreting a joke literally and telling everyone the many ways in which it’s wrong, and that there is … Continue reading

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