APPropriate Behaviour
The book about all the things software writers do that aren't writing software.
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Blog Archives
Bizarrely, the Guinness book of world records lists the “first microcomputer” as 1980’s Xenix. This doesn’t seem right to me: Xenix is an operating system, not a microcomputer. Xenix was announced in 1980 but not shipped until 1981. The first … Continue reading
I only have 17 years of experience, but every point on this list accords with my experience. I’ve made my own attempt to catalogue things software developers should know (that are not writing code), but this is a succinct and … Continue reading
The “return a command” trick This is a nice trick, but we need a phrase for that thing where you implement extreme late binding of functions by invoking an active function that selects the function you want based on its … Continue reading
My current host name scheme at home is characters from the film Tron. So I have: Laptop: flynn (programmer, formerly at Encom, and arcade owner) Desktop: yori (programmer at Encom) TV box: dumont (runs the I/O terminal) Watch: bit (a … Continue reading
Nvidia’s ambitions are scarcely hidden. Once it owns Arm it will withdraw its licensing agreements from its competitors, notably Intel and Huawei, and after July next year take the rump of Arm to Silicon Valley This tech giant up for … Continue reading
There are two different questions of fairness when it comes to the App Store rules. Apple always spin it to mean “these rules are applied fairly”, which is certainly not true. Putting aside questions of why Netflix get to do … Continue reading
NeXT marketed their workstations by letting Sun convince people they wanted a workstation, then trying to convince customers (who were already impressed by Sun) that their workstation was better. As part of this, they showed how much better the development … Continue reading
On the topic of the Apple II, remember that MOS was owned by Commodore Business Machines, a competitor of Apple’s, throughout the lifetime of the computer. Something to bear in mind while waiting to see where ARM Holdings lands.
An eight-year-old model of iPad is now considered vintage and obsolete. For comparison, the Apple ][ was made from 1977-1993 (16 years) and the January 1983 Apple //e would’ve had exactly the same software support as the final model sold … Continue reading
