I’ve been working on a project for a long time and it’s gone through many, many iterations and even one full rewrite. Normally, I would never approach a project like this, but there is no client on the other side. This is just a project that I’m doing for fun and for learning. If it [...]
Archive for October, 2009
30 Oct
My Geeky Halloween Costume
I decided to go as Mario for Halloween at work today. In addition to the Mario costume, I also got a Luigi costume. This costume totally brings out the geek in me, but my alternatives weren’t really that good. I would get a kick out of dressing up like Peter Gibbons, but I’d just blend [...]
29 Oct
Teaching is Learning
As I’ve been spending time on my upcoming presentations on jQuery, I’ve found that I’m learning a lot. This isn’t anything new that I’ve noticed however. People can be very knowledgeable in a particular field, and you (yes, you who is reading this) may be very good at something, but would you consider yourself an [...]
29 Oct
Adding a New Team Member
So adding a new member to a software development team slows down the team. It’s a law, Brook’s Law, to be exact. I have noticed some good trade offs. Our recently hired dev has asked some really good questions about the code. Questions that have gotten me to think differently about how we have designed [...]
27 Oct
Iowa Code Camp Schedule
The Iowa Code Camp schedule of sessions has been posted for the fall 2009 event in West Des Moines, Iowa. My session entitled “How to do Virtually Anything with jQuery” will be at 2:15pm (subject to change). Here’s the abstract: When it comes to web site interactivity, jQuery is king. I’ve never run into a [...]
26 Oct
Department Bookmarking
Some time ago, I set up a Delicious page for our department’s bookmarks. We might share good usability articles or CSS tips and tricks. Sometimes it’s a reference page for NHibernate. We previously sent them around on the distribution list to share with others. It was always a struggle to look back and find a [...]
25 Oct
Sinatra Has Taken the Stage
I’m finally building a Ruby application using Sinatra! It’s only going to be a few pages in size, but hopefully I’ll get some decent practice with Ruby, Haml and ActiveRecord. The end goal of this little endeavor is to be able to throw away the code and know how to recreate something similar (and better) [...]
24 Oct
Twin Cities Code Camp 7 – Session Win!
I was really looking forward to the first session of the day at Twin Cities Code Camp. It was [@kevingisi|Keven Gisi] talking about JavaScript testing. There was a problem right away though, the University of Minnesota’s Wifi was down. I don’t blame Kevin for putting his stuff online. It’s the internet, it’s always there, right? [...]
23 Oct
Twin Cities Code Camp
I’m off to the University of Minnesota to attend the Twin Cities Code Camp! I’m really looking forward to sessions on JavaScript, Ruby, MVC, DDD and learning more about Pex. I don’t think I’ll be able to attend all the sessions I’d like to, but not being able to attend all I want is a [...]
22 Oct
How Much is One Percent Worth?
Today at work we were talking about how tiny improvements in e-commerce can yield big results. Take the following example: You sell widgets on your web site and through email campaigns your average order is $50. Your email list is 50,000 subscribers strong; you can send them marketing emails to them all to entice them [...]
