APPropriate Behaviour
The book about all the things software writers do that aren't writing software.
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Author Archives: Graham
The other pink dollar
How did (a very broad and collective) we go from selling NeXT at $440M to selling Tumblr at $1.1B, in under two decades? Why was Sun Microsystems, one of the most technologically advanced companies in the valley, only worth two … Continue reading
Posted in Business, economics
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…and in the end there will be the command line.
You’re pretty happy with the car that the dealer is showing you. It looks comfortable, stylish, and has all of the features you want. There’s a lot of space in the trunk for your luggage. The independent reviews that you’ve … Continue reading
Posted in architecture of sorts
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But where to go?
I agree with John Gruber here: it’s not like Apple’s stuff has become worse than a competitor’s, it’s just that it’s not as good as I remember or expect. It could be, as Daniel Jalkut suggests, rose-tinted glasses[*]. I don’t … Continue reading
Posted in GNU, Responsibility, UNIX
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zed shaw: It didn’t matter that most of these detractors admitted to me that they don’t code C anymore, that they don’t teach it, and that they just memorized the standard so they could “help” people. […] I cannot help … Continue reading
On switching to Linux
In November, I switched to GNU/Linux at home (I still use OS X at work, because I still write Objective-C in Xcode at work). Or rather, I switched back: I’d been using it around a decade ago. In December, I … Continue reading
Posted in advancement of the self, GNU, Mac
6 Comments
Layers of Distraction
A discussion I was involved in over on Facebook reminded me of some other issues I’d already drafted for this blog, so I stuck the two together and here we are. Software systems can often be seen as aggregations of … Continue reading
I imagine many of you are familiar with the difference between Ruby (a beautiful language representing the best pragmatic balance between Smalltalk’s elegance and C’s ubiquity) and Rubby (a horrendous mishmash of abominations in the style of all scripting languages, … Continue reading
In which I resolve
When I was a student I got deeply into GNU and Linux. This has been covered elsewhere on this blog, along with the story that as Apple made the best UNIX, and the lab had NeXT computers, I went down … Continue reading
Posted in futurology, Responsibility
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Derek Jones, from the PL advent calendar ‘J’ entry: Javascript would not have existed without the Internet and its ‘design’ must be a contender for the most costly software mistake [ever] made. Me, 14 months ago: Fundamentally I fear a … Continue reading
Object-Oriented Programming in 1714
Here are some excerpts from Leibniz’s La Monadologie (specifically from Daniel Garber and Roger Arlew’s English translation in Discourse on Metaphysics and Other Essays). THE MONAD, which we shall discuss here, is nothing but a simple substance that enters into … Continue reading
