For two weeks (ending on this past Wednesday afternoon), most of my days and nights were occupied with a self-administered crash course in the Ruby programming language, outside of the Rails framework. I had struggled somewhat with Objective-C in January, partly because of the massive combined burden of learning the language, the Cocoa framework, the Xcode IDE, and the odd but brilliant Interface Builder. So, I wanted to try and attack Ruby in isolation.
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Ruby First Impressions: Backup Scripting
I started programming in Ruby this week, and so far I like it a lot. From my initial use of Ruby as a backup automation scripting language, here are my thoughts.
You might be wondering, why am I working on backup scripting now? Don’t I have some big project I’m supposed to be working on 24/7? Yes, and actually this work is in the critical path of that project.
My super fast laptop is still away being repaired for a video problem, so I’ve taken a major hit in terms of the resources of my main computer: 90% less MHz, 36% less display area, 50% less memory. In the meantime, I’ve been avoiding tasks that need a lot of CPU or graphics performance and instead working on things that are easier on my old desktop computer.
This week, I decided that I would pause working on the design and implementation of my startup project, until I had really sorted out my server backup and monitoring situation.
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Gray-hat business idea: MySpace integration hack vendor
With all of the zillions of companies building “widgets” for MySpace, Bebo, etc., it’s only a matter of time before the gray-hat crowd starts to see the dollar signs. Maybe they already have. But it seems like a large waste of effort for all of those strange little VC-funded startups playing remora to MySpace’s shark to have to keep figuring out new ways to get their code to embed in MySpace layouts.
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HTML Wireframes vs. Wireframe Drawings
Related to Rapid Application Development vs. Big Design Up Front is the question of what exact format the UI design work should be done in.
This is more important than user stories vs. use cases, class diagrams vs. ERDs and other such decisions, because UI design artifacts are the most user-accessible artifacts. That means they’re probably the only ones you’re actually going to be able to get users to look at. Try emailing a CFO a 100-page Word doc full of use cases sometime, if you don’t believe me. Then sit that same CFO down in front of Excel and ask for a rundown of their least favorite Excel features. Big difference!
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Tips for Offshoring
Having just read Why you need to get rid of your freelance developer ASAP, and the comments under it, I can see that people are really clueless about offshoring. It’s a magic box that you put pennies in, and great code comes out a few weeks later!
Having worked for a few companies that sold themselves as “a magic box that you put millions of dollars into, and great code comes out a few weeks later”, I know that this is a serious misconception. Subcontracting is fraught with peril. Offshore subcontracting is fraught with more peril, but it costs less per hour. In both cases, the peril is avoidable, but avoiding it requires that you manage the relationship carefully.
I’ve worked with offshore teams on a couple of occasions, and in one case I was fortunate enough to get sent overseas to work with the team in their own offices. I think I probably have more direct experience with offshoring than most developers or technical project managers, and I’ve seen how offshored projects can go awry, so I thought I’d share some tips for those of you considering offshoring a software project, or those involved with such a situation already.
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