A Change in Attitude - Legacy Code →
I actually don't mind working on legacy code. Problem solving has always come naturally to me, I was trained to interpret illegible contest code in high school, and two of my previous jobs involved taking ownership of old software projects. It is definitely a fun and unique challenge every time. Trying to get my head around a decent portion of the Hotmail code base is proving more than a little daunting, however.
The space shuttle Atlantis is seen shortly after the rotating service structure (RSS) was rolled back at launch pad 39a, Thursday, July 7, 2011 at the NASA Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla.
What Is Manliness? →
There are two ways to define manhood. One way is to say that manhood is the opposite of womanhood. The other is to say that manhood is the opposite of childhood.The Art of Manliness is one of my favorite blogs to follow, and in this article author Brett McKay lays down the culture and virtues behind his definition of manhood and the vision behind the site overall.
A More Perfect Union →
Media artist Roger Luke DuBois took aggregated information from dating profiles and the towns and cities these profiles represented and grafted them onto a map of the United States. The result? A road atlas with the names of cities, towns, and neighborhoods replaced with the words people use to describe both themselves and those they want to be with, as shown here for Los Angeles:
For if "choice" is the moral imperative guiding abortion, then there is no way to take a stand against "gendercide." Aborting a baby because she is a girl is no different from aborting a baby because she has Down syndrome or because the mother's "mental health" requires it. Choice is choice.
— The Wall Street Journal's book review on Unnatural Selection
The Economist has another article on the extreme outcome of a woman's "right to choose".
How Apple Became a Monopsony →
While we typically hear about monopolies, Apple has inverted the normal market and created a situation in which its hoards of cash ensure there is only actually one buyer, maintaining a decisive advantage over rivals. Great insight into some of Apple's strategic planning.
Firefox Update Policy →
Peter Bright at Ars Technica wrote an editorial last week on Firefox's new 6-week accelerated development cycle and it's impact on the enterprise. I want to take a stab at a response.
- Proprietary Enterprise Web Applications
I completely agree that in best practice applications should not be written to target a specific browser version, framework, or feature. But the idea that somehow every company can or should make standards-compliant, beautifully designed webpages or applications to suit their internal needs while still maintaining some sort of security over their data is just wrong. As a Facebook game developer told me once, "Not everyone's on board with HTML5; not all of us want to put our source code online." There are still valid reasons for building web apps that are not modern, infinitely-forward compatible pieces of art, as long as they can evolve with the Web.
- More Browsers != Better Web
Peter makes a fine point in the section "The Web is the Victim":
Web developers have to target the lowest common denominator, and the corporations are making that lowest common denominator that much lower.
The first part is absolutely true. Working for one of the biggest web applications in the world, it's a pain to support so many browsers and to provide functionality at the lowest common denominator. But he fundamentally misattributes that pain to corporations. Take a look at the IE 6 Countdown and tell me that the businesses and corporations of the United States are what motivate Hotmail to continue (barely) supporting IE 6. No. There are plenty of markets where older versions of browsers are still dominant, not just IE 6.
I wholely agree with this statement, however:
The result is a vast yawning chasm between the very best browsers used with the Web—Firefox 5, Chrome 13—and the very worst—Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7. And the result of that is that developers have to make the public Web worse for everybody to accommodate these wretched antique browsers.
The real truth with this statement, though, is the one not addressed in the article, and the most interesting point in my mind:
- Development and Testing for the Fragmented Web
You see, in this new world where we really love the web, IE 6 isn't the antique browser that everyone loves to hate, it's Firefox 4. Or Firefox 5. As fast as Firefox may iterate, and in fact, the faster it iterates, the more users will be stuck on some earlier version of the browser. Now we have a "vast yawning chasm" between fragmented Firefox versions, not just different browsers and platforms.
In terms of web development, if developers are already targeting the lowest common denominator, they're not going to take advantage of Firefox 12's new feature over Firefox 11. They're going to write for Firefox 8 or the other still-popular-but-with-less-standards-compliance browsers. The public web will always be accountable to the worst browser. And Firefox's plugin or add-on developers face even more hardship maintaining compatibility with architecture changes in the browser itself, not just the rendering engine.
This type of accelerated development Firefox is embarking on makes the job of people who test complex web applications more difficult, as well. The browser test matrix at Hotmail is already more than 10 browser-versions. This puts demands on test teams, who become more and more focused on ensuring browser compatibility, not the full quality of new features. This is mitigated in large part for Hotmail because the browser vendors and beta testers tend to validate the latest browser release against our site, but this is a privilege extended to only the largest of sites; Wendy Web Developer's app is going to break without any warning.
The best counter-argument to the last two points is auto-update, which Chrome does very well. For all intents and purposes, from development, to testing, to support, there is only one version of Chrome. It may not matter what that version number is or what features are in it, but the Chrome window that you have open is running the latest version. I have seen comments or discussion that silent auto-updates are coming to Firefox as well, though possibly not until the end of the year. Which in all seriousness could mean in Firefox 9.
More reading on Firefox's accelerated development can be found on these sites:
http://scripting.com/stories/2011/06/26/mozillaOsborne.html
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2387170,00.asp
http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20074590-264/rapid-release-firefox-meets-corporate-backlash/
New York Rider Dies Protesting Mandatory Motorcycle Helmet Law →
"The medical expert we discussed the case with who pronounced him deceased stated that he would've no doubt survived the accident had he been wearing a helmet," said state Trooper Jack Keller.Darwin award nomination right here.
Microsoft to Partner With China's Leading Search Engine →
A year and a half after Google pulled its popular search engine out of mainland China, its rival Microsoft has struck a deal with the biggest Chinese search engine, Baidu.com, to offer Web search services in English.
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.