A River of Words

I don’t think I’ve kept secret my admiration for what Jeff Atwood does over at codinghorror.com. One of his most recent entries really appealed to me.

One of the (many) unfortunate side effects of choosing a career in software development is that, over time, you learn to hate software. I mean really hate it. With a passion. Take the angriest user you’ve ever met, multiply that by a thousand, and you still haven’t come close to how we programmers feel about software. Nobody hates software more than software developers. Even now, writing about the stuff is making me physically angry.

He quotes an interview where someone suggests that “One bad programmer can easily create two new jobs a year.” Having recently discussed a tangential subject with my TrekWest5 co-host, Peter, and given my on-going involvement in Freenode’s ##PHP channel I’ve been thinking a lot about this issue. Once upon a time (in the early 90’s), there was an attempt by a group known as advogato to provide web-of-tust like metrics to certify a programmer’s skill. Given the explosion of social networking in the intervening period, I’m wondering if any of you have ideas on how we can really bring some muscle to bear on this?

Reading this article on “rootkits” for Javascript has really got me thinking about the kind of evil you could do by poisoning the base datatype Prototypes in a javascript environment. I recommend you read it if you do a lot of work with Javascript.

What is CouchDB?
CouchDB is a new kind of database system. Instead of tables, columns, and rows, it’s just a collection of JavaScript (JSON) documents.

Design your own Kindle (and win it) with Engadget, Amazon, and Adafruit Industries!
The Amazon Kindle is an awesome “Electronic Book” device. We’re getting closer to having a PADD.

Upgrade Rules for Windows 7 RC Users
If you’ve been using a Windows 7 Release Candidate, you need to be aware of these.

Survey says most companies won’t deploy Windows 7
Not really news, but good information to have in your pocket.

The ‘R’ Programming Language
‘R’ is a programming language and software environment for statistical computing and graphics.

Build a 10 Terabyte Storage Solution for ~$1000USD
The guys Tom’s Hardware are always looking for the next edge – I certainly could put 10TB of space to use!

1TB Hard Drive for <$80 USD @ TigerDirect
The Tom’s Hardware article sent me looking for this – this is really good news!

Google Releases ‘Remote Desktop’ Software Based on NX
NX is an attempt to make the Unix X Windows system a more viable solution for remote desktop display. When Google announced their upcoming Chrome OS operating system, a lot of people were trying to figure out what their new display system would be – the common thinking now is that it will probably be this NX implementation.

Video interview with author of O’Reilly and Associates book: Programming Collective Intelligence
Examples of Collective intelligence might be Amazon’s or Netflix’s “Recommendations” services, or the all-powerful Wikipedia – where the body of knowledge becomes something more than the sum of its parts. If you’re not sure why Collective Intelligence is important, I urge you to read the excellent book Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything.