Friday, January 10, 2014

RIF Notes #23

“There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult.” - C.A.R. Hoare (British computer scientist, winner of the 1980 Turing Award)

  • On Types – Ted Neward makes in interesting suggestion about how types should be handled.

    As a suggestion, then, I throw out this idea: Ensure that all of your domain classes never expose primitive types to the user of the system. In other words, Name never exposes an “int” for Age, but only an “Age” type. C# makes this easy via “using” declarations, like so:

    using FirstName = System.String;
    using LastName = System.String;

  • Web Developer Checklist – This is a very handy and thorough checklist of items to be checked on you website for quality, security, usability, etc.
  • ';--have i been pwned? – Troy Hunt has set up a sight that allows you to see if you have an account that has been compromised in a data breach.
  • Healthy benefits for the long run- 37Signals encourages employees to get out of the office.
    • “Instead we focus on benefits that get people out of the office as much as possible. 37signals is in it for the long term, and we designed our benefits system to reflect that. One of the absolute keys to going the distance, and not burning out in the process, is going at a sustainable pace”
  • Monaco- Monaco appears to be some sort of Visual Studio Online tool.
  • Yahoo Adopted One Of Microsoft's Worst Ideas, Just As Microsoft Killed It Off
    • ‘Microsoft told employees on Tuesday that it's ending its so-called "stack-ranking" system. Under Microsoft's infamous system, workers were ranked on a curve, and those at the low end would be fired or dealt with in some way. The goal in stopping these rankings is to focus more "on teamwork and collaboration…Stack ranking certainly didn't do Microsoft any favors over the years, breeding resentment and distrust among employees. "Every current and former Microsoft employee I interviewed—every one—cited stack ranking as the most destructive process inside of Microsoft, something that drove out untold numbers of employees’
  • Good Windows 8 Sales – Rocky Lohtka perspective on how Windows 8 Sales will impact developers “In summary: good Windows 8 sales today means that betting on WPF for smart client development should be pretty safe, and will hopefully have a decent migration path to WinRT in 2-3 years.”
  • What’s culture got to do with it? – Cooper asks “Does your work culture make it challenging for your team or organization to do great work? “
  • Why Your IT Project May Be Riskier Than You Think – A discussion of “black swan” projects.
    • A $5 million project that leads to an almost $200 million loss is a classic “black swan.” The term was coined by our colleague Nassim Nicholas Taleb to describe high-impact events that are rare and unpredictable but in retrospect seem not so improbable

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