I really appreciate this fantastic post from Steve Barnegren on clean code. Certainly I’ve used the term “clean code” plenty of times, but it is definitely a fair criticism that the term is vague and means different things to different people. I’m 100% on board with using better, more precise terms, such as “maintainable code”.

I was excited to see that the Onyx Boox firmware version V3.2 was finally available for my Nova2. This update was claimed to make third party applications like OneNote workable on this E Ink device. So I took the plunge yesterday and installed in on my device.

I spend a fair amount of my time as a freelance programmer gathering requirements. Also, with a few start-ups under my belt, I’ve seen how easy it is is to build the wrong thing due to a misunderstanding about potential customers and their needs.

It is always fascinating to me how many programmers want to debate whether or not 10x programmers exist. For the last several years, any post I’ve read on this question has been either a firm: no, they don’t exist, or even if they do exist, they will be vile people so don’t hire them.

I laughed out loud at this article that says most people don’t know about Windows 11, and the ones that do don’t care about it.

It seems to me that this article, Don’t rush to machine learning, reminds us of an important rule that we often forget: start simple. Many times people try to overengineer a solution, when an 80%, just-good-enough solution will fit the purpose.

Apparently Mozilla has defeated Microsoft’s default browser protections in Windows. I’m sure Microsoft will respond, and it won’t be pretty. But what I found interesting is that apparently Windows 11 will make the process to set your default program even more cumbersome. Thanks, Microsoft!

This is a couple of years old, but I really enjoyed this piece on Code-first vs Product-first programmers. It is true that some programmers are more focused on the code itself, its design and elegance, and not on the product they are building and the problem it solves.

This article on this topic is fascinating. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised at how poor the research is on this topic. I wish there were more recent books by Steve McConnell, as his books on programming always seemed to include references to actual research. Then again, now I’m wondering how good that research was, although I’d still bet on McConnell’s books. I particularly enjoyed Rapid Development and Code Complete, although Software Estimation is also very good. Oh wait, doing a search, I see he wrote a book published in 2019 on agile. Hmmmm….I may have to give it a read.

Honestly, I’m not trying to be negative. Programming is hard. We’re all in this together, I know.