Big Dave’s Blog

Author: Dave

  • Software: Utility vs. Joy

    How many software packages do you use that give you joy? How about simple utility? How about both? My guess is there are far fewer that provide joy and even fewer that provide both. I have dozens of applications that provide utility only. For example, I use OmniFocus and EverNote constantly. Both apps have become…

  • Software Lifespan

    How long should our software last? I’m sure that there are software packages out there that were built decades ago, but I’m talking about packages still being actively updated and sold. Personally, I figure if I get 5-7 years out of system before a major refactor of some part of it, then I’m doing great.…

  • YAGNI and the Crystal Ball of Software Architecture

    YAGNI and the Crystal Ball How often have you been involved in a project, and someone starts a statement with “It would be really cool if … ?” The second I hear that, I find myself evaluating what comes next with high degree of skepticism. First of all, it usually would be “really cool,” but…

  • Using Thinking Sphinx

    I recently had an instance where I wanted to add full-text search to an application. I’ve used Lucene, Solr, and a few others in past lives, but this time I wanted something just as functional but a little more lightweight. After looking around I settled on Sphinx, and so far it’s worked great. By itself,…

  • Apollo 11 – Could we do it again?

    July 16, 2009 marks the 40 year anniversary of the Apollo 11 launch. Four days later, July 20, the Eagle landed on surface of the moon. It all started with the famous speech by President Kennedy. It’s still one of my favorite presidential quotes. “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and…

  • Government honours veterans of Bletchley Park at last

    Government honours veterans of Bletchley Park at last – V3.co.uk – formerly vnunet.com The surviving staff from Bletchley Park will finally(!!) be recognized, nearly 70 years later. Their work was thought to have shortened the war by 2 years and saved millions of lives, but until the 1970’s they weren’t even allowed to reveal what…

  • Checkout Hoptoad by thoughtbot, inc.

    I’ve been using Hoptoad for about two months now, and I’m sold. Hoptoad is a product by thoughbot, inc. Previously, I’ve always used the excellent exception_notification plugin. The exception_notification plugin is easy to use, and it works great. However, there are a couple of problems with it. You could flood your inbox if there is…

  • Bargaining for Advantage

    It’s not a programming book, but I recommend “Bargaining for Advantage” by G. Richard Shell. You may not be making multi-million or multi-billion dollar deals (yet!), but the techniques described here work just as well when negotiating an architectural detail or project. Plus, it’s pretty interesting to read about how some of the big players…

  • June 6, 2009 – 65th Anniversary of The Great Crusade

    OK, I know I’m a little off my usual topics again, but today is an anniversary. In the early morning hours on a Tuesday morning 65 years ago today, D-Day paratroopers began jumping into the French countryside. At first light, six divisions of soldiers from the United States, Britain, and Canada began landing on the…

  • Platform Engineers or Rock Star Engineers

    I’ve hired a lot of engineers over the years, and one of the first things I’m always asked to add to the job description is “must have experience in XXXX platform.” I sometimes put it on there to make people happy, but I rarely will disregard an engineer because they do not have a lot…