Many, well, years, ago I started a series of articles on '25 steps for building a Micro ISV'. It's still something that I care about very much, and that I hope to get back to sharing.
In the meanwhile, here's a quick wrap up of the some of the tools we use to help run TimeSnapper, our MicroIsv.
These are by no means the 'ultimate' choice or 'best of breed' in each category -- these are just the choices that we happen to use in TimeSnapper.
I think it's interesting to see just how much software we rely upon, even though we are 'Independent'.
This also leaves out the dozens of articles and blog entries that teach, inspire or unblock along the way, and the many tools we've considered using, or the many tools we're planning to switch to.
(sorry for posting this drivel from my own backlog of notes. i'm pretty ill at the moment, and don't have time to do any better. there are some good things in the works though -- a whole slew of nifty projects just kicking off)
That drunk steve yegge was muttering onstage about languages, and said something that raised an obvious idea in my mind:
Virtual machines are great for language interoperability. If everybody in the world used [the language D, for example], you probably wouldn't need a virtual machine. You'd probably still want one eventually, because of the just-in-time compilers, and all the runtime information they can get.
But by and large, we don't all use D. In fact, we probably don't all use the same five languages in this room. And so the VM, whether it's the CLR, or the Java VM, or Parrot, or whatever... it provides a way for us to interoperate.
Although he weakens his own point by mentioning these competing VMs (CLR, JVM, Parrot) -- this slip up makes me wonder: can a VVM be created? A Virtual Virtual Machine -- that acts as a layer between languages and virtual machines, and allows higher level code to be translated onto any virtual machine.
If it doesn't get many contributions, then it could effectively kill the product, as it would be hard to move it back in-house.
It would probably become impossible to ship it as part of the framework, due to liability concerns.
Open Source is Communism ;-). (ah, kidding)
Interesting:
It could represent a hedge-bet / fallback position in case Entity Framework doesn't take off. (EF is pretty big and i'm a little worried that it won't take off).
But wait a second... are you retracting your earlier claims?
Yes and no. There is a massive fail here -- i'll get to that in a moment.
But first I want to clear up the differences between these two products.
SkyDrive is just online storage, and it has nothing to do with synchronizing those files to any location. There's no client side components (no shell extension, no explorer integration) no developer API -- nothing like that. But on the plus side it's 5 GIG, and it's deeply integrated with the spaces.live.com "on line presence" system.
FolderShare, on the other hand, is all about synchronizing files via the internet. There's no online storage at all. Instead you download and run a small client application (from here) on each of your machines, including Mac OSX. And thus, peer to peer connections can be established (i think they're encrypted and then proxied via microsoft servers) for synchronizing folders.
Each of these are very strong products, and very useful. You can find a lot of people who use and love these services.
Microsoft did a commendable thing when they bought foldershare, and made it free. Thank you!
But the massive fail belongs to...
The massive fail here belongs to the "cut and paste marketing" that's been used to push these two products.
It's a new term I'm coining for Marketing-Communication teams who plagiarise their own work.
Compare and contrast the difference in these two messages:
And then there's the grand daddy of all of these -- Ray Ozzie's offering, Groove.
Holy Fracking Jesus, Microsoft!
There's clearly one Synchronisation concept that escaped them completely.
They could've gotten together as a team, shared their ideas, and realized: Oh Crap! We're all building different versions of the same thing.
Instead of creating a tangle of overlapping and unmergeable products, why didn't they synchronise their thinking and work out what problem they're trying to solve.
And then build one compelling product, that's a joy to use, and which clearly solves that problem.
Not to mention sharepoint which let's you, well, share. Up to a point.
In the space of a few days, what started as a blog post has turned into a web phenomenom. He put together the digg-like site in a couple of days, apologizing all the while how long it was taking. (It's actually based more on a site from Dell called IdeaStorm but calling it 'digg-like' gives it an instant familiarity).
The amount of content now available is stunning. Long is awesome -- but so are the people who follow his blog. The recurring theme is that little things add up.
This is a point that Joel Spolsky makes over and over on his website (when he's not telling you to learn C)
"Another tiny frustration. These things add up; these are the things that make us unhappy on a day-to-day basis. Even though they seem too petty to dwell on (I mean, there are people starving in Africa, for heaven's sake... ), nonetheless they change our moods." --Joel Spolsky in User Interface Design for Programmers
I think we need more of these UX Task force sites. What I'd love to see:
Office.UXTaskForce.com
a community site for improving usability in MS Office
VisualStudio.UXTaskForce.com
improve Visual Studio
IE.UXTaskForce.com
improve Internet Explorer
...and so on for any software that has sufficient surface area to maintain its own independent site for focusing on user experience.
Obviously my own needs are too limited to the microsoft realm -- such is my burden in life.
I checked if the UXTaskForce.com site was available, with the idea of donating it to Long (he's a fellow Australian after all)
The website has been registered, and only a few days ago -- hopefully it's Long himself who grabbed it.
If there was a community-backed Visual Studio UX Taskforce (rather than the paltry connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio), here's something I'd contribute (from the last few minutes). It's really small, but... well, little things add up.
Close button on Trial Dialog should be called 'Continue'
The 'Trial' nag screen offers two choices: register and close. As a user you pause and think Close will cause the application to shutdown. But actually it doesn't, it just allows you to continue.
Jeff Atwood writes CodingHorror which has been steadily building an audience over the last few years and is now a very popular destination for programmers.
I'd like to share my current opinion of the formula for creating Jeff Atwood style articles, in the hope that it may inspire someone, somewhere to do something, somehow.
Here it is:
1. Get an opinion
Uncover some ugly half-baked opinion in the dank underground of your tortured soul.
2. Resist the urge to blog at this point.
99% of bloggers would dash out their hideous wretch of a thought at this point.
Jeff holds back.
3. Research the classics
Remember: if you steal from one source they call it plagiarism. Steal from many, they call it research.
First, turn to books. What does Steve McConnell say? Tufte? Brooks?
Highlight any well written phrases you may wish to quote.
4. Beyond the classics
Ah, but the classics so often fall short. Particularly on contemporary topics.
Turn to the words of reputable bloggers, or better yet, wikipedia. Branch out from there.
Again, highlight phrases with a quotable turn of phrase.
But be ruthless and perfectionist in your approach: quote no trash.
5. Look for opposition
Actively seek out contrary opinions. Every topic has naysayers, and amongst such sayers of nay must be people who express valid concerns. Again --
Highlight any well written phrases you may wish to quote.
6. Firt Major objective satisfied
Now you've collected the meat around which the gravy of your narrative shall flow.
Crack knuckles, sit straight, for now you can write the text itself. Lay out the quotes before you and choose only the best and most worthy.
7. Reader is ignorant yet intelligent
Assume the reader knows nothing about the specific niche topic at hand.
And yet -- here's the hard part -- treat the reader as your intellectual equal. Talk across to them, not down to them. They are exactly as smart as yourself, but it so happens that they have not, just moments ago, finished reading the very best writing on the topic at hand, and as such they need some friendly coaxing.
If new terms are introduced -- define them. Or failing that, provide a link to a definition.
8. Take a side - For Now
Be willing to take sides, by all means. But present both sides of the arguments in a fair light: hence, do not try to make either side appear worthy of ridicule.
9. Why choose that heading?
Choose a heading that is open to misinterpretation.
The heading should raise questions, not answer them. Answers are complex things, and readers shouldn't trust any article that answers everything in the heading.
10. Google Search for images
It's near the end of this article and you are hardly reading now -- which is a shame, because the best tip is the final one.
Perform a google image search for something entertaining (or disturbing) to accompany and lighten your research. Your own biases will probably come into play here and you'll adorn your article with pictures of computer games, console apps and kittens. But you can't be perfect. After all, you're only Jeff Atwood.
Scan over your writing one more time. Ensure the tone is friendly and informative: capable of causing upset, yet never quite, exactly "wrong".
Hmmm. To be honest, just go read his site and make up your own rules. He breaks these ones all the time.
The only absolute rule I know he follows -- is to be Atwoodistic. I would define Atwoodism as follows
When you mention a topic you've covered previously, provide a link. Always.
So -- you decide to extract that code snippet and place it in its own routine.
Routines are nice, routines are great.
"Aside from the invention of the computer, the routine is arguably the single greatest invention in computer science." Why You Should Use Routines, Routinely
Now -- any instance of those fives lines becomes instead:
Upsert();
Great! You've achieved one of the primary goals of routine construction: code reuse. Your code is now shorter, and thus hopefully cheaper to maintain. It's more versatile because now if you change the way "update or insert" works you only need to change it in one place.
Life is sweet. The birds sing and the flowers bloom once more.
But there's something amiss. Something foul remains.
You've failed on the other goal of routine construction -- you've failed to hide away the implementation details. You've failed to "raise the abstraction level!"
The user/programmer still has to think about the inner concepts: update and insert. Every time they see that words "upsert" -- the details "Update and Insert" are staring them in the face.
You lose sleep. Your dreams are troubled. Dark clouds follow you everywhere. And in quiet moments you hear the ominous echo of Alfred North Whitehead whispering:
"Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations we can perform without thinking."
--Alfred North Whitehead
Did you read that? What? You missed it -- here it is again:
"Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations we can perform without thinking."
By choosing the name "Upsert" we've failed in our duty to advance civilization! We want the user (the programmer who uses your routine) to perform these two important operations without thinking about both of them.
Let's think of a better name -- a name that alleviates the consumer from having to think about the constituent parts of the routine they're using.
Isn't that nicer? And civilization has taken another tiny step forward.
Incidentally -- it seems this 'Alfred North Whitehead' was a functional Programmer in the 1800s -- before Church and the Lambda calculus that gave rise to functional programming. Here's a comment about him:
"There are no fundamental "things," or "objects" in the world of Whitehead. Whitehead's ontology, or parts-list of the universe, contains only processes." --Richard Lubbock in 'Alfred North Whitehead: Philosopher for the Muddleheaded'
I was offline for a few days over the past fortnight, and found it really refreshing. Without the continual distraction of the internet I was able to concentrate on achieving a lot of things that had been niggling me for a while.
Amongst those was the addition of some long overdue 'luxury features' for TimeSnapper that I hope will make it more meaningful for a lot of users. (No doubt I'll bombard you with the details when we release the next upgrade).
With the internet out of the way, my 'at home' productivity went from its usually mid-40's mark to a whopping 98%.
There were a lot of blog entries I jotted down notes for, but now I'm just happy not to contribute too much to the hyper-noise of the internet for one more day ;-).
But here's an example of an 'awesome Atli tooltip' found deep inside the codebase for TimeSnapper.
Me.Label4.Text = "Productive Applications:"
Me.ToolTip1.SetToolTip(Me.Label4, "Productive Applications are those that relate to your work." & vbCrLf & _
"Solitaire, for example, is NOT a productive application, " & vbCrLf & _
"unless you are working on becoming the world champion of " & vbCrLf & _
"solitaire.")
It's these kind of gems that help me enjoy work on this product more and more with every version.
Now, back to the usual un-productive fare:
If you too have been tricked into using twitter, you can follow me here.
The single-line TextBox respects the maximum length property. The multi line textbox does not. We see other differences too: these two 'TextBoxen' differ from each other in far more than the number of rows.
The cause here is a classic 'Leaky Abstraction' - and asp.net is riddled with such leaks.
The 'abstraction' of "TextBox" is used to emit either one of three underlying html elements -- "TextArea", "Input type=text" or "input type=password" -- depending on the 'TextMode' property. The three controls are wildly different animals.
"Solutions" to this problem tend to use javascript to stop input once the maxlength is reached.
Edge cases are frequently missed, for example:
Once maxlength is reached, ignore input, but don't ignore: Arrow keys, Delete key and Backspace. Others?.
Pasting of text should truncate down to maxlength.
Disabling of javascript is always possible, so length validation needs to be applied on server side as well.
Now that javascript is in play, browser compatability becomes a bigger problem.
That's pretty nasty stuff to have to perform -- and worse, you're given no warning that you need to perform it.
The API tells you that there is a maxlength property you can use... but the API, in this case, is lying.
I'm not really concerned with this problem technically. And I think the asp.net abstraction is so extreme that it's admirable. I'd like to know how to patch this kind of leak.
Here's what I'm wondering:
Is there a way the text box class could have been implemented so that you get a compile error for setting the maxlength property when the textmode is multiline?
That would be enough to make it a safe abstraction in my books. It's more extreme than the static typing afforded by most static type systems.
I expect that such a constraint could be achieved with a language/tool like Spec#.
An alternative would be to throw an exception when setting the maxlength property if the textbox type is multi-line, and vice versa. But that seems like quite a faulty approach.
I'm just not happy about this at all. I think I will need to write a very stern letter to Scott Guthrie.
...immediately spins up a new virtual machine, identical to the currently running machine, only with a debugger attached and paused on a breakpoint at the currently active line of code which caused the exception.
The development/operations team are notified and given a url with which to connect to the new virtual machine. A bug is lodged in your support system.
Meanwhile, execution continues essentially 'uninterrupted' in the original machine.
I have a new habit that I enjoy, even though I am certain it is getting on the nerves of my colleagues.
Whenever I find a bug in a piece of logic I've written -- whenever I find I've used || instead of && or left out a !, I shake my fist at the sky and shout, at the top of lungs, "Damn you George Boole!"
Try it. Very therapeutic.
(actually I kind of whisper it under my breath most of the time)
I've been intrigued with everything I've read about "Behavior Driven Development" -- which is essentially a friendlier face on Test Driven Development.
For beginners like me I think the most obvious concept is that BDD = Test Driven Development Plus "natural sentence style test naming" as JP Boodhoocalls it.
For example, David Laribee gives examples where Tests and test fixtures are simply renamed according to a strict pattern, like this:
namespace Specs_for_TransactionElection { [TestFixture] public class When_an_election_is_started : Spec { private ITransaction _stubTransaction; private TransactionElection _election;
[Test] public void The_result_should_be_in_progress() {
The upshot of this is that the tests in the code runner read like a restricted-subset of plain English:
Some people, including David Laribee and Ryan LaNeve have said that the output of these stories could be improved to present a more human-readable form.
The treeview control itself should present a "Friendlier" form of those names -- underscores could be converted into spaces. Larger fonts could be used for sub-headings. And the larger headings should be in lower contrast colour, so you can fade them out when you want to.
Here's a dodgy mockup:
Specifications for Transaction Election When votes are cast: A single no vote should rollback the transaction. A no vote will leave the election with a finished and voted no status. Unanimous yes votes will commit the underlying transaction.
The point here is that I'm not talking about improving the output of the unit test tool -- for example the 'Dox report generated by the MbUnit GUI runner' (as Ryan LaNeve has demonstrated)-- I'm talking about changing the runner itself so that it directly cleans up the names of the tests and fixtures for presentation.
It could even report on "Convention Breakers". (Squiggly red underline perhaps).
(side note: matt calla provides a macro for doing the exact opposite of this.)
(Other side note: is this similar to Donald Knuth's idea of literate programming?)
I probably owe Vista an apology for that previous slurring. I started out wanting to say something else altogether, but once that idea had occurred to me, I found it irresistable ;-)
So here's the real story: My Parents Bought Vista. Shocking, yes. But it's not the end of the world. I'm here to tell you there is Life On Vista.
Here are practical tips for how to deal with Parental Vista Use.
Remove OEM Junk
Good children don't let parents run as admin
Set their hard drive free!
A digital Camera without a backup strategy is a loaded handgun without a safety switch
No Aero for You!
Remove OEM Junk
First thing to do is to identify any OEM crap that the vendor will have bundled on there. I had to delete a bunch of Compaq nonsense and then kill a trial-copy of Norton Anti Virus (NAV).
If you want to run anti-virus software, you want AVG.
But also... maybe you noticed that Vista has a very heavy-handed security model of its own, nothing like the "run anything" hey day of windows in previous eras. So maybe it occurred to you that anti-virus software is not such a necessity on Vista as it was on previous Windows Operating Systems.
In a way, using anti-virus software and UAC (User Account Control) at the same time, reminds me of the old saw about the Irishman who wore two condoms: "to be sure, to be sure."
So I think you ought to choose: UAC or AVG.
But the dumbest choice is NAV plus UAC.
While you're at it, check for any unwanted startup programs (run "msconfig") and see what services are set to start automatically.
Good children don't let parents run as admin
Remember the crazy times back at the turn of the millennium? The default SA password for SQL Server was [blank] -- and every man and his hound ran as admin?
Those days are gone, Jack, and it's time to reel your parents in. They ain't admins. They are guests on their own machine and they will treat it with respect, dammit.
If they have software that demands they run as admin... you'll stick that b*tch in a VM and tell it to shut the hell up. Capisco?
Should they need to elevate to admin to install some software... they will beg for help, explain their crazy predicament, apologise for their tom-foolery, and you will vnc onto their machine (with Fog Creek CoPilot, TeamViewer or some other remote assistance tool) and do the necessary.
Set their hard drives free!
Two tips here:
Turn off Indexing
Enable advanced performance (on SATA drives)
Indexing is turned on by default... and it's a heavy tax your parents don't need. In some crazy scramble to catch up to google, and to make up for their past failures in hard drive searching, they want to bring your hard drive to its knees permanently, so that the one time you search for something, there will be a plethora of irrelevant results presented imeediately and without pause. Turn off indexing. Really. Your mother don't need it.
She doesn't even need indexing on her email. If she does have a big pst file that she wants to search, she will operate differently to you and I. She'll carefully craft her search, and then, while the search is running she'll make a nice hot cup of tea. Time is different for each generation.
If they have a SATA disk in their Vista machine... the setting Enable write caching on the disk is enabled by default on SATA disks in Windows Vista, but the second setting Enable advanced performance is not enabled by default
Click Start, right-click on "Computer" and click "Manage" (you may get a UAC prompt here)
Select "Device Manager", and expand the node for "Disk drives"
Right-click on their primary hard drive, and select "Properties"
Go to the "Policies" tab, and make sure "Enable write caching" on the disk and "Enable advanced performance" are both selected.
Hit OK, close Computer Management
This can allegedly allow you to lose data if the power goes out suddenly. Yet some people have used it for years without incident. I consider it safe enough. You be the judge.
A Digital Camera without a backup strategy is a loaded handgun without a safety switch
Say it with me, say it loud:
A digital camera without a backup strategy is a loaded handgun without a safety switch
But what have digital cameras got to do with helping parents use Vista?
Because the same parents who go out and buy themselves Vista without understanding the repercussions are the exact kind of people who purchase a digital camera on a whim.
So generally a child who has one of these problems also has the other. I think.
There's nothing for you to do in this step, just something to be aware of.
Vista Home Basic doesn't support the Vista Aero theme. Maybe you knew that already, but it had slipped by me, and I was baffled why it wasn't available, wasting time to trying to work out what was so bad about their machine that it didn't give Aero as an option.
Turned out that their hardware was plenty good enough. But the stingy buggers in the shop had pulled a swift one on the poor dears and given them the criminally downscale poor cousin of vista -- the Suburban Ghetto edition.
Apparently it's an easy registry tweak to get around -- but I haven't tried it as yet.
The history of why this version exists is a kind of unholy alliance between sellers of substandard hardware and mercenary-cannibals from the camels and rubber duckies sect of capitalism. There's a lawsuit in the US.
You're not a failure as a child. You're not helpless. And you're not alone.
If you think you're a failure, consider this: There are many parents with neglectful kids, who never use Vista. There are also parents with seemingly model children who do use Vista.
As a child, it is your job to look after your parent's technological well being. But even the most responsible child cannot monitor their parents 24 hours of every day. A loving child will gives their parent as much freedom as possible.
Unfortunately, there are many pushers out there, just waiting to get your parents habituated to Vista. These people have infiltrated our computer shops. The sad truth is that many computers available on the market today are already spiked with deadly Vista. Parents are being lured with tales of Aero Glass and Safer computing. Too many of them are incapable of seeing beyond the lurid and gratuitous sales pitch. Before long they are waking up to reality, with a Vista Home Basic installation, and a raging does of other OEM tricks, like Norton Anti Virus and Microsoft Works.
So the first thing to accept is that Vista, while indeed dangerous, is an unavoidable problem for your parents to deal with. And they'll do it better and faster if you're aware, involved and don't stick your head in the sand.
THE AWARE CHILD HAS THE SAFEST PARENT
Part of awareness and a major deterrent to experimentation is to talk to your parents about Vista.
But even with a lot of your involvement, there are no guarantees. So it's important to know the symptoms of Vista use and to take action if you see your parent displaying them.
They may develop chronic constipation or diarrhea, and just seem tired and lethargic all the time. They may have trouble remembering things and forget something you told them just a few minutes earlier.
THE WARNING SIGNS
There are no symptoms that are absolutely reliable. But there are clues.
Most of these symptoms tend to be gradual which is why your awareness is so important.
Don't jump to conclusions, but do investigate any suspicions you have as fully as possible. Trust your intuition.
Many of the warning signs for Vista use are the same as those for depression or for the ups and downs of being an ageing parent in a world gone technological. There's also the possibility it's a physical or emotional problem.
But whatever the problem, we're talking about a parent who needs help. Right now.
START WITHIN THE FAMILY - BUT DON'T WAIT TO GET HELP IF THERE IS A PROBLEM.
Nothing beats the power of love and family support. That has to start with frank discussion.
Don't make it an attack. And don't try to talk with your parent if he or she seems under the influence.
Wait for a calm moment and then explain that you're worried about a certain operating system (be specific) and give your parent every opportunity to explain. That means really listening, not doing all the clicking.
Use "I" messages -- sentences that start with "I" -- explaining how your parent's Vista use affects you and your community.
At the same time, it's important to speak frankly about the possibility of Vista. And it's particularly important to talk about your values and why you're dead set against Vista for them at this time.
If your parent seems evasive or if his or her explanations are not convincing, you should consult your doctor or a professional operating system abuse counselor to rule out illness and to ask for advice.
In addition, you may also want to have your parent visit a mental health professional to see if there are emotional problems that either underlie or are caused by their Vista usage.
FURTHER ACTION IS PROBABLY NECESSARY.
Even if your parent seems non-responsive or belligerent, if you suspect Vista is involved, immediate action is vital.
First, you'll need an evaluation from a health professional skilled in diagnosing parents with operating system or office application problems. You may want to get involved with an intervention program to learn techniques that will help convince a Vista user to accept help. For the user, there are self-help, outpatient, day care, residency, and 24-hour hospitalization programs.
The right program depends entirely on the circumstances and the degree of Vista involvement. Here, you'll need professional help to make an informed choice.
Another point: If a program is to succeed, the family needs to be part of it. This can mean personal or family counseling. It may also involve participating in a support group where you learn about co-dependency and how not to play into the problems that might prompt further Vista use.
If you don't know about Vista reduction programs in your area, call your family doctor, local hospital or county mental health society or retirement village counselor for a referral. You can also call the national helpline for advice and a referral or investigate twelve step programs in your local capital city.
WHATEVER YOU DO, DON'T GIVE UP
That parent who upsets you so much today is the same dear parent who, only yesterday, raised you and looked after you. They're in way over their heads, and they never needed you quite as much as they need you now.
I'm using the occasional snippet of spare time I don't have to write a 'platform' for constructing Wiki-based Adventure Games(more). It's a kind of -- and I shiver in horror at the term -- a Domain Specific Language.
So, when you're inventing a Domain Specific Language for writing Wiki-based Adventure Games... I guess it's a good idea to acknowledge:
object carolObj { name = "Indigenous lifeform"; verb(int vrb,int objA,int objB) { case TalkTo: zobTalkToCarol(); return; case LookAt: if( ! knowsCarol ) { egoSay("A large carbon based mammal, it seems."); waitForMessage(); } else { egoSay("It is Carol, one of the local lifeforms."); waitForMessage(); } return; case Smell: egoSay("This creature has an overwhelming pungent smell."); return; case Move: egoSay("The lifeform is surprisingly sturdy, I don't believe I can use force."); return; } }
Well that's very nice.
Sierra
Now, how about that megalith of adventure games from the 1980s, Sierra Online?
(Leisure Suit Larry is a kind-of formative game for my entire character and personality. In case you didn't realise this, I thought I'd spell it out now.)
Here's a code snippet:
if (said("look","door")) { if (posn(ego,0,120,159,167)) { print("These doors are strongly built to keep out unwanted visitors."); } else { print("You can't see them from here."); } }
GrimE is a game engine written in scripting language LUA, touted as "the successor to SCUMM, preserving some of that engine's features" (according to the big 'pedia.)
I haven't found a sample or a good starting resource -- so if you find one, please send it along.
Agast
Also under the wikipedia category of Adventure Game Engines, I found AGAST
"For example, here's an event that is triggered when the player looks at his goldenmop:
event Lookat <> GoldenMop { EGO: "It's my trusty golden mop." "I got that years ago for saving the galaxy." }
(later)
var TalkedToGiantLizard;
event Talkto -> GiantLizard { if TalkedToGiantLizard { "Since he won't talk to me, I won't talk to him either." } else { "Hi up there, Gozira!" delay 10; "He probably can't hear me, or he doesn't speak English." TalkedToGiantLizard = true; } }
Here's an example of scripting for wintermute, (taken from here)
on "first" { Game.Msg("Do something after the first choice."); }
on "second" { Game.Msg("Do something after the second choice."); }
on "third" { Game.Msg("Do something after the third choice."); dlgObject.removeIcon("second"); }
ZIL
Zil? Zork Implementation Language of course! What else would you implement Zork in?
And it's time for lisp-like languages to bring a close to this article ;-)
Here's what the definition of the Living Room from Zork I looks like:
<ROOM LIVING-ROOM (LOC ROOMS) (DESC "Living Room") (EAST TO KITCHEN) (WEST TO STRANGE-PASSAGE IF CYCLOPS-FLED ELSE "The wooden door is nailed shut.") (DOWN PER TRAP-DOOR-EXIT) (ACTION LIVING ROOM-F) (FLAGS RLANDBIT ONBIT SACREDBIT) (GLOBAL STAIRS) (THINGS <> NAILS NAILS-PSEUDO)>
Okay. That's about all I wanted to share. I think the similarities and differences are telling. You see common concepts like "ego" and character manipulation. You see different styles.
I'd like to make some pompous over-reaching statement that text adventure games encompass every deep complex issue of software engineering. That a platform that allows efficient construction of games would need to be a shining example of superb software craftsmanship, with all the right buzzword compliance to drag our industry into a new era of productivity.
While the googles and microsofts have been touting their clouds and their meshes, we've been enhancifying the cloud capabilities of TimeSnapper. (And by "we" I mean my dilligent colleague Atli, who is the driving force on this one.)
This was a pretty solid overhaul, with many improvements under the covers (see release notes if you're detail oriented).
On the surface, the most important change is that the "activity cloud" (one of our reports) is now far more interactive.
Previously the 'activity cloud' was just a static word cloud, giving you an instant visual clue about what you've been up to.
Now it is an interactive, bubbling cauldron of possibilities. A self-organising mind map of your life.
Click on a word in the activity cloud to see a more detailed activity cloud, specific to that word.
(In the little screenshots at right, i've clicked on the word fogBugz, to see more detail about what i've been doing there, for example)
But here's what I like: the different ways to view your life are now converging into one seamless experience.
TimeSnapper has three main ways of viewing your life:
There's the day browser, where you watch a movie of your computing life. There's the reports, where you get a high level breakdown (including the activity cloud). And there's the 'activity grid' where you can search with more fine-grained criteria, and explore the results in a hierarchical grid.
Those three places are more integrated together than previously. You can travel through them, zooming in, ping-ponging back and forth. Learning what's really going on in your life.
Now you can view the word cloud report to get quick overview. Zoom into the word you're interested in. Click the 'View activity' link to open the activity grid, and see a listing, line by line of what you've done in relation to that word. Then double-click on any one of those lines to see the screenshots that were taken at the time (in the day browser).
(And if needed, right-click on that image, and extract the text from it, using OCR.)
You probably have to to try it to get it. For example, when Atli and I were reviewing these features, we shared a few screenshots during our discussions. And he immediately asked, "Oh, are you buying a Mazda?" Bingo. Your life in cloud form.
But don't be scared by this kind of power. You can password protect your data. And you can make it record only the apps you want. It's your life, just a better informed one.
If you see someone wearing this garment in a public place, my advice to you is simple:
Act swiftly. Move in silently and with great stealth. Bludgeon the wearer to death with a baseball bat. Step away, slowly.
You will be doing the human gene pool a tremendous favour.
(...alright, i ought to admit i'm not really a genocidal maniac, and the people at instructables are probably creative geniuses, DaVincis of the knitting world etc, who deserve some praise to accompany that ridicule.)
We were once taught that dynamic sql is the path to poor performance and woeful security. And yet we now see that this is nonsense -- dynamic ORMs bring about increased performance and richer security models. Damn it!
We were once taught that permissive typing is bad and leads to buggy software. And yet we now see, with the rise of Ruby, Python and modern dynamic programming, the opposite is true. Permissive is expressive. Dynamic is productive.
We were once taught that significant whitespace is a relic of punch cards and poor computers, which all modern languages must eschew. Yet we now see that modern and future languages will support significant white space with a vengeance!
But most shocking of all!!
We were once taught that flat, wide, single-tabled denormalised data structures are the road to death, pain and -- worst of all -- slow, inconsistent data. Yet we now (maybe) see with google BigTable that in fact this is the future: this is faster and actually, sorry Jenkins, your rdbms is dead.
I'd love to be a stickler and a stalwart... but screw it. History is bunk. Bring out the learn!
And thus I'm left wondering... What else appears taboo and verboten? What else did our 'teachers' claim was 'bad' ?
Imagine you're on a project where Joseph Cooney performs code reviews on everything you try to check in...just theoretically. And, theoretically, people like Don Syme and Joel Pobar are on hand to provide useful feedback at times...
Many many iterations ago... in a project far, far away...
Joseph (in red, indented)Leon (in blue)Aren't you a little short for a developer?Don't underestimate the Force.You may dispense with the pleasantries, Bambrick. I'm here to put you back on schedule.So, can I can check it in? You like my code?You'll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.We must be cautious.What's that line of code there?It's an old code, but it checks out. I was about to check it in.Does it compile?I find your lack of faith disturbing.
This part uses composition. The weapon of a true coder. Not as clumsy or random as code generation or polymorphism; an elegant design pattern for a more civilized age.Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed. The power to destroy performance is insignificant compared to the power of an enterprise rules engine.We shall re-double our efforts...I hope so bambrick for your sake. The build master is not as forgiving as I am.Look, Your Worshipfulness, let's get one thing straight. I take orders from just one person: meIt's a wonder you're still alive.It's a valid implementation. Screaming about it won't help you.Let 'em defect it. It is not wise to upset a tester.But Joe, nobody worries about upsetting a developer.That's 'cause devs don't pull people's arms out of their sockets when they lose. Testers are known to do that.Wonderful girl. Either I'm going to kill her or I'm beginning to like her.So I'll check it in?I have a very bad feeling about this...[pauses]
It's a TRAP... err CRAPDamn fool, I knew you were going to say that.Your insight serves you well. Bury your feelings deep down, LB. They do you credit, but they could be made to serve the rules engine.
You can write this shit LB, but that doesn't mean we can checkit in.
Last resort: use Jedi mind tricks on Joseph:
These are not the bugs you're looking for (wave hands)These are not the bugs we're looking for. You may go about your business. Check it in.
The red highlighting covers not just the literal string itself, but also the quote characters and the escape characters: the 'meta' guff that decorates the string.
So in the previous example, there's no clue given to the naked eye that some of the quote marks are "literal" quote marks, and others are delimiters to mark the beginning or end of the string.
Instead, syntax highlighting gives up, right when it could be most helpful. And it's left as a parsing exercise for the programmer to determine what is and isn't really a string.
Here's a different way the syntax highlighting could be implemented:
Now colour (actually -- saturation) is used to differentiate between the literal parts of the string, and the 'meta' parts of the string (the escape characters and the quote delimiters).
It looks strange at first glance, because it's an alien concept -- but i think that if you were used to this type of highlighting, it would allow you to "see" what escaping is going on in a string, far more readily.
More importantly -- it allows you to selectively 'see past' the escaping.
If you look at the second example, you can 'train' your eyes to focus on just the literal string itself -- until you see basically:
returnstring.Format("<a href=\"{0}\">{0}</a>
And thus you can reason about the text you've written, or proof-read it, in greater isolation from things that only the parser needs to worry about (the mechanics of escape characters etc.)
Or are these people just crazy paranoid schizofreakazoids with nothing better to do than write mealy-mouthed whinge posts about a whole pile of baloney?
So I signed up, downloaded the sdk, and got my hands stuck right in there. Then I waded through all the contractual jibber jabber and came to my own conclusion:
Yep, evil.
Read the fine print guys! Sheesh!
Every page of your application must have the "Google Rocks" logo in all four corners. The only language you can use is Gython -- Google Python, accessing your data via Gorm -- the Google ORM. The cost is fifty bucks per click -- that's google dollars -- bought at the google exchange rate. Plus, your code gets locked in Google's basement (aka GFS) for ever and ever.
Serious though, this cloud computing stuff (see also EC2 from Amazon, IBM blue cloud) looks pretty amazing.
Cough, cough, (Just making sure Ray Ozzie is awake). I'm going to say that a little louder.
this cloud computing stuff looks pretty amazing!
You freakin' got that yet Microsoft?
And this is just the very early days.
We will hear a hell of a lot of hype about this concept yet.
Then we will go through a bitter trough of disillusionment.
And then there will arise that grand surging tide of productivity as the vision is finally realised, five years from now, by which time we'll all be considering it old skool, as we float around in our hovering moped-atron-segways, reading e-newspaper articles about how Wikipedia bought Microsoft in exchange for a vintage single core computer from the e-smithsonian.
And then apple will put out a hand held elastic compute cloud, and six-year-old african kids will be wearing them as a fashion accessory.
Ah, back to reality:
Google will soon unveil Ruby as language number 2 on the platform. This right now... this is just the fluffer ;-)
Marcus Auerelius was a chump. Cleverer than I, and emperor of the modern world. But a halfwit, at best.
Old Marcus A. spake thus:
"Begin each day by saying to yourself, 'Today I shall meet people who are interfering, ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, and selfish.' They are made this way because of their ignorance of what is good and evil... but I, who have seen the nature of good and beauty, and of evil and its ugliness, know that the inner nature of the man who does evil is the same as mine, therefore I can't be harmed by any of these men, for no one can impose on me what is degrading."
Yet my philosophy is richer, though -- at a glance -- far poorer.
For I add to this outlook the respective wisdoms of Newton and Hanlon:
An object will stay at rest or continue at a constant velocity unless acted upon by an external unbalanced force
...and...
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity
Hence, with my modern stoic attitude, I proudly announce:
I begin each day by reminding myself,
"Today I shall meet with frustration, anxiety, anger, antagonism, annoyance, mistrust, frivolity, ignorance, hubris, jealousy, laziness and despair.
But things must be such, as we are born in ignorance, and continue as such -- without tremendous interference. Momentum, entropy and the scourge of complexity lead all of us toward chaos, panic and compromise, despite the most industrious of minds and the noblest of hearts.
If, on tiny occasions, we succeed at bringing joy in place of despair, knowledge in place of ignorance or order over chaos, no matter how insignificant is our victory, we shall smile quietly and confidently, knowing that having beaten nature, we will be punished with ample severity."
I could be completely wrong about this -- but I'm just going to make some bold and disparaging remarks about the whole existence of workflow software and see what happens.
Here we go.
A state machine is about the most basic electronic circuit you can make. You can throw one together with a couple of transistors.
And in software, writing a state machine is so simple that it's hard not to write one.
But simple ideas leave room for big inflation. Sales people know that the best things to sell are inflated big ideas.
So the field of Enterprise-Level Workflow Software was born.
And businesses buy them, happy to take a short-term hit in productivity, since it will lead to long-term benefits. But when you buy an expensive wrapper around a five dollar piece of softeware, the long term effects are confusion, complexity and further cost.
Business are universally worse off because of the advent of 'work flow' products.
I hear the response "Oh but workflow has a lot of value-add over rolling your own solution. You get persistence of long running processes, for one thing."
Persistence? Persistence? Don't we have these thing called databases? Isn't that our usual, and fairly well understood persistence mechanism?
Also there's value-added services such as logging and reporting.
Logging? reporting? I'm still thinking 'database.'
Ah, but here's the super-answer:
Workflow products include graphical tools for letting business analysts design their business processes without involving coders.
Without... without... You're kidding right? You ought to smell what you're shovelling.
Show me a working 'business analyst' -- one, who is not now nor has ever been a coder -- who successfully designs 'business workflows' using an off the shelf tool, and who didn't require *any* expensive training, and who achieves their task in less time and with more precision than a coder. And who doesn't need to call technical support for help at the time.
Show me just one.
World wide.
I can wait. I give you one month. Nah, screw it. I give you eternity.
Whenever I get too saddened by these things, i think of my big idea for a whole new class of enterprise component:
The 'IF' server.
Here's the general pitch.
(switch to the kind of voice-talent they use when advertising john grisham films)
Business today is complex. You need to make decisions. But every decision will take you down a certain path. Who can you count on to get you there?
Business needs alignment.
Business processes need to work together to guarantee that decisions are made for the greater good. Or evil, if that's the business you're in. We don't discriminate against evil.
Consider a difficult decision. It may be hard to make, but with an IF server, we can serve up either a true or a false, whichever you prefer.
You can have the most complex business scenarios in the world, and if you tell us to return true, we will. Every time.
Your IT department is a complex and challenging part of your business. They control a complex array of applications, of all sizes and across many platforms. Custom software is never dependable. But an IF server, can be relied upon.
Imagine... A single standard for IF processing, accessible from across the entire organisation.
Using proven open standards, like XML -- the Lingua Franca that powers today's fortune 500 businesses -- every application can link to the same powerhouse of decision making excellence: Your IF server.
Now you know: no matter what software your team is writing, they can connect to the IF server and be given one standard result. Monday? Then it's true.
Tuesday? Then it's false.
You run the business. You decide.
No more doubt. No more incompatabilities. No more missed deadlines and lost opportunities.
You can crush the competition. You can destroy them all.
IF only you purchase now.
The IF Platform Server One Million and One. A revolution in business processing solutions.
There are two ways to implement something. Neither option is perfect -- both have their own compromises, which are known and measurable. Argument centres on which compromises are most acceptable.
Example: should the bike-shed be made from wood or brick?
Artistic Argument:
There are two ways to implement something. Both are functionally correct, but have unquantifiable differences. Argument centres on intuition and opinion.
Example: should we paint the bike-shed topaz or cyan?
Religious Argument:
There are two conflicting points of view. Both are utterly wrong. Argument has no centroid and no limiting factors.
Example: should the bike-shed be built to honour the green walrus or the almighty unicorn?
This has always bothered me and I've never quite put my finger on it until now.
I love anonymous methods (in .net 2.0+). I've over used them, sure. I've under used them, too. And I've gotten all too excited about them.
But the name is so very wrong. It puts the emphasis in all the wrong places. Anonymous, hey? Well what've they got to hide?
Consider this chunk of code:
Dim Result as Integer = Math.Sqrt(16)
What is '16' in the above snippet?
Well, it's a value. And it gets passed to a parameter. Simple. But a different answer we could give -- if we wanted to bamboozle people right at the start -- would be:
"Well in this case '16' is an anonymous variable."
A what? A huh? A... well.. you're just trying to sound clever aren't you?
Calling it an 'anonymous variable' is only useful if you are the damn fool who's stuck with the job of writing a compiler for the underlying language. It doesn't help the regular johnny coders like you and me who code in the damn language every day. (unless the build is broken that day of course.) (or there are too many meetings that day.) (or the keyboards are wrong.)
Similarly -- an 'anonymous method' is really just a 'code block', or an 'immediate method', or an 'inline method.'
The point isn't that it is anonymous, the point is that it's a method.
Maybe the term could be "throwaway method" -- as in, it's a method that's not designed for re-use. You just use it in this one place and then throw it away.
So I was sitting at work this week, immersed in some complex n-tier, m-dimensional, z-class np-hard problem, when cooney interjects with a gob-smackingly complexicated puzzler, that spins my mind in a vortex of impossible tangles. Get this:
"Who would you back in a fight? Indiana Jones or Han Solo?"
A riddle wrapped in a puzzle, shipped home in an enigma with pre-paid mystery and a side heaping of conundrums.
After narrowing it down (Sword or Pistols? Stock whip is allowed? Blaster is kosher? Bare knuckle or gloves?) I had the details downpat (bare knuckle, earth, queensbury rules) and took the question home to Mrs Secret Geek to ponder over dinner.
I've started to implement the wiki adventure game idea from last week. I plan to contribute it to CodePlex, and maybe make a site. It's being written in Javascript mostly, but with C# on the server side. Some JSON, some regex. I considered and ruled out using Ruby, Volta, Silverlight, Asp.net MVC and a bunch of other technologies I don't understand, for reasons that Pseale has elucidated nicely.
I've got a benchmark in mind for what constitutes the 1.0 version of the game. Basically, once you're able to create a simple game akin to Pug Wars (see also, Drug Wars, Dope Wars)... that would be 1.0.
That game can be composed as a two-page game, with trading, banking, some randomness and an ever decreasing number of days remaining.
I've got ideas for what would be in a 2.0 and 3.0 version.
Here's the general concepts leading up to version 2.0...
A player has four lists (keyvalue collections, perhaps)
SimpleAttributes, such as name and avatar.
InventoryList, your useful items
SkillList, graded abilities that get you places, unlock certain possibilities in the game.
VitalsList, your score, your health, your hunger, your wisdom, charm and so on.
What actual items are in these lists depend on the game authors.
Inventory, would be composed of items that are intrinsically tradeable. Each item has an item-type, e.g. "Gold" and a qty, e.g. "57".
Say you visit a witch who is willing to sell you 1 donkey in exchange for 57 gold pieces. Very good. Trading is a built in feature of the platform. Normal fair trading applies: you can't spend more than you have. You can't buy the donkey and keep the gold. You can't buy more donkey's than the witch is selling.
Now, here's the clever bit: all tradeable items are, in theory, capable of becoming weapons. You may have noticed this from watching Jackie Chan films. That's not just a park bench! It's a weapon!
Given the appropriate skill, any item can be used as a weapon. If you don't have the crossbow skill, then that crossbow you just found is nothing more than a tradeable commodity to you. But once you bump into that wise old cross bow trainer, and acquire the cross bow skill, you will suddenly be able to employ it in any future fight. (Some items can act as weapons even if you have no skill -- the seal club for example)
Similarly, all tradeable items are capable of acting as 'food'. And what is 'food' in the general sense? It's a thing that can be consumed and thus its quantity diminished, but the consumption of which will alter one of your vital signs in some way. So this category really covers Foods, drink, poison, potions, medicines and the like. A keg of spirits may increase your drunkedness from 0 to 100. A bottle of poison, will decrease your health from 42 to 0. You can't dimish a vital sign below zero, but you can certainly try.
Can a tradeable item be both weaponry and food? Certainly! A well timed pretzel to the eye can disable many an attacker.
What weapons can be used on what adversaries?
That depends how a creature is defined. Some creatures can be attacked equally with any and all weapons.
But many creatures are impervious to all but a few weapons. Superman for example: Impervious to all, vulnerable to: "kryptonite".
Okay, that's the basic mechanics that will go into the game. I think it will game authors a lot of flexibility in the text adventures they can construct.
Writing the javascript is an alarmingly fun process. I'm beginning to agree with Justice Gray's famous retort he uses whenever someone complains that javascript is a terrible language:
Well, this leaves me feeling somewhat sick in the stomach.
I was planning to put out some other blog entries just now, but i've felt dizzy and nauseous for the last few hours. Here's the story:
Last week I took my computer in to the shop to get it fixed. (I refuse to deal with hardware. I don't even change staples in a stapler. I have the midas touch and can even blow up passive circuits when they're disconnected plus i'm wearing a static wrist strap.)
I got the computer back a few days later and everything was fine.
On a crazy paranoid whim, I decided to look back through my TimeSnapper history to see if the technicians had used my computer in any unexpected ways.
I've been meaning to check this all week. I even woke in the night once, thinking: I really ought to check what TimeSnapper says happened on my computer when it was in the shop.
Well I finally got around to checking, just now. And what I found has left me unwell. It's nothing too major, but here goes.
A technician started up the computer and spent a short while looking through the 'my pictures' folder. First they looked at some photos of my baby daughter. Then they perused through some other family photos. Finally, they cleared the 'recent documents' list, checked that it was clear, and shut down the computer. (Sequence shown at right.)
The bit where they deleted the recent documents list happened extremely quickly. Watching it play out i am certain that they've done this activity many times before on many other people's machines.
I'm not too worried. They were pretty quick about it, only had the most cursory glance really. All sorts of other things were possible. My paranoid delusions included them installing a keylogger, searching for banking information. Lots of other possibilities. So it's not bad as such. I'll probably continue to use them for my computer needs (hey they're the best in town). But I'll probably create a guest account with minimum permissions, next time. And I still wonder what other things dirty technicians are getting away with on other machines entrusted to their care.
The first computer programs I ever wrote were text adventure games. It was bliss. I didn't spend much time playing games. For me it was all about the writing.
How about you? Did you ever write 'interactive fiction?'
The basic genre consists of a story that moves from one location to another. The hero of the game, that's you, can collect "things" as you go, and certain impasses are reached if you don't have the correct "things".
There is fighting. There are monsters. Puzzles. Traps. There's an abundance of description. And plenty of adventure.
Here's my current idea: write a wiki-style site where contributors don't just write webpages, they construct text adventure games.
Wiki-style formatting would do for the text. And for the game mechanicsm itself, there would need to be some simple features provided by the platform.
Hyperlinks and standard web navigation would take the place of those cumbersome command parsing consoles that leave you furious trying to guess the programmer's intent.
Here are the things I think you'd need for starters:
Some kind of 'state-bag' to act as your inventory. Your pocket contains string, matches and lint.
A declarative way of indicating items that the player can collect. You find 57 gold pieces
A way of increasing or decreasing scores against a player. You have 12 days remaining, and you have 14 health points
A way of trading items. The witch offers you the invisibility potion in exchange for 3 gold pieces.
A way of keeping some options hidden unless you have or do certain things. If Skillset.Contains(Romance) then Paragraph3.Visible = true.
A fighting routine that can combine the use of weapons, skills, armory, and luck.
With those basic building blocks, I think some pretty fantastic stuff could be created.
Who's up for the challenge? Come on lazy web, create for me (or find) a wiki-style web site for authoring text adventure games.
Ever feel a little anxious? Here's 10 modern mental pitfalls familiar to today's office worker.
These problems can seem to blend into each other, but are each distinct problems, that can be attacked separately.
problems
Information overload
News overload
Skill reinvention
Always on
Interruptions and alarms
Increasing expectations
Multi tasking
Paradox of choice
Fractured time
Sociopathic social overload
Information overload
There is so much information available that no human being can possibly digest it.
This concept is so familiar now that it's almost docile in relation to the problems that follow. Alvin Toffler first coined the term, way back in 1970 before most of you were even born.
News overload
If too much information was the only problem, then you could slowly digest it, or read summaries of it. Eventually, throughout your lifetime, you'd move closer to having a handle on it all. But in fact there's a stream of new information being added to the information overload, and the rate of new information is increasing.
Every day, regardless of how much effort you make to learn, you know an ever smaller percentage of what is knowable.
Skill reinvention
New stuff is not just meaningless gossip either. Some of it is very deep and useful. New technical skills are harder to absorb than news items. By definition, you can't acquire a skill by reading about it alone. You have to practice it, over and over, to have any hope of acquiring it.
And no sooner have you begun to master an important new technical skill, than a new technical skill is announced as The Way. (Coping hints here)
The first three problems add up to create a classic Red Queen's Race:
"...it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!"
Always on
The information, news and new skills don't turn up at nicely scheduled times, either. Thanks to mobile phones, blackberries, pdas, ipods, laptops and home offices, it's possible to be voluntarily connected to the infomonster at every moment and in every place.
Consider this: evolution is a nasty business where only the fittest survive. Yet evolution hasn't cured us of the need to sleep eight hours a day. Primative society was also rough and mean -- yet it afforded its members a day of rest each week. Modern technology is rougher and meaner than both evolution and primative societies put together. Work harder you damn slacker!
Interruptions and alarms
Information doesn't sneak up quietly: it noisily announces itself, with alarms and popups designed to put you on edge! IM, skype, email and all the afore mentioned 'always on' devices are just waiting to rattle your nerves. The layout in a Cubicle farm does nothing to limit physical/noise interruptions. There are also car alarms, home alarms, fire alarms, smoke alarms, and many others, all equally 'important'. (Raganwald's lashed outabout this in the past)
Increasing expectations
Our standards increase to swallow most productivity gains.
For example (I heard this on a gtd or .net podcast... if anyone knows the source, please share) Prior to the 1950's, there were no washing machines, and the avg. household spent 6 hours per week washing clothes. The invention of the common domestic washing machine was proclaimed to be a great liberator... but the net effect today? We continue to spend 6 hours per week washing clothes, only we now do 10 times as much washing. i.e we have cleaner clothes & more of them -- but we're still just as much a slave of our tasks.
Similarly, producing a document today in Word 11 takes just as much time as it did in WordPerfect 1.1 -- the output should be considerably nicer, but then again, the reader is expecting a nicer output. So what did we gain exactly?
Apparent multi-tasking
Our operating systems support the appearance of performing more than one task at once. We humans trick ourselves into believing we're capable of working on more than one task at a time.
A symptom of the previous three, is the concept of "Busy Work" -- the ability to appear busy while not actually getting anything done. Example: checking your email.
"No one really multitasks. You just spend less time on any one thing."
I can't even begin to explain this one. You can talk to 150 IM buddies, send and receive a hundred emails -- complete social overload really... and yet this can be accompanied by no real physical interaction with anyone at all, ever. Facial expressions, body language, voice intonation, the wonders of touch... all of this gets compressed into a couple of emoticons. Weird.
Here's an example from a friend of mine. He described how his son was sitting on the couch, playing with his Nintendo DS, when he was supposed to be taking the dog for a walk. Nothing too unusual there... except, he was playing Nintendogs (a virtual pet simulation) in which he'd created a virtual dog based on his real dog. His real life pet ended up being returned to the pound. Seriosly. I think that's a sign of something... we're overdue for an apocalypse I guess.
Paradox of choice
There are more options than ever before. And even the most trivial choices require some amount of thought. You can't opt out of all the options -- yet the cost of taking the time, choosing wisely, will often outweigh the benefit of a wise choice -- Analysis Paralysis.
Barry Schwartz is the guru who explains this best:
...we assume that more choice means better options and greater satisfaction. But beware of excessive choice: choice overload can make you question the decisions you make before you even make them, it can set you up for unrealistically high expectations, and it can make you blame yourself for any and all failures. In the long run, this can lead to decision-making paralysis. And in a culture that tells us that there is no excuse for falling short of perfection when your options are limitless, too much choice can lead to clinical depression.
Further info, Barry gave a talk at google explaining the Paradox of Choice. He has a book called 'The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less'. (Ironically, the book is available new or used, with or without super shipping, possibly as a companion to 'The Wisdom of Crowds', at any one of 58 different prices, depending on who you buy from -- aaargh!)
"A man with a watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never sure."
Fractured time
Everything is now available in 'Near Real Time' -- effectively meaning that every action involves a small delay. Rather than large delays which can be scheduled around and dealt with, we have many thousands of tiny delays, which cut up our time and give us just fractions of slack time -- a second, ten seconds, one minute, here, there and everywhere. Click a link and wait a tiny bit. Put food in a microwave and wait one minute. Switch from design view to source view -- and wait a few seconds. Compile your code, and wait a bit. If the waits were much bigger we could schedule for them and find a use for them. If the waits were reduced to zero seconds, then there'd be no 'mental stack stress'. But instead our attention is cut to pieces by this effect, and it provides a nucleation point for distraction.
Steve McConnell touches on this concept in the blog entry, "Is Faster Always Faster?". What I haven't seen investigated is the net effect of time-fracture on a person's psychological well-being.
Okay. Next week, let's write about how to deal with all of this. If we can find the time.
the idea is that different tools are used depending if we're interested in big things or little things, and whether we're looking forward, looking back, or living in the moment.
Couple of weeks ago i thought the internet was just fulla the old hate speak.
People were savaging Paul Graham without remorse (no url available: people have retracted so many criticisms), because he dared to share some code he'd been working on.
Ruby on rails was getting savaged, with the kind of vigour that only a new year can bring. Joel Spolsky was being taunted with agist remarks, because he didn't like one of google's incubation projects.
I agree and disagree with most of the sentiments expressed.
Back to that in a moment ... more important: i've recently been reading about great australian inventions. And every story has the same crazy pattern!
Crazy pattern is this:
dude sees a real need and invents something that answers it perfectly.
shares the idea with industry leaders and people who share that problem
they slam him, ridicule him, and just generally want to smash his face in for wasting time and attention on such a ridiculous problem.
either: he proves them right on his death bed or more often:
he dies, alone and poor, but his successor proves that the ideas were sound
Even in so-called rational, logical industries (like science and engineering) these things occur again and again!
Let me repeat that, in case it's new to you: even very intelligent scientists and engineers, like you and me, continually dismiss and disregard important breakthroughs in our fields.
No, really. Continuously. We dismiss ideas more readily than less intelligent people. it's our blessig and our curse.
"Don't worry about people stealing an idea. If it's original, you will have to ram it down their throats."
I was thinking today: maybe some ideas at work that have been dismissed recently were actually cleverer than "the group" realised. Group think is a seductive and terrible thing. And i wish i had time to concentrate on timesnapper, 24/7. Or failing that, to blog about creativity 24/7. The only real lesson is:
accept ALL criticism. but take NONE of it to heart.
An interview with my ugly old self was in the sydney morning herald this week, possibly as a consequence of being listed (erroneously) in some top 100 australian blog lists, or possibly as a consequence of being in the smh previously.
This was fun: i only wish i could have linked out to hanselman for inspring the WAF (wife acceptance factor) concept on which the interview was built.
Though the wording at the end implies the opposite, I didn't write to them asking to be published.
A friend of mine claims he has moved beyond html an
secretGeek .:dot Nuts about dot Net:.
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