Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Six Laws of the New Software

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the listen-to-the-law dept.

LordFoom writes "Still suffering from post-dotcom stress disorder, I keep my eye out for gentle balm to sooth my ravaged psyche. The manifestos at ChangeThis are not it. The most popular manifestos range from irritating to enlightening, with none of them particularly comforting. In particular the recent Six Laws of the New Software have done my dreams of writing lucrative code no good - although it has changed my idea of what money-making code is."

7 of 313 comments (clear)

  1. In the end of last century... by melted · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There was a widespread belief among physicists that there's nothing more to discover in physics. They were wrong. This guy is also wrong.

    1. Re:In the end of last century... by Brian+Brian · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Anyone proclaiming the end of anything has just demonstrated the limits of their mind.

  2. Here's another law to add by Dancin_Santa · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When developing a web browser, if a plug-in needs to be launched, don't let the plug-in's loading cause all other instances of the browser to lock up.

    I'm looking at you, Firefox.

    What's the deal with the PDF-format anyway? The document is 17 pages of Powerpoint-like slides. I'm sure some nice, simple HTML could have displayed that much more quickly. And not locked up Firefox for a minute.

    1. Re:Here's another law to add by cmowire · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Disable the acrobat plugin.

      Not only does this prevent Firefox from freezing up obnoxiously, but it also means that you don't see the file until it's actually done loading. Progressive PDF's suck.

      --
      Gentoo Sucks
  3. Law 7 by DrKyle · · Score: 5, Insightful

    All the good stuff has already been thought of, but not everyone knows they exist. Try to find really good ideas by looking back at least 10 years for a piece of software that never took off and has been abandoned and remarket it as the next big thing. Remember: Marketing people could sell blood to a turnip.

  4. Writing vs Coding by kiwidefunkt · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It seems like some of these people spend more time writing about software than actually writing software...

    --
    www.kiwilyrics.com - a wiki for lyrics
  5. Breaks his own laws by Captain+Kirk · · Score: 4, Insightful

    He says, correctly, that HTML is the standard for documents on the Web.

    He says stick to these standards.

    His own article is in a crappy PDF - possibly the lamest format possible for web articles.

    A case of "do as I say not as I do"

    --
    1000s Warcraft Gold while you sleep