It isn't cost effective to build good software... for a few users. I develop some internal systems. They are very complex and each of them have 40 users at most. The ROI of Apple polishing every tiny bit of a software is great. If each of their 100000 users spend one second less, it is a ROI of more than one day.
Human beings are very intelligent. They can learn to play a musical instrument, drive a car, operate a machine and to use shitty software.
I think you only have two choices. Use Eiffel or don't use contracts.
The fact that you can't use all of DbC specifications, doens't mean that using a macro/asserts in C++ won't have any utility.
We use a lot of pre/pos-conditions and they more than payed for themself. Each time a new feature crashes because a index was out-of-bounds, a variable wasn't initialized, or an invalid value was detected, we can solve it right away. It clears a lot of comunication problems between who codes and who uses a function.
OK, I'm exaggerating. But adsense is really revolutionary. I've just put adsense in my web site. It will give me a small amount of money every month, something enough to pay for the server. I would never have ads from big companies. If I had to sell ads, the earned money wouldn't pay my time.
Adsense gives a steady flow of money to micro-publishers. Little companies giving money to little publishers. Finally, publishing in the web is economically viable.
Sure, the announcers get more from their money from search ads. When someone is searching, they are looking for something. If you find an appropriate ad, bingo!, buy it. With adsense, the matching isn't so good. There's no reason to click when you are just leisure browsing.
Arguing for the "Keep the Bozos out" mantra, the very smart Peter Norvig posted a stupid post at Google Research Official Blog. He describes Google hiring strategy as "hiring above the mean" and plot some graphics showing how great it is.
The premisse is that you can reduce all the richness of human beings to an unidimensional measure. The best teams I worked with have a diversity of talents, each one contributing for the success.
What do you use to tag files in Linux? I usually use the powerful EasyTag, but it doesn't use other forms of info, like amazon.com data. The gentoo default version also is an older one, that doesn't have some nice features. Any suggestions?
You asked for a big non-application-specific book. I'll give you a small application specific book that will solve your problem. It's Photoshop Channel Chops. It explains to you some of the most important concepts about manipulating images. It packed with info, not a heavy "bible" book with big type and lots of empty space. It has PS in the title, but it really doesn't matter, since it talks about the underlying processing.
Let me cite Pumpkin King Amazon reviewer:
If you aspire to be a hardcore Photoshop user, this book is probably the one you want above all others. It's not a step-by-step tutorial, a mere reference book, or a book that leads you through the tools and various functions of the software. Instead it discusses the fundamental concepts you need to know to use Photoshop to its fullest.... Most of the book is still applicable since Photoshop today still has channels, alpha channels, paths, layers, and calculations. This book hasn't been updated since it was written in 1998, but it really doesn't need to be. It's not about how to use particular tools and new features. It's about how to think with Photoshop....
Clusty toolbar is developed by this search engine. It has two features I, as a non native English speaker, can't live without: on screen dictionary, and wikipedia search. Right click a work and select dictionary or wikipedia search. The definition is displayed as a tooltip. You don't have to loose your reading context just for discovering what a word means.
Others I can't live without: Gmail notifier, Diggler (as in konqueror you can clean the address bar with one click), Launchy (integrate with your email client), Google toolbar (spellcheck!), Duplicate tab (make the back button work your new tabs), Single window, Aardvark (clean a page before printing it), Session saver (keep your work even with an always crashing browser full of extensions).
Web developers can't miss: live http headers, Venkman, Web Developer.
I've started to rip my 2.000 CD collection in ogg. This was a mistake. MP3 has won. I know it isn't free, it has patents and licensing, but it is better than any closed format. All the big corp hate MP3. They can't lock you with it. They must support it. They (and you) will have to live with mp3.
I'm now re-encoding everything in high quality MP3 VBR. Portability wins.
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It isn't cost effective to build good software... for a few users. I develop some internal systems. They are very complex and each of them have 40 users at most. The ROI of Apple polishing every tiny bit of a software is great. If each of their 100000 users spend one second less, it is a ROI of more than one day. Human beings are very intelligent. They can learn to play a musical instrument, drive a car, operate a machine and to use shitty software.
Does the public domain books that you "buy" and cost 0,00 also count as a sale?
You helped to define the way I think. Thanks and good luck.
Video presentation: How Open Source Projects Survive Poisonous People (And You Can Too)
I always use lcdtest in my linux box.
but the already produced discs are still selling
Temperature: At sea level, water boils at 100C and freezes at 0 Weight: 1Kg of water is 1 liter Distance: 1L of water is 0.1m ** 3
I wholeheartedly recommend this Martin Fowler's article to start with.
The fact that you can't use all of DbC specifications, doens't mean that using a macro/asserts in C++ won't have any utility.
We use a lot of pre/pos-conditions and they more than payed for themself. Each time a new feature crashes because a index was out-of-bounds, a variable wasn't initialized, or an invalid value was detected, we can solve it right away. It clears a lot of comunication problems between who codes and who uses a function.
Use them. They are your friend.
I really like Zoho Writer. As a product it feels a lot better than Writly. But Writly has one killer feature: spell check!!!
I like this service
Adsense gives a steady flow of money to micro-publishers. Little companies giving money to little publishers. Finally, publishing in the web is economically viable.
Sure, the announcers get more from their money from search ads. When someone is searching, they are looking for something. If you find an appropriate ad, bingo!, buy it. With adsense, the matching isn't so good. There's no reason to click when you are just leisure browsing.
It's great to work from your home, but it's terrible to live in your office.
The premisse is that you can reduce all the richness of human beings to an unidimensional measure. The best teams I worked with have a diversity of talents, each one contributing for the success.
Because it doesn't work in linux? So you wouldn't have to buy a windows box just to use it.
Ooops! Songbird also just work in windows:-(
What do you use to tag files in Linux? I usually use the powerful EasyTag, but it doesn't use other forms of info, like amazon.com data. The gentoo default version also is an older one, that doesn't have some nice features. Any suggestions?
It's called volume control!
What's the use of Gmail if you can't search your old messages? BTW, how would you search your old messages using any encryption system?
Brazil already has two biodiesel plants in production.
BTW, I used it to learn to use Gimp. Since you kown the underlying processing, you can use any graphic application
If you aspire to be a hardcore Photoshop user, this book is probably the one you want above all others. It's not a step-by-step tutorial, a mere reference book, or a book that leads you through the tools and various functions of the software. Instead it discusses the fundamental concepts you need to know to use Photoshop to its fullest. ... Most of the book is still applicable since Photoshop today still has channels, alpha channels, paths, layers, and calculations. This book hasn't been updated since it was written in 1998, but it really doesn't need to be. It's not about how to use particular tools and new features. It's about how to think with Photoshop. ...
Unfortunatelly it is out of print:-(
Others I can't live without: Gmail notifier, Diggler (as in konqueror you can clean the address bar with one click), Launchy (integrate with your email client), Google toolbar (spellcheck!), Duplicate tab (make the back button work your new tabs), Single window, Aardvark (clean a page before printing it), Session saver (keep your work even with an always crashing browser full of extensions).
Web developers can't miss: live http headers, Venkman, Web Developer.
How can anyone claim to be productive without BASH COMPLETION?
See all kde webdev package. Quanta is the best html editor.
I've started to rip my 2.000 CD collection in ogg. This was a mistake. MP3 has won. I know it isn't free, it has patents and licensing, but it is better than any closed format. All the big corp hate MP3. They can't lock you with it. They must support it. They (and you) will have to live with mp3.
I'm now re-encoding everything in high quality MP3 VBR. Portability wins.