Things I should

• I should post more
• I should post more about my desserts
• I should make more desserts
• I should upload those pictures of desserts I made in the meantime

But why I didn’t; because I just became a father.

Face off – Facebook gets another make-over

Facebook is redesigning its user profiles again? Hmmm, it must be Tuesday…

The new design has been called either one of two things, and one of two things only; “The way forward,” or “Pointless.” Those two phrases completely sum-up the entire nature of Facebook and how it is used by people around the world.

This redesign was unveiled at the f8 developer conference on 22^nd September highlighting “major” changes in the layout and navigation in an attempt to make “Facebook profiles nexuses for consuming content.” Good words there, good words indeed; it almost makes it sound like it’s a necessary update.

The truth is Facebook needs to stay ahead of the game, or at least in it. With Twitter, Weibo, Google +, LinkedIn, Bebo, Friendster plus many others, hot on its heels and hungry for its followers, Facebook needs to keep itself looking fresh and provide new, exciting features to keep people coming back. It’s like watching an aging starlet resort to extreme plastic surgery in order to still appear young and cast-able.

Redesigning profiles is, in no small part, an attempt to push us into a higher level of social e-commerce, which means Second Life-like opportunities in the form of Facebook credits and app stores; a brave new Facebook world for all to spend their money in.

The profile changes have been part of a wider launch that includes the launch of a music and media platform. This is their ultimate jewel in the crown – if the media platform really takes off with users then it will be another win for Facebook. It may even help reconvert those that have lost their Facebook faith. This music and media platform will display the media content a user is watching or listening to on their profiles, so for example, if you just happen to be listening to the Macarena on Spotify, your friends list can see it, access it via your profile and dance along with you to the hip beats of that terrible 90’s one-hit wonder.

All of these changes are directed at keeping users on their profiles longer with an eye for increasing their consumer spending on e-commerce. After all, a social network as destitute as Facebook needs to bring home the bacon every once in a while!

Still, give it another six months before they decide to change it again.

The Online Society is tracking your digital footprints

For conspiracy theorists it’s all about the Free Masons and the Illuminati; essentially secret organisations and governments that control the global infrastructure of business, trade, manufacturing, politics and entertainment. It’s a dead horse that has been flogged for as long as human beings have had the capacity for overwrought paranoia and suspicion in their hearts and minds.

But let’s talk about something far more provocative and provable than that. Let’s talk about the Online Society, as opposed to a “secret” society. The Online Society is very much real, in fact, it doesn’t even attempt to hide itself from public view. Everyone is aware of it and interacts with it on a daily basis around the world. It’s a powerful leviathan that dominates our lives. It is a society that is made-up of some of the most powerful brands and businesses on the planet from Google to Apple to Facebook to Amazon and so on.

Cowboy developers, who are they and how to recognize them

One of the most annoying things in my work are people who do not know what they are doing. Since I am working professionally in the software development industry I am eager to get better in it, and because I never had a formal education in software development I always feel that I don’t know everything there is to know about development.

Therefor you might understand that I take every opportunity to get more knowledge and techniques about software development. I read books of the great names in the industry (Kathy Sierra, Uncle Bob, Gang of Four), get certified in different techniques (SQL, UML, ZCE, OCJP 6 at the moment). Anyway, I am trying to learn new stuff.

But what annoys me the most is that when I learn something that is very important/useful/practical (for example Design Patterns) and I tell people – very often people with University degrees in Computer Science – about it, I get a response something like “basic stuff” or “who doesn’t know about that”. It doesn’t annoy me that those people say that to me, it annoys me that when I see their coding I cannot see any technique related to what they call “basic”.

If it stopped there it would be bad, but not as bad as I am going to describe to you now.

These people call themselves developers and some of them even have the nerve to call them self a senior developer. What is wrong with this is the following:

These people often do not unit test. How is it possible to know your code works if you have no reliable test?

These people complain about deadlines instead of acting to it. It is your fault if you can’t make a deadline, you should have rang the bell earlier!

These people are working late in the evening, because they can’t make the deadline. You are not a workaholic or a hero, you are someone who didn’t finish his/her work!

These people make bad design choices. You say that you know design patterns, but it is never to be seen! I say that I drive a Lamborghini, yet I cannot show it to you.

These people do not evolve easily, they tend to stuck with what they know. Because working with something you know without looking for improvement can’t be wrong, can it?

These people - when asked – don’t educate themselves outside work because “they have lives”. Why would you do that, it is your bosses responsibility to get you better trained, right?

These people are proud to admit they sometimes/usually hack code in the software to make things work. Only the most awesome coders can hack existing code to make it work for them!

I can make this list even longer and I can make it even more sarcastic, but I think it is only getting more annoying if I do (let alone my blood pressure rising with every letter I type).

Cowboy Developers, why they suck

One reason, and one reason only: They make my life miserable…

…Well that might by a bit too hard, but let me explain that bit further with a simple example case:

A year ago I got a new project that involved creating a new section in an existing PHP 4 application. Although it is not a good idea to code in PHP 4, at the time there was no possibility to convert everything (the product is huge) to PHP 5.x. I got the project details and read them through and got the go-ahead to start. I started coding and soon I felt bad vibes coming in my mind as I began noticing weird coincidences in the code.

It began when I saw a function called get_organisations and I had the strong feeling already seen that one being declared before. In normal OOP that wouldn’t have necessarily caused a problem as it would have been an override if it were declared in an extended class. No, in this case it was a normal function in a procedural style of coding. No MVC or any type of reliable framework was used in the application and pages was just ‘included’ when needed. The OOP that was being used was imported from other frameworks and made to work, nothing really fitting for the application.

After a frustrating sigh from my side I continued coding, leaving the application unchanged – which I see now was wrong and I should have fixed that code – walking into problems quite quickly as I needed to include files that I needed for other functions which had the same two functions declared within them. Thus creating the problem of having a double defined function, which I needed to fix.

And if this was an isolated incident it was fine, but this is how the complete – well at least 80% – of the application was developed. The project ended up nearly past the deadline because of so much problems that occurred during the development stage. The code was a big mess and I tried cleaning it up as I went along (because my motto is: You code well, or you don’t code.) but as you might imagine that takes a long time, time that was precious and should have spent implementing the new features. Instead of that it was bug fixing along the way.

The person that coded the application was already long gone from the company and frankly left the company with dangerously unstable product. And although nothing had happened yet, there was no way of knowing how many hidden things already went wrong.

This man was/is a cowboy developer and in my opinion should face prison – might be a bit over done – for writing such horrible code. You might say now that it is probably too harsh to say something like that, but face it: The man did a consistent horrible job and still kept it. When a doctor surgeon operates on a person and keeps on doing a shit job, eventually people will begin to notice and will suspend him/her. To make it even clearer: A doctor needs to be in training for years before he is even to come close to a patient.

Software developers on the other hand can be created by simply calling themselves like that.

My wife is a Psychologist who faces somewhat the same thing in her industry. For years – centuries even – people have considered Psychology as a pseudo-science because of all the amateurs working in the industry calling themselves Psychologist. Even now the title of Psychologist isn’t protected and everyone can call themselves like that. But… they do have national bodies – changing per country though – that offer certification for people who completed a Psychology study to become a certified Psychologist. Although Psychology tries hard to do all their research correctly, and only work through standardized methods it is still hard for them [the Psychologists] to get rid of the stain on their name.

Why don’t we have that? We have certifications for the different languages/techniques, but it is just not the same for it is not a reliable way of knowing that a coder actually uses the techniques they learned. If we measure the skills of a developer on mere certifications we can only assume they know how to use a certain technique, not that they actually use it on a daily basis. It would be very beneficial if we could create a recognizable body that would identify the developer as being a craftsman, or professional, not depending on the language they know. Everyone – or at least everyone with a right mind – would rather hire a software developer that is a good developer but with little knowledge of the language they are asked to code in, over a developer who only knows the language well but lacks the skill of being a professional player.

Our industry is just being overrun by people ‘who know a guy’ or ‘has a nephew’ that can code. But it is just not the same, we are talking about the difference between someone who likes cooking for a hobby or someone who runs a kitchen in a Michelin star restaurant.

It is time that we – developers that are trying to be a real craftsman - get some recognition over all the other cowboy developers.

Desserts + Open Source Projects

I am still doing the desserts (although not as many as at the beginning) and I still need to show them here. But I have come so far now that I actually have the images of the desserts on my work computer. That means uploading can commence every day now!

Next to that I am working on a new open source project (see my github here). Anyway, with my wife being pregnant (oh I didn’t tell you that!) it is all a bit hectic.

I promise that I will post something delicious/nerdy soon again! Maybe something about my new hobby too: Gardening.

A Code of Conduct for Professional Programmers

A good friend of mine pointed to me to a book of “Uncle Bob”, called “The Clean Coder: A Code of Conduct for Professional Programmers”. I must say that I enjoy reading this book and frightfully come to the conclusion that I do a lot of things that are discussed as badly in the book.

That is going to change from now on, that is for sure.

Dessert update

Believe it or not, I am still doing the desserts! Although not as in a high volume as I did before, but I certainly didn’t gave up my hobby.

I try to update my desserts soon, but as you noticed I kind of lack the time because I am playing Portal 2 a lot, and bought about 4 new Wii games.

Anyway, just hold on!

Other blog

The reason why I don’t post a lot on this blog is that – next to working very hard – I also have another (company) blog going. So if you are interested, why don’t you take a look on the Slash & Pepper site too?

To keep you all quiet

I bring you one of the best bands in the world.. Angus & Julia stone.

Aaargh!

I have absolutely no time to post my new dessert creations!! Sorry! Will post some soon!