Blue Sky On Mars

CNN.com - Spread of buggy software raises new questions - Apr. 27, 2003 - While I think getting into product liability lawsuits for software will likely put a major dent in the industry, I do think that better software quality is not only possible but is cheaper. Test Driven Development, combined with other solid practices, has the power to reduce the number of defects in software and prevent the defects from coming back. There are a lot of people still developing software “the old fashioned way”, but I do think that TDD will only grow in popularity from where it is now.

By the way, the switch to MT is only the first of the changes that I’m planning. Still up: a new name (possibly new URL) and definitely some changes to the templates here.

Philip Greenspun wrote a thought provoking small article about Outlining and the presidential campaign which advocates using online weblogs and outlines to track what a presidential candidate says. There are bound to be ways to make this happen, even beyond what Greenspun suggests. In ‘92, I remember disliking Clinton because he seemed to change his stance at every campaign stop. With enough communication, it will be impossible for a candidate to keep changing their platform and not get caught.

After taking a fresh look at Movable Type the other day, I made the decision to switch over from Drupal. Drupal is still a spiffy piece of software, but I think it has different goals from what I want. So, as my blog approaches its third year, it’s been switched to its third blogging program (the first was Thatware). Hopefully, I won’t have to keep switching every year, because that’s not good for continuity in the search engines (every blogging program has a different URL layout). I’m planning to write an article soon about why I switched from Drupal to MT.

Longtime Democratic presidential hopeful Gary Hart has a weblog. Politicians are generally very careful about what they say. Even so, a weblog implies greater communication with the public, and that can only be a good thing. Hopefully this is the start of a trend.

I have finally gotten around to reading Martin Fowler’s Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code. In fact, I’ve also just gotten around to reading the Gang of Four Design Patterns book. These two books belong on every OO programmer’s bookshelf.
(more…)

Or, at least, the judge, Stephen Wilson, declared that they are not guilty of contributory infringement. Judge Wilson compared the case with that of Sony, which was sued over VCRs in the ’80s.

Two of the big five record labels have sued the venture capitalist that invested in Napster. Huh? The next time the record labels complain about their profits, I’ll just assume that their profits were hurt by spending too much money on lawyers. Gadzooks.

Personally, I don’t blame Madonna and Warner for planting decoys on the P2P networks. I find that to be a much more tasteful way to try to protect her copyrights than creating stupid laws. Additionally, I give Warner some credit for releasing the American Life single in MP3 form, even if they did charge too much ($1.50). But, someone disagreed with the decoy tactic and expressed that opinion on Madonna’s own site. That is a mildly amusing hack, though.

My blog is about to enter a new phase. After a month at my new job, I’m getting pretty well settled in and unwound from my last job. I’m back creating software and I’m enjoying it. This is a good thing for me right now. At some point in time, I’d like to move back into management, but for now I’m content to do good things in creating software for my customers.

Within three months, I’ll be a father. The change in job was a big deal, but can hardly compare with the change that is coming.

So, here I am, blogging again. Since I’m taking the bus once more, I should have a decent chance to write a few bits here and there. I don’t think I’ll necessarily write every day, but that’s not always necessary to have a site that’s worth reading.

In line with a bunch of factors, I’m thinking that I’m going to give my blog a bit of a facelift. My plan is to upgrade to Drupal 4.1, switch to a different domain that’s more fun, change to a new layout that makes better use of CSS and see about having a one-day-at-a-time format for the front page.