Monthly Archives: November 2005

The Dawn of a New API

Posted on November 18, 2005 by Richard Rodger

Tom Evslin points out that APIs will make or break most of the new web applications. And he's dead right. In fact, API's are where all the really interesting stuff happens, because you get people doing things with your service … Continue reading →




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Business Ideas

Posted on November 17, 2005 by Richard Rodger

Business ideas are worthless. Trouble is, when you get one, you can never believe otherwise. They usually strike around bedtime, and before you know it, you've designed a full-scale enterprise architecture to support the concept by 1AM, prepared an initial … Continue reading →




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Software Products Are Not Software Projects

Posted on November 16, 2005 by Richard Rodger

So you want to start your own software company? You've got a great product idea and it's a simple case of programming to get the first version together. Then you have to put up a website, and a payment system. … Continue reading →




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Sudoku, Part Four

Posted on November 15, 2005 by Richard Rodger

I've been writing about a Perl sudoku solver. Sudoku is a great example of a problem worthy of study. It looks easy from the outside, but when you have a go at solving it, it gets tricky very quickly. The … Continue reading →




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Analysing Google

Posted on November 14, 2005 by Richard Rodger

Sure I suppose I'd better give this Google Analytics thing a go. If only for the fancy graphics. I already use awstats and that's OK as far as it goes. The Google stats system is pretty flash, but surprisingly slow. … Continue reading →




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Friday Fun: Yoda, Yo, You Da Man!

Posted on November 11, 2005 by Richard Rodger

Thanks to Adam Stiles for this one. I fell off my chair the first time. Yoda, telling it like it is.




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Rant: Functions Deserve Brackets Dammit!

Posted on November 11, 2005 by Richard Rodger

I know brackets are parentheses, but bear with me, we're on the other side of the pond here. So what is the story with the functionName (param1, param2, …) style? Darlings, you are disassociating context! Huh? Well look, one of … Continue reading →




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Big Data Dump at the Small Office

Posted on November 10, 2005 by Richard Rodger

I'm a big fan of BigPictureSmallOffice, mostly because I don't work in one anymore! Apparently the IT department managed to entirely bork the company's database, including the list of oustanding orders. Yee Haa! Hey, I've been there. One month into … Continue reading →




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Damned if You Document, Damned if You Don’t

Posted on November 9, 2005 by Richard Rodger

My recent post about documentation writing and technical writers was a little off the cuff and quite easy to misinterpret. I suppose the phrase “throw some technical writers at it” didn't help either. To clarify: I think technical writers are … Continue reading →




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Sudoku, Part Three

Posted on November 8, 2005 by Richard Rodger

With the sudoku program I hacked together in the last post, I was able to solve the Irish Independent's Super Sudoku for three weeks running. But then, disaster! It turns out that sudoku puzzles can be pretty fiendish – they … Continue reading →




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