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  1. Beginners Not Yet Welcome

    Joel Spolsky recently tweeted a message about some phrasing in a question that was a strong indicator that the question was inappropriate for Stack Overflow.

    to my surprise, this elicited some strong reactions from other developers chastising him for turning away beginners from the site.

    Here's the thing about Stack Overflow:

  2. Dots Oscillating

    Permalink: Dots Oscillating

    I've meant to finish this years ago, but I never got around to figuring out the proper cubic bezier timing funtion that most closely matches a cosine.

    The idea stemmed from two different illusions, which I have since lost the links to.

    The first was a series of dots that oscillated on straight lines to produce what appears to be a ring rotating around a larger percieved circle.

    The second was a series of cirlces rotating to produce what appears to be waves.

    Having seen both illusions I decided to throw them together—which I started to do a couple years ago—and then promptly forgot about it.

  3. Writing Good Release Notes

    When writing release notes or changelog entries it's important to keep some things in mind. First and foremost it is important to be aware of who the release notes are for.

    Release notes are not for you…now.

    Release notes are for future you.

    Release notes are for a user who wants to know what the latest updates are.

    Release notes are for a stressed-out colleague who's trying to narrow down when they think a particular breaking change might have occurred.

    Identifying the personas of the people who will be reading release notes is important so as to effectively communicate with them. If you don't understand your audience you may end up losing them.

    If you write bad release notes for a product, you may frustrate your users into finding an alternative solution that feels more stable, or is more predictable.

    If you write bad release notes for a client, you may end up confusing or angering them.

    If you write bad release notes for your team, you may end up alienating your maintainers and slow the pace of progress.

  7. Asking the Wrong Questions About Self-Driving Cars

    Permalink: Asking the Wrong Questions About Self-Driving Cars

    I recently watched Iyad Rahwan's TED talk "What moral decisions should driverless cars make?" and I enjoyed his exploration of the moral dilemmas surrounding self driving cars.

    I was particularly interested when he brought up the dilemma of purchasing a self-driving car that might choose to kill its own passengers:

  9. CSS Frameworks are Box Mix Brownies

    CSS frameworks are like box mix brownies. They're great if you're not picky and just want something fast. 30 minutes and a scoop of ice cream and everything's great.

    As soon as the requirements change, you find yourself needing a new box mix, or a new framework.

    Dave has a nut allergy, Sam's gluten free, and the only gluten free box of brownies has walnuts? Now what do you do?