A Bite to Eat!

Posted by posted by Francis @ 9/29/2006 11:32:00 AM

A Bite to Eat! - Minuscule fast food combo. It is really neat. The pictures look really good and the close-up shots look like a real-scale burger.
(through BoingBoing)

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Aptana: The Web IDE

Posted by posted by Francis @ 9/28/2006 09:47:00 AM

Aptana: The Web IDE - A plugin for Eclipse that helps with the syntax of Javascript, CSS and HTML. Installed-it, so far, so good. Biggest feature for me: Intellitype for Javascript, that's sweet.

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Annotating Your Code with Simple Tests

Posted by posted by Francis @ 9/27/2006 08:59:00 AM

Annotating Your Code with Simple Tests -- Now, that is a great idea. The example that is given here is in C#. But this could be really easy to do in Java/JUnit with annotations.

Of course, this doesn't substitute for more complex test cases but it is a lot like automatically generated documentation. If you keep it close to the code, you have a better chance that it will be kept updates.

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Are developers really that rude?

Posted by posted by Francis @ 9/26/2006 08:44:00 PM

I was reading here: "[...] how in love with ourselves most of us developers are, as we if we were great artisans forging the next renaissance. Is our opinion of ourselves deserved, or are we just rude? There is absolutely no doubt in my experience that the rudest person in almost any enterprise can normally be found in the IT department."

That surprised me quite a bit. I work in a software house and most of the guys here are quite gifted technically and still manage to stay out of the "rude" category. I would actually say that the majority are amiable. And that is quite a powerful statement considering our lab houses more than 50 software engineers.

Maybe the author's comment only applies to companies where software is not the primary focus. I wouldn't know, I have worked in software companies all my professional life. What I really wonder here is: Why do people put up with rude IT people? They wouldn't put up with a rude sales guy or a rude HR representative.

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5 Ways to Contribute to Open Source Projects Without Coding

Posted by posted by Francis @ 9/26/2006 09:22:00 AM

After my episode with IE memory leaks last week. I was trying to find a way to thank the guys that helped me. I asked Matt (our resident marketing guy) if there was a goodwill budget for that kind of donation. He authorized a symbolic amount that I could give to the project. (I still have to find the "donate" button on the web site)

Then, this morning, I stumbled on this: 5 Ways to Contribute to Open Source Projects Without Coding. This struck home because we use a lot of open-source software that is really complete and needs little help from us in the coding department.

So, the next step is a "reference" section on our website to showcase the OSS that we love and use.

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Drip IE Leak Detector

Posted by posted by Francis @ 9/22/2006 11:51:00 AM

I am currently involved in a project to write a good-sized web application with lots of dynamic content (yes, Ajax and all that). The application was experiencing a dramatic performance degradation as the user kept using it. I knew that Internet Explorer had a well known problems with memory leaks caused by its implementation of the DOM. But this was getting ridiculous: It was leaking something like 6 Megs or RAM every 10 clicks or so.

Yesterday, the Drip IE Leak Detector saved me from many days of frustration. After loading the code and building it, I was able to pinpoint the source of the leaks (One was in the TabContainer of Dojo, the others were in the Form and DatePicker component of Tapestry 4.0.2)

Without the help of the leak detector. I would probably still be trying to find these leaks.

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