I am interested in the history of technology and I have a soft spot for the machines that became milestones in the history of computing. Recently, I had the opportunity to get an early NeXT Cube, the same computer that Tim Berners-Lee used to invent the World Wide Web! NeXT also happens to be the company that Steve Jobs founded after he got kicked out of Apple Computers. Although, for the longest time, it looked like NeXT would fail, it eventually sold to Apple to delivering the technology to develop the now very popular Mac OS X and bringing back it’s legendary founder as CEO. I also think Elisabeth managed to turn this into a very funny video. So with out further words…. press Play!
A couple days ago I decided that it was time to look into all this Objective-C 2.0 stuff that came with my Apple computer. I love a chance to learn a new programming language, and to see what it can do. (no geek jokes!) So I started by booting up XCode (Apples development tool that comes with every apple computer), and pulling up some of the help documentation.
I was initial extremely impressed by the shear quantity of documentation that Apple included with XCode. Normally you would only expect to see some help stuff for using the tools, not the language. In this case, there was sample code, tutorials and more. More Importantly, they had class references and such for everything, the type of documentation a non-novice developer can make use of. This type of documentation is often overlooked.
Later that day, I was sitting in a Chapters (a Canadian book store) and didn’t have access to the Internet. Not needing anything but the tutorial walkthrough, I started building my application. It turns out that all this amazing documentation was for the previous version of XCode (and Objective-C). It was telling me to press buttons and select options that weren’t there. Some of them weren’t even close. I wasted hours trying to fight my way through the documentation. It wasn’t just misplaced buttons either. The Garbage collection feature that was just released with Objective-C 2.0 kept “cleaning” my window. Without realizing that the documentation was so out of date. I thought I was doing something wrong. If it was missing all together I would have waited till I got home, and found a newer Internet tutorial (which is what I finally did).
Apple scores big points for have a huge amount of documentation at your finger tips, but loses points for it being out of date. Sometimes misinformation is worse than no information.
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Do you have any stories with bad documentation? Any interesting experiences trying to learn a new language? Leave a comment:
I recently discovered an amazing web-based application called Evernote. The application is compatible for both Mac and PCs, in addition there is a great mobile app. Basically, this tool helps you to keep track of ideas, lists, notes, thoughts, phone numbers - any detail in your life that just suddenly comes up that you want to remember.
Currently, I have Evernote on my computer and my iPhone as an app. When I’m connected to the web both applications automatically sync to my online account so I never have to worry about plugging in my iPhone to sync my apps. I find this feature extremely useful.
I used the photo functionality to take pictures and store them as notes. Afterwards, I can tag these pictures so that they are searchable. Evernote can also read the text in your picture (such as a sign or handwritten note) which it then uses as a searching reference. To date, I have used Evernote for Christmas shopping, maps to the dog park, stealing a recipe from a overpriced book (evil grin) and for storing business cards.
Evernote is an example of a great web-based application with loads of real world practicality. For start-ups especially, it is essential to find an underserved market, find a solution to their problem and properly execute the solution. Evernote has definitely capitalized on this notion and has produced one of my favorite web-based applications available.
One of my primary roles as a developer is to look for ways to optimize software. It’s sort of my job, right? When we were developing the portfolios for SmibsNet profiles, I discovered that if code works too quickly, people can miss critical events. We had already developed the drag ‘n’ drop interface for resorting multiple portfolios, and were trying to figure out what kind of indicator would do the trick. It had to be something to make it clear to people that the resorting was being processed, and something that would prevent users from continuing the changes until the new order had been saved properly. Peter came up with the idea of having a translucent cover fading in over all the portfolios with an animated GIF indicator.
Screen shot of portfolios being reordered
This solved everything, except for one little nagging issue. While the indicator had to be there for slow connections, the average time for this re-sort was fractions of a second. The moment the new order was saved, the cover would disappear. I wanted our users to be able to get back to work as soon as possible, rather than being slowed down by in-the-way animations. The consequences of this decision were dark flashes over your portfolios when a user would re-sort.
It turns out the solution was to slow things down. After adding some effects it now fades in over a second, and then fades out over a few seconds. While this would seem like two seconds wasted, no one seems to have a problem with this. In fact, we have received great feedback about this effect. Many people ask me if all the portfolio stuff was coded in flash, to which I can answer, “nope, just good old fashion javascript.” Next time I’m faced with a confusing interface problem, I’m going to ask myself if the action has to be this fast. Maybe the best way to optimize the program is to slow it down.
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What other examples have you seen of software slowing down for the better?
“I am sorry all you broken cell phones; I didn’t mean to kill all of you. I can take my share of the blame though, especially about dropping the Nokia into the toilet. I don’t know why I thought any of you would last me the entirety of my three-year contract, because you are all pieces of low quality garbage.” – A cell phone requiem
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In my current three-year contract, I have accumulated 12 cell phones. Some were thrown from cars, a couple plunged deep into the toilet bowl and one is probably still riding the Vancouver to Victoria ferry, but for the most part my cell phones simple wore out. I know I don’t fall into the ‘typical’ cell phone user demographic, but how in the hell is one cell phone suppose to last the life of a long term contract? I know one thing for certain, I am never again signing another long contract and I assume there are others with similar stories.
Ultimately it affects the cell service providers. The cell phone producers (Motorola, LG, Samsung, etc.) keep pumping these disgraces into the North American market, effectively tarnishing the reputation of the service providers. These service providers should start exerting their influence back up the distribution chain and demand durable phones instead of highly breakable feature intensive media phones.
It seems like there is room for a lot of improvement in the cell phone market.For whatever reason, the consumer has decided it can live with cracked screens, unchargable batteries and fragile construction.Companies like PayPal, Amazon and Google have revolutionized their industries through the innovation of tried business practices.Certainly, Apple has taken a step in the right direction with the introduction of the iPhone (check out PC World’s stress test) but it’s price and availability make it almost unobtainable for the average consumer.Until one of the cell producers makes a sincere attempt at developing an affordable and reliable phone, I will keep adding to my cell phone graveyard.
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