Category: Technology

Categories
SVG

The SVG Feed

I had originally created a Planet SVG in order to bring together a feed of SVG items. Once the SVG IG created Planet SVG web site, for all things SVG, I redirected planetsvg.org to it.

I still wanted a feed of SVG-related items, so I created the SVG Feed. Currently, the application queries SVG feeds once a day, including my own Delicious SVG-related feed. The latter was my way of ensuring that items related to SVG that aren’t accessible via a feed, or the related feed isn’t specific to SVG, get included.

The SVG Feed has it’s own feed, and uses Planet and Venus software. It only updates daily, as there are not enough items for more frequent updates. If you know of an SVG feed that should be included, send me an email.

Categories
Diversity Technology

Respect

I have spent too much time worrying about specifications managed by people who, frankly, don’t have a lot of respect for what I have to say. I am not a browser developer, specification author, nor do I fit within the narrow parameters of “people who are seen to be contributors”.

Years ago, I defined the term Coders-Only-Club, to designated the seeming feeling of being an outsider, unless one acts a certain way, or does a certain thing. I can definitely say unequivocally that writing books or weblog posts does not ensure entry into the Coders-only-Club, or perhaps I should term it, “Contributors-Only-Club”. To be honest, writing simple tutorials or examples, helping people, or answering questions doesn’t gain one entry, either.

What’s absurd about the whole thing is I’m fighting for something I don’t really need, because I do have viable alternatives I can use with my own work. I deliver every page at my web sites as application/xhtml+xml, which gives me singular power to accomplish wonderful things. I doubt, very much, that any browser is going to drop XHTML support for many, many years to com, so I can continue to incorporate SVG, or RDFa, or any number of new vocabularies that haven’t even been invented yet.

Frankly, I’m just wasting my time worrying about things I can’t change.

Categories
JavaScript

The jParallax library

Every once in a while, something comes along that is so well executed, it makes you want to jump up and down. That’s what the jParallax library, and the wonderful demos did for me.

Don’t take my word for it. You have to check out the library and demos yourself. No, you really have to.

(Thanks for the link, Michael.)

Categories
Programming Languages

Practice…but not typing

A post by Karl Martino reminded me of Jeff Atwood’s We are typists first, programmers second. Atwood was responding, in hearty agreement, to a post by Steve Yegge, who wrote

I was trying to figure out which is the most important computer science course a CS student could ever take, and eventually realized it’s Typing 101.

The really great engineers I know, the ones who build great things, they can type.

As I wrote in Karl’s comments, saying that fast typing is what makes a great programmer is little different than saying what makes a good carpenter is how fast they swing their hammers.

Fast typing is a by-product of extensive creation, whether that creation is web page markup, a stylesheet, or code. The more we create code, web pages, and designs, the more efficient we get with all of the tools used, including but not limited to, typing.

In addition, times have changed. I have no doubts that today’s generation of kids are speed demons on the keyboard—whether it’s on their cellphone or attached to their computers. A typing class would most likely slow them down.

If anything, what we should be encouraging is more practice with problem solving—the ability to figure something out on one’s own, without having to Google an answer or ask friends on Twitter—not typing.

Categories
RDF SVG Web

Tweaking makes perfect

Not long ago, Tim O’Reilly posted a discussion thread about the importance of practice, and one of the participants in the thread, my long-time editor, Simon St. Laurent, reiterated his interest in practicing this year—both on the trumpet, and in his coding.

I never left programming the way I left trumpet. I simply stopped playing trumpet after eighth grade. I’ve gone back and forth with programming since sixth grade, getting totally into it for a year or two at a time and then departing out of frustration, distraction, or the need to do something else. At O’Reilly, I’m exposed to programming constantly – I edit and write computer books after all! – but editorial is a long ways from actually programming. Even writing books about programming is a seriously meta- activity, one that requires more attention on the communications than on the code. (The code has to be right, but – though this may depend on the audience – the explanations have to do a lot more than the code.) My work isn’t programming practice.

One place I practice is with this site. I still have hopes that I can transform my work with this site into some paying work. At a minimum, I enjoy the tweaking and it keeps me occupied.

In addition, I also frequently re-design this site. Doing so allows me to explore new uses of technology, such as the use of SVG for site design, and JavaScript and RDFa in support of semantics. The practice also helps me improve my use of XHTML and CSS, including how to deal with IE without necessarily having to incorporate massive amounts of workaround code. Luckily, the “in” design concepts today are based on a minimalist design, so if my site is legible and clean in IE, it doesn’t matter if it’s plain.

I’m not practicing with every hot technology; I’ve made choices with how I spend my time. Yes for PHP, Python, JavaScript, CSS, SVG, RDFa, various web services, and XHTML. No on .Net, Ruby, Java, and cloud computing. A maybe on HTML5 and C++. Not necessarily the best decisions, perhaps, as Java and .Net are where the money is made, and the folks in Silicon Valley drool when you mention “cloud”, but I really don’t like the technologies or the environments.

Practice is essential for keeping our skills sharp, but that’s not the only reason it’s important. It’s also a way to constructively deal with the constant barrage of unhappy news we’re subjected to. We may not have any control over warring nations, global warming, or the state of economy, but we do have some control over how we live our lives. And that includes finding pieces of ourselves that can be improved with practice.