80-20: A Space Odyssey
Posted by Random | Filed under Essays
A lot of well-known bloggers and pundits like to talk about the 80-20 rule. In relation to technology, the idea is this: the best way to create a Fast Company and get featured on Tech Crunch (preferably becoming rich and famous in the process) is to nail the 20% of features your customers want and then forget about the rest. The thing they don’t tell you is which 20% to focus on. Read the rest of this entry »
C# 3.0 Encourages Rubyisms
Posted by Random | Filed under Essays, Random Stuff, Software Pick of the Month
C# 3.0 (.NET Framework 3.5) adds some great features, such as extension methods and lambdas, that let’s you write magical code that looks suspiciously Rubyish. Extension methods let you dynamically extend your types so you can do things like this:
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OperationResult ParseCustomHeader(WebResponse response)
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{
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string header = response.Headers[Globals.CUSTOM_ERROR_HEADER_NAME];
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return header.Base64ToBinary().UTF8ToString().FromXml<OperationResult>();
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}
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Also, have a look at Sergio’s XmlBuilder to see lambdas and reflection put to good use. I like it when the language does work for me so I can keep my code beautiful.
Random
B Work is Bad for the Soul: What Goes Wrong Behind Blockbuster Movies
Posted by Random | Filed under Essays
Recently my friend and I left the office for a couple hours to attend a lecture by Dr. Ed Catmull at a local university. Here is a man who knows what he’s doing. Over time, Dr. Catmull has leveraged sound business principles to help grow Pixar into one of the best animation studios in the world.
Given Dr. Catmull’s history (he has a PhD in Computer Science), I was expecting a fairly technical talk. To my suprise, he said virtually nothing about technology. What he did talk about was people. It seems that you don’t have to have an MBA to know how to manage people.
Here, in a nutshell, is Dr. Catmull’s business philosphy, broken down into several principles. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: animation, art, business, management, people, process
The Chef’s Dilemma: Principle-Based Engineering
Posted by Random | Filed under Essays
One of my favorite restaurants is the Thai Chili Gardens, a local place not far from where I work. Every time I go, the food is excellent. Every restaurant owner knows (or they will soon discover) that customers expect dishes to taste good, and taste pretty much the same each time they come in. Even subtle changes in the way a meal is prepared or which ingredients are used can turn off customers who will never come back.
Tags: business, principles, startups