- Paying for Developers is a Bad Idea (Charlie Kindel) — The companies that make the most profit are those who build virtuous platform cycles. There are no proof points in history of virtuous platform cycles being created when the platform provider incents developers to target the platform by paying them. Paying developers to target your platform is a sign of desperation. Doing so means developers have no skin in the game. A platform where developers do not have skin in the game is artificially propped up and will not succeed in the long run. A thesis illustrated with his experience at Microsoft.
- Learnable Programming (Bret Victor) — deconstructs Khan Academy’s coding learning environment, and explains Victor’s take on learning to program. A good system is designed to encourage particular ways of thinking, with all features carefully and cohesively designed around that purpose. This essay will present many features! The trick is to see through them — to see the underlying design principles that they represent, and understand how these principles enable the programmer to think. (via Layton Duncan)
- Tablet as External Display for Android Smartphones — new app, in beta, letting you remote-control via a tablet. (via Tab Times)
- Clay Shirky: How The Internet Will (One Day) Transform Government (TED Talk) — There’s no democracy worth the name that doesn’t have a transparency move, but transparency is openness in only one direction, and being given a dashboard without a steering wheel has never been the core promise a democracy makes to its citizens.
ENTRIES TAGGED "developers"
The future of programming
Unraveling what programming will need for the next 10 years.
Programming is changing. The PC era is coming to an end, and software developers now work with an explosion of devices, job functions, and problems that need different approaches from the single machine era. In our age of exploding data, the ability to do some kind of programming is increasingly important to every job, and programming is no longer the sole preserve of an…
Tracking Salesforce’s push toward developers
Salesforce's recent investments suggest it's building a developer-centric suite of tools for the cloud.
Have you ever seen Salesforce’s “no software” graphic? It’s the word “software” surrounded by a circle with a red line through it. Here’s a picture of the related (and dancing) “no software” mascot.
Now, if you consider yourself a developer, this is a bit threatening, no? Imagine…
Four short links: 27 September 2012
Don't Pay Developers, Teaching Programming, Second Android Screens, and Democracy
Open source won
What does winning look like? No enemy has been vanquished, but open source is now mainstream and a new norm.
I heard the comments a few times at the 14th OSCON: The conference has lost its edge. The comments resonated with my own experience — a shift in demeanor, a more purposeful, optimistic attitude, less itching for a fight. Yes, the conference has lost its edge, it doesn’t need one anymore.
Open source won. It’s not that an enemy…
Inside GitHub’s role in community-building and other open source advances
An interview with Matthew McCullough
In this video interview, Matthew McCullough of GitHub discusses what they’ve learned over time as they grow and watch projects develop there.
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Open source community collaboration strategies for the enterprise
Key open source considerations for businesses, communities and developers.
OSCON’s theme last year was “from disruption to default.” Over the last decade, we’ve seen open source shift from the shadows to the limelight. Today, more businesses than ever are considering the role of open source in their strategies. I’ve had the chance to watch and participate in the transitions of numerous businesses and business units to using…
A lever is always better than a lone coder
Team Geek authors Brian Fitzpatrick and Ben Collins-Sussman on coding myths and collaboration.
If we accept that software development is a team activity (it is), the importance of collaboration and communication becomes clear. Team Geek authors Brian Fitzpatrick and Ben Collins-Sussman discuss the nuances of modern programming in this interview.
The software professional vs the software artist
Developers with a creative streak don't get to opt out of security.
Developer "artists" who think they're too good to address vulnerabilities in operating systems and applications must shoulder blame for insecure systems.
Clojure's advantage: Immediate feedback with REPL
Chas Emerick on how Clojure can make a difference to developers.
REPL is built into Clojure, and you can connect to any running Clojure process and modify and execute code. In this interview, "Clojure Programming" co-author Chas Emerick discusses the possibilities this introduces for Clojure developers.
Want to get ahead in DevOps? Expand your expertise and emotional intelligence
Kate Matsudaira on the changes developers face.
In this interview, Decide VP of engineering Kate Matsudaira discusses how and why developer jobs are changing. She also offers four practical strategies for communicating with non-geeks.
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