DevTopics

“Men Behaving Badly” was a cheeky British comedy from the 90’s that was voted “Best Sitcom in BBC History” for the BBC’s 60th anniversary in 1996.  The series featured two men in their thirties taking a keen interest in “booze, birds and football” (that’s alcohol, women and soccer to our American readers).  The otherwise lovable pair often behaved badly, causing those around them to suffer with comedic results.  Today we discuss a few examples of otherwise good software that occasionally behaves badly, causing its users to suffer with frustrating results.

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“People always fear change.  People feared electricity when it was invented, didn’t they?  People feared coal, they feared gas-powered engines.  There will always be ignorance, and ignorance leads to fear.  But with time, people will come to accept their silicon masters.”

As Bill Gates once warned, computers have indeed become our silicon masters, pervading nearly every aspect of our modern lives.  As a result, some of the greatest minds of our time have pondered the significance of computers and software on the human condition.  Following are 101 great quotes about computers, with an emphasis on programming, since after all this is a software development site. 
 

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Tags: Bill-Gates, Computer Programming, Quotes

For the disabled PC user, every mouse click and keystroke can be a major effort or literal pain.  So disabled users will often go to great lengths to automate repetitive tasks and minimize the steps required to perform each task.  This includes the use of macros, voice recognition, mouse and keyboard utilities, and special hardware such as head-controlled mice and programmable button boards.

But in spite of these efforts, disabled PC users are often confounded by all-too-common problems found in today’s Windows and Web applications. 

Following are 20 problems with PC software that may be minor nits for many users but can be a huge problem for the disabled.  These are presented in no particular order, as each problem’s severity depends on the situation and individual.
 

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Tags: Disabilities, Software, User Interface

Though by profession I am a software developer, like most developers I am also a voracious software consumer.  My job requires me to use many different software tools, and I also use software to automate and manage many aspects of my personal life.

So naturally when it came time to produce a photo book for my parents’ joint 75th birthdays, I jumped on the new wave of “Print-On-Demand” (POD) book publishing.  With POD, you create your own book in a word processor or desktop publishing program, and then you can publish one or many professionally-bound copies of your new hardcover masterpiece for a very reasonable fee.
 

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Tags: Blurb, Booksmart, Personal, POD, Print-On-Demand, Software

Great empires often fall from within. 

The death knell for Visual Basic is premature, but it’s true that VB has deviated from its original vision as an “Application Construction Kit” for the masses and has lost significant market share as a result.  

Tim Anderson summed it up best:

It sounds like perfection.  Microsoft had perhaps the largest number of developers in the world hooked on a language which in turn was hooked to Windows.  Yet Microsoft took this asset of incalculable value and apparently tossed it aside.  Back in 2002, Microsoft announced that the language was to be replaced by something new, different and incompatible.  That caused rumblings that continue today.  Developers expressed emotions ranging from frustration to anger.  They felt betrayed.

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Tags: .NET, Alan-Cooper, Bill-Gates, C#, Development, Languages, Microsoft-.NET, Popfly, Silverlight, Software, VB, VB.NET, VB6, Visual Basic, Visual-Basic-.NET, Visual-Basic-6

Microsoft offers a generous program to help new independent software vendors (ISVs) develop and launch their products faster and cheaper. 

The Microsoft “Empower for ISVs” program offers software, support, and additional resources designed to help ISVs reduce development costs, test their software on multiple Windows platforms, and improve time-to-market.  Empower is a one-year membership for $375, with an opportunity to renew for a second year, and it’s available only once per company.

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Tags: Business, Development, Empower, ISV, Microsoft, Software

Upgrading to Windows Vista takes time, money and patience.  And after much sweat and a few tears, it was all for naught, and I ultimately retreated back to Windows XP.

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Tags: Software, UAC, Vista, Visual Studio, Windows, Windows-Vista

How much time and money should a software company invest to ensure that its products do not infringe on registered software patents?

The question comes to mind after Microsoft accused the open-source industry of violating 235 Microsoft patents.  Microsoft released the total but did not specify the infringed-upon patents.  Some accuse Microsoft of using this strong-arm tactic to force open source companies to negotiate an intellectual property agreement similar to the Microsoft/Novell Linux agreement in 2006.

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Tags: Eolas, Linux, Patents, Software, Software-Patents, Torvalds

I started my professional programming career over 20 years ago on the Commodore Amiga.  The Amiga was a state-of-the-art personal computer, with a proprietary operating system, windowed GUI, and dedicated sound and graphics chips when the IBM PC was still saying, “C:DOS RUN.”

The Amiga computer was fast for its time, but maddeningly slow in hindsight: 5-10 minutes to compile a typical development project.  Hard drives were still external, bulky and expensive at $500 for 30MB.  The Amiga system APIs were plentiful, massive and complex, like the Win32 APIs that followed.  I wrote software in C, using a programmable text editor and the “Make” tool to build projects.

A lot has changed in two decades.  As with most things in this business, software development tools and systems are now better, faster, and sometimes cheaper.  But what are the most important changes?

In the spirit of David Letterman, following are my “Top 10 Advances in Software Development.”  These are the things–from my perspective, in increasing order of importance–that have most improved software development and entrepreneurship over the past 20 years.  I encourage you to reply with your own Top 10 list.

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Tags: Business, Development, Software

During my 25 years as a software entrepreneur, I’ve had the pleasure and challenge of selling PC software to three major markets: large enterprises, general consumers, and software developers. 

Of course, each target market has its own advantages and disadvantages, which I summarize below.  Note this list is from the perspective of a small software company (2-50 employees) with limited funds.  Microsoft and Google may hold a different view.

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Tags: Business, Marketing, Sales, Software