Articles

Nobody wants my Code

Submitted by Bevan on Sun, 11 Oct 09 - 7:28pm

Over the past few months I’ve come to a slightly disturbing realisation – that nobody else wants my code.

Options and Preferences

Submitted by Bevan on Sun, 30 Mar 08 - 8:21pm

Any non-trivial application will have some degree of customisation - options the user can select to alter the way the application behaves.

With the more complex applications, it is possible for the preferences dialog to become completely overwhelmed. In this article we will explore some preference dialogs that are great, and some that are not.

The One True Way

Submitted by Bevan on Sun, 30 Mar 08 - 10:57pm

A good development system will permit many approaches to the design of an application or service. Some of these approaches will be flexible, some will be rigid; some stable (even in the face of change), and others brittle and prone to failure.

What makes the difference between systems that come together easily working so well, and systems that seem to fight back with their authors, never coming together without a fight? Why is it that the one approach can work so well in one tool, but be a proverbial pain in another?

TechEd New Zealand 2009

Overall, though I learnt a great deal and a lot of fun at TechEd this year, I feel as though the event didn’t quite measure up against past years. Whether it was a lack of deeply technical content (this year there were just five 400 level sessions) or simply that there was less that was new, due to the effectiveness of the blogosphere in spreading information, I’m not entirely sure.

That said, even a TechEd that falls short of last years lofty standard can be a great deal of value. Here are some of my personal highlights.

Huffman User Interfaces

Submitted by Bevan on Sun, 30 Mar 08 - 7:54pm

In the realm of data compression, one of the fundamental techniques that everyone learns is Huffman coding. The premise of this simple technique is to assign shorter codes for things that are mentioned more frequently, and longer codes for less common things. Another important feature of this technique is that codes are no longer than they have to be - you wouldn't use a 6 bit symbol if a 2 bit one would suffice.

Why Crystal Reports Sucks

Submitted by Bevan on Sat, 29 Mar 08 - 1:14pm

In this article, a minor revision of one originally written in December 2005, I talk about the utter frustration of trying to develop with Crystal Reports.

For a product that has such a high market share - and which has maintained market leadership for such a long time - Crystal Reports sure gets a whole bunch of things wrong.

It's not all bad, however. Each of my complaints can be easily addressed - and I'm giving the ideas away.