Link Soup
March 24th, 2006
These links accumulated while I was in Peru:
- Why I Hate Frameworks, from the Joel on Software discussion group. Funny, but am I the only one who found the casual reference to killing ex-girlfriends with hammers disturbing? The proportion of women going into most CS programs is still declining, and as Margolis and Fisher showed, violent and misogynist language is part of the reason. This is why I no longer review books based on “programming as war” metaphors, like Faroult and Robson’s new The Art of SQL. (Coincidentally, I read Danc’s piece on shock game advertising just a few minutes after the Spolsky piece…)
- This roundup of consensus web filters opens with a clear description of what these Web 2.0 tools are trying to do, and how best to use them. Kevin Kelly’s site also showcases Cuboro, which he claims is the best toy since Lego.
- Chris Bliss juggles to the music of The Beatles. Of course, calling what he does “juggling” is like looking at a Picasso and saying, “Ah, paint.”
- A long and thoughtful post from Michelle Levesque about Google’s decision to censor content in China. Michelle’s about to go work for Google; I feel a little better about their future plans knowing she’s going to be there. “We’d rather have the bad guys running everything // Than have nobody running things at all.”
- This retraction and deletion, from science journalist Carl Zimmer, is a perfect example of responsible blogging. As he says, deleting posts you have discovered to be in error isn’t a perfect solution, but it’s the best available for now.
- Confessions of a Virtual Intelligence Analyst (plus the outbound links) is a fascinating look at on-line surveillance in gaming worlds. “Guild churn”, anyone?
- Eric Sink predicts the demise of developer-oriented magazines. Sadly, I agree; guess I should start looking for another (for-pay) outlet for book reviews… On the other hand, if Lee Falin’s article is right, maybe there won’t be any in a couple of years.
- A screencast of Spore, which might turn out to be the Best Game Ever [tm].
- And finally, Math for Programmers, from Steve Yegge (via Harald Koch). There are some interesting ideas here for educators (and everyone else, too).
Another juggler named Jason Garfield has one-upped Bliss’ effort, saying that “[t]he most impressive thing he did was juggle for a long time and not drop.”
I think he comes off as a bit childish, but 5 balls is pretty impressive. Read the text of his arguments and link to a YouTube from here: http://www.jasongarfield.com/pennradio.html
I also found the ex-girlfriend-killing references (first with a hammer, then with an icepick) disturbing. I wouldn’t characterize it as a “Spolsky piece” or as “from Joel On Software,” though. It’s just a post by a reader to Joel’s discussion forum.