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Showing posts from August, 2012

The Middle

Just read the book "Team Geek"  (amazon)  today and I would highly suggest reading it.  It's short, to the point and covers almost all aspects of development teams and the issues therein. It's a great book.  It does not mince words on problem staff, management (good and bad) and the multitude of issues that we have all been exposed to in our careers.   The good and the bad. Where Buddhism is about understanding oneself and making changes based on this understanding, this book covers the other side of the coin, working with others, problem staff, management anti-patterns and culture.  I can't say enough good about this book. The only comment I do have is the section on the physical working environment.  There are workgroups on one end and offices on the other.  I understand the flow of communication with workgroups but the interruption and lack of a personal workspace can effect a number of people.  This is somewhat covered by the common use of headphones (

Who Are Your Customers?

Last months news that Facebook was re-writing their iOS application did not come as a surprise.  I had been following (and researching) the trend of using HTML5 for native applications.  It appears there is a much larger population of web -vs- iOS developments and the lure of using what you know to solve a new problem is very temping.  It's this whole "change is hard" thinking. Facebook knows web development (PHP, JS, CSS, etc) and its understandable that the HTML5 option would be on the table.  It's not for a lack of money or resources.  I believe it was the thinking that there customers are familiar with the desktop browser version of Facebook and thus the transition for their customers would be a minor issue.  Business win, developer win, customer win. Except, for two issues: Their mobile users may not be the same as their desktop users, thus different expectations. The expectations from a mobile application (i.e., native) are much different from a mobile b