Posts

using javascript templates Garann Means explains the whys and wherefores of JavaScript templates. Reading this article reminds me that my front end development skills are so ten years ago.

Andre Torrez makes the observation that making things on the Internet isn’t for enthusiastic amateurs any more: I think the thing that is eating industries: newspapers, music, movies, second rate mobile phone manufacturers…it’s eating us too. Being literate in tech isn’t enough anymore. As Robin said above, knowing how to put up a web page or write a little web app is fine for a niche hobby or an amateur pursuit, but if you want things to look good and work and be something more than a semi-broken thing you have to invest a real amount time and thought. ...

The NRA and the “Positive Good” of Maximum Guns As you know, I’m fascinated by historical patterns, so I pretty much had to link to this guest post by historian Tony Horwitz at Ta-Nehisi Coates’ blog. Comparing the “gun power” to the “slave power” is inflammatory, but the parallels are unmistakable. In fact, this pattern can be seen in most movements who fear their prerogatives being rolled back incrementally. Simply holding your ground is never enough. ...

How do we read code? Eric Holk writes about a study that observes programmers reading code. Unsurprisingly, naming things well makes a big difference.

Highly Available Real Time Push Notifications and You From code.flickr.com. My main takeaway is that I need to get off my butt and improve my JavaScript skills.

There’s a lot to be said about school shootings. Jason Kottke said most of it today. One thing I want to add, though, is that pro-gun political groups not only fight for gun laws, they also do everything they can to prevent public health researchers from investigating the effects of gun ownership on society. The New York Times ran a story on this last year. When the I went back to look for that story recently, I noticed that the Times ran almost the same story back in 1995. People are entitled to their own philosophical views on the pros and cons of the firearms laws in this country, but it’s telling that pro-gun organizations work so hard to keep people from gathering data to use in the debate. ...

This is how you shut down your MMO’s servers for good: Glitch’s graceful exit It was a wonderful tribute to the incredible energy people put into the online communities that they join. When an online community is shuttered, it inevitably ends any number of relationships that people build over years. The Glitch shutdown was very respectful of that.

If you’re interested in A/B testing on the Web, you should check out John Myles White’s talk at Tumblr on multi-armed bandit testing. You can learn a lot about standard A/B testing from the explanation he gives as a contrast to how multi-armed bandit tests work. I’ve read a lot of blog posts on multi-armed bandit tests, and this lecture is better than any of them in terms of explaining how this sort of testing actually works. ...

Why I Have Given Up on Coding Standards Richard Rodger argues that you should toss out the coding standards and let programmers express themselves. I’ve been a fan of coding standards in the past but I find myself changing my thinking on this front. These days, I look at a lot of code written by people whose coding styles don’t particularly appeal to me. I manage. It’s fine. I just don’t think it’s as big a deal as I once thought it was. ...

Private By Default Tim Bray suggests that every site should use HTTPS and explains the ins and outs of making it happen.