The maker of coloured computers
Art of Good Code Design (Philosophical)
Thanks to RWW...
You probably have never heard of Dieter Rams (pictured at left) but certainly know of his work. For many years he was a product designer for Braun and other German companies. Back before Frog and Apple put the "i" in many of its products Braun was selling very elegant items that were well designed, such as calculators, shavers and household appliances. Many of these items can be found in museum collections all over the world today. Rams has had several design shows over the years and is known for his ten principles of "good design," and I thought if we substitute the word "code" for "design" that there is a lot software developers could learn from his principles too. Here they are, with some of my comments.
- Good code is innovative. One of the exciting things about working in the tech industry is that we still have plenty of innovation each and every day. And the best coding takes advantage of this innovation and wows us.
- Good code makes an app useful . This seems fairly obvious. We buy or download apps to use them, just like products. But the best apps carry code that can showcase their use and avoid distractions.
- Good code is aesthetic. Some IDEs can turn code into quite elegant arrangements that could almost hang on your wall, they are so attractive. But understanding the aesthetic of what your code does is also important. In the design world, aesthetic is very important because it is reflected in the products we use. Just look at the crowds inside your average Apple store and how things are laid out, and contrast that with the aesthetic, if you can find it, in your average Best Buy. No comparison.
- Good code helps us to understand an app. And bad code helps us to see a badly designed app too. Things which are different in order simply to be different are seldom better, but that which is made to better is almost always different.
- Dieter Rams, 1993 - Good code is unobtrusive. Perhaps this talks more about the resulting UI than the actual code itself. But it could also refer to the ability to easily read someone else's code too. Certainly this is the case for open software.
- Good code is honest . No tricks, no hidden trap doors, no malware needed. And no false advertising either: the code is the core essence of an app, nothing more, nothing less.
- Good code is long-lasting. Some of the best software programs have been around for decades. They don't go out of style, just like well-designed products.
- Good code is thorough, down to the last detail Squash those bugs! Find those corner cases! Test and retest with different browsers and environments. Don't leave anything to chance.
- Good code is concerned with the environment. Again, somewhat obvious.
- Good code is as little code as possible. Sadly, we have moved away from this tenet over the years, look how bloated our operating systems have gotten. I remember the early days when APL was considered the ultimate in coding - a single line could pack a ton of programming horsepower. You needed a special keyboard to code in it:
Peshawar to Patiala
Culture of Review
Tarun
Arms and the Man
Around the time of the Kargil war in July 1999, this is what Atanu Dey wrote in an article entitled “Dollar Auctions and Deadly Games“:
One enlightening model of human behavior is the so-called “Dollar Auction” which illustrates the sort of trap that conflicts can lead to with costly consequences. This auction proceeds much as a normal auction except that while the highest bidder gets to keep the $1 bill bid upon, the second highest bidder has to pay the auctioneer the amount of the second highest bid.
….
The only way to win at a dollar auction therefore is either to not participate or if one does begin, then to either reach a compromise with one’s opponent or to exit as early in the game as possible.
Wars too have the peculiar characteristic that both parties, winner as well as the loser, pay. The dollar auction game illustrates the trap that nations fall into in a process of conflict escalation given the structure of strategic games.
The dollar auction is a perfect model of the conflict that India faces against Pakistan, with Kashmir being the dollar being auctioned. The bids in this auction are the military expenditure of each nation and the auctioneer is the one who collects the spoils of the military expenditures of the two nations. Since advanced industrialized countries are the major suppliers of arms, they play the role of the auctioneer quite well.
If the long drawn-out India-Pakistan conflict is seen as a dollar auction game with the US as the auctioneer, it is easy to understand why it is in America’s interest to keep India engaged in a perpetual conflict with Pakistan that is costly for India but very profitable for the US. Read in that context, the Headley story starts to make sense as well. The plan has been executed to perfection. As they say, it’s all about Money, Honey!
Here is what I think..
Like any other business, arms dealers and manufacterers are a business as well. If their “customers” were to disappear (i.e. no conflict) how will they survive. Hence it is correct to surmise that there are business interests behind this.
What I often wonder is that after arms, sports & entertainment is the 2nd largest business worldwide. Coincidentally, India and US are both big on sports & entertainment as well.
Is there an opportunity to move the $$ away from arms to these industries that have less strife and blood to shed?
Tarun
What am I reading?
What holds India back: by Atanu Dey. “Hubris and ignorance among the powerful is a potently destructive mix and a sure recipe for disaster. The outcome is the disaster we see today. They set up the command-control-license-permit-quota raj. It is the best way known to humanity to retard economic development.”
Website Navigation Tips
6 Tips for Building Coherent Site Navigation
Thanks to RWW
When building a website, getting the navigation right is absolutely critical. A poorly conceived approach to site navigation will confuse and frustrate users, and this isn't the way to get a lot of people using your site.
A big part of this challenge is that you don't always start with a lot of links, but more may be added as the site develops. This means that the original navigation concept may not work as well as it once did.
To help you address these issues and prevent some others from occurring, here are 6 tips for building a site with coherent navigation.
1. Use Colour Coding
Make sure your navigational areas are easily distinguished and/or separated from your content. If everything seems to mix together - think of the content and navigation bar sitting alongside each other on a white background - it'll look a bit messy. A messy navigation bar isn't much fun to use.
2. Group Related Links Together
To avoid link overload, consider having multiple navigation bars, separated into logical groups. For instance, on one of the sites I run, I have core links (home, blog, about) at the top, functional links (dashboard, account history, settings) down the side, and legal/privacy links across the bottom. This allows you to keep each set of links relatively tidy, and it'll be easier to find the links you need.
3. Use Icons to Aid Navigation
Graphical aids can really bring your navigation bar to life, making it both visually pleasing and easy to use. FamFamFam has some good icons - and there are plenty more on Google if you want to look for something else.
4. Handle Hierarchy Consistently
Whether you have collapsible menus that appear as you navigate to a section, pop-out menus that reveal themselves when the mouse cursor hovers over them, or sub-pages with links to more pages, try to be consistent as much as you can. Mixing too many techniques can result in an uncoordinated mess.
5. Separate Non-Navigational Elements
If your navigation is getting quite busy, it may be time to remove things such as the search box from your navigation bar, along with any other features that get in the way of the site navigation. While it's possible to achieve a slick, streamlined site by condensing several core elements into the header and/or the sidebar, this doesn't work so well as you add more and more links. Don't feel the need to use every available bit of white space. And don't put ads in the way of the navigation.
6. Make it Flexible
If the design of your site makes it almost impossible to add any new navigation links, it won't be long before you start to hit the limits of the design. Where possible, future-proof your site by ensuring the design is as fluid as it can be. While a horizontal navigation bar doesn't leave a huge amount of scope, it could wrap onto additional lines. A vertical navigation bar shouldn't break once you add more than 10 links to it. If you build with long-term growth in mind, you'll have an easier time if you do add more links at a later date.
Delhi - Sights and Sounds
Today is 15th August... I love to travel on public holidays are the roads are free of traffic and markets are not crowded (if they are open at all)
We went to Red Fort... saw the fort in all its glory and then took a left turn into Chandni Chowk.
First stop was "jalebis" and then another to buy engraved book with small glass pieces on it.
Second stop was Gurdwara Sis Ganj - immaculately clean place considering its in the heart of some of the oldest parts of Delhi.
Last stop was "Paranthe wali gali" had paranthas there in a shop that was established in 1875 - CM Sheila Dixit and Filmmaker/stars Imtiaz Ali/Ranbir Kapoor were the other patrons earlier and we ate under their watchful eyes of the photograph.
The "paranthas" tasted more like pooris. They dont use onion or garlic. Saw quite a few foreigners braving the flys and the dirt and still enjoying the show. Must watch/eat for anyone who visits Delhi. Try out the papad parantha or rabri parantha if you are adventurous.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gali_Paranthe_Wali
What am I reading?
Tips for writing good technical documentation
Tech For and By Africa
India is not a poor country, its a poorly managed country
I recommend that you read this book and try their products. I wear the Kurtas almost all the time that are purchased from Fabinidia and Khadi Gramudyog.
In the book, William makes a very telling comment - "India is not a poor country its a poorly managed country" He cites several examples of how India's centralized government is overextended.
I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in this country's future.
