writing

Technology and Grammar

January 18, 2011

I am a little surprised that Farhad Manjoo missed out on one important reason for not using two spaces after each sentence: But I actually think aesthetics are the best argument in favor of one space over two. One space is simpler, cleaner, and more visually pleasing (it also requires less work, which isn’t nothing). […]

Read the full article →

The Danger of Stories and Anecdotes

November 30, 2009

It was fun reading Michael Dubakov’s take on technical debt through his story of Arthur and the princess. But then the questions started. The competition was rigged from the beginning, wasn’t it? After all, Arthur made it to the final round, didn’t he? What if the weather had been perfect for the next few months? […]

Read the full article →

Software Development Blogs

June 29, 2009

Jurgen Appelo has the latest edition of the top developer blogs up. Surprisingly, I have jumped from 149 to 127 despite having a couple of months where I hardly wrote anything at all, and also after a move to WordPress that seems to have dropped my RSS subscribers by half. I have been noticing the reduced frequency […]

Read the full article →

Finally, Raymond Chen Gives the Answer

February 27, 2009

Two years ago, I posted about Raymond Chen’s posts, which Yuvi Panda had analyzed to find that 77% of them were posted at 7 am. Louis Gray also took up the issue, wondering if 7 am was the best time to post for optimal readership. One possibility I raised was that Raymond wrote his posts […]

Read the full article →

“Can” Doesn’t Mean “Should”">“Can” Doesn’t Mean “Should”

February 19, 2009

During his efforts to cement his pariah status in conservative circles during the last election, Andrew Sullivan took a break to write a thoughtful article on blogging (emphasis mine): This form of instant and global self-publishing, made possible by technology widely available only for the past decade or so, allows for no retroactive editing (apart […]

Read the full article →