Raymond explains why the taskbar defaults to the bottom of the screen (because old apps would position themselves under it a lot when it was on top). Since I defected from the Mac, I always move mine to the top and like it, but did have problems for *years* about apps moving up under there.
For those few that still do, I've long since memorized the key sequence: Alt, Space, M, which flips a window into "Move Mode" and lets me use the arrows to move it down. I can understand why MS didn't want to teach everyone that and instead just put the taskbar at the bottom. : )
Even in
my short time at Microsoft so far, I’ve have already learned a *ton* from
marketing. Of course, I’m working with lots of marketing folks as we get closer
to the PDC. Because of my role, I have to worry about what’s good for the
developer. Marketing guys, on the other hand, have to balance that with what’s
good for the administrator, what’s good for the user, what’s good for the
company, what’s good for the shareholders and what’s good for a bunch of other
folks I don’t even know about. And, they have to do it for all of the streams of
information coming out of the company, which now includes lots of informal
streams like newsgroups, message boards, user group talks and blogs. Anyone that
can balance all of these folks and still get developers what they need has my
unabashed respect.
It's great the a certain company in the Pacific Northwest has empowered technically savvy folks with the thousands of dollars needed to pursue these cases. Hopefully a few wins will cause ambulance chasers to smell blood in the water and start taking these cases in groups. Do spammers make enough money to activate lawyers against them?
Not quite knowing where Josh was going, I really liked it when he said, "... with the advent of managed code, our devs are somewhere close to twice as productive as before..."
However, with the end of that same sentence, he sent chills down my spine, "... this means that one dev can overwhelm a tester pretty quickly."
He goes on to wonder whether, because managed code has fewer bugs, we'll be able to keep going or have to increase the number of testers. The thing that scares me is that testers are a rare breed, hard to find and hard to keep, especially as many of them want to cut their own code, not report bugs on someone else's.
Is the next growth industry in the IT industry testers? Is the next DevelopMentor an out-sourced QA company?
I always enjoy Rory's writings. This time, he tells the stories of some amazingly dedicated coders and then asks the question "Why do you code?"
I think I started coding because I was such an anti-social geek that I needed something over which my actions had some reasonable, predictable outcome. Plus, I have that kind of a mind well-suited to programming. I continue to code as a way to a) learn how MS's latest technologies work and b) make my computer do what I want it to do. How about you?
"Everyone collects utilities, and most folks have a list of a few that they feel are indispensable. Here's mine. Each has a distinct purpose, and I probably touch each at least a few times a week. For me, util means utilitarian and it means don't clutter my tray. If it saves me time, and seamlessly integrates with my life, it's the bomb."
