sunilshenoy.com

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE SIMPLE?

Sun, 15 Apr 2012 01:00:00 IST

All designers say simplicity is important, but what does it really mean to make something simple? Most of the time we think it means less, that by removing stuff we achieve simplicity. We think by keeping content above the fold we’re helping people focus, or by using bullets instead of paragraphs more people will read it, or by cutting text in half it becomes more clear. But simple doesn’t mean “less”. A better definition would be “just enough”.

Worth a read. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE SIMPLE?.

Throw it all away if you know you can do it better

Sat, 14 Apr 2012 08:31:00 IST

8) Throw it all away if you know you can do it better

Don’t be afraid to throw it all away and start over if you can afford to. The best designers and developers in the world don’t get “it” right the first time, rarely get it right the second time and maybe get it right the third time. As an example, Flud designed and launched four web apps privately, and we’ve continually thrown them all away because they weren’t creating the right experience. We finally have something that works and it will be launching soon. It is far from perfect, but it is an experience our team believes in.

Startups are hard, hard work (thank you captain obvious) but the force is with you if you choose it to be.

via @ghoshal

A great advice, but often ignored in the rush to launch things as soon as possible. Always launch with the version the team feels is right. Might not always be the first version developed.

Bootstrapping a Software Product

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 17:10:00 IST

A presentation about the lessons learned through both the good and bad decisions Garrett Dimon made while bootstrapping Sifterapp.

Bootstrapping a software product.

Lessons from a 40 year old

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 11:00:00 IST

Transcript of the talk is available here.

Yesterday you said tomorrow

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 08:25:00 IST

→ Newsblur

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 22:22:31 IST

The only web based RSS feed reader I have enjoyed using.

Newsblur

Also being developed in the open on github

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Moved away from Posterous

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 00:00:00 IST

After reading the Posterous acquisition by Twitter, I have been wanting to move away from Posterous.

Why? Because acquisition almost always mean the end of the service when the acquisition is for the talent. This means, that the product stops being developed. Also, in their blog post about being acquired Posterous did mention about service being affected in the future.

We’ll give users ample notice if we make any changes to the service. For users who would like to back up their content or move to another service, we’ll share clear instructions for doing so in the coming weeks.

Rather than waiting to move the blog later, I had a few hours free this weekend. Plus gives me a good reason to try Second Crack.

Done by Tomorrow

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 10:08:02 IST

Client: When will it be done by?
Programmer: Give me a couple of days and I should have it ready.

Prospective Client: "Is this difficult to build? Have you built such an system before?"
Programmer: I haven't done it before, but I would assume this is easy to build

If you are a programmer, you have been part of such conversations before. You have made promises to your client or yourself to get a certain thing done, without having thought so much about the complexity of the problem or if you do in fact have the time to get it done tomorrow.

I have had these moments, a lot last year while working on multiple projects. A requirement to build a simple Image gallery in PHP/MySQL would have me giving out a time-frame of 3-4 days. Would it really take 3-4 days? No, it would take me less time to build it. What made that timeline 3-4 days is the fact, that I had other things going on, which also needed attention while the Image Gallery was being built.

Most people I meet want things completed as soon as possible. Often their decision of working with you involves you having the required time to get things completed at the earliest. It's tough saying "no" to "can I get it back tomorrow" requests. The client assumes there is something wrong when you say it would take 2 days to add a simple feature.

Communication, I have learnt is really important as I spend more time working through projects. Done by tomorrow conversations have now been replaced by "Done by {date}". The {date} I arrive upon, after having looked through the work involved that week and letting the client know that I have other things to attend to between today and {date}.

It's important to have a good work-life balance. Burning the mid night oil cannot go on a long time.

→ A great way to hire programmers

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 22:22:31 IST

I think programming riddles, games, and brain teasers are a great way to hire. First one to say “fuck this” and walk out gets the job.

via @holman

I never got the need to solve puzzles during the interview process. How about focusing on the persons previous projects and code samples. Now that’s a change, I hope more companies consider.

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JSFoo

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 22:22:31 IST

Saturday was quiet an eventful day.The first conference, first time I took a 4:40 AM train and the first time I went to Pune by train. All this because there is always more to learn out there.

And learn I did. As the name suggests, JSFoo is a Javascript conference which covered a wide range of topics from Node.js , WebSockets, Test Driven Development , Behavior Driven Development and how to handle errors better for Javascript. I also learn’t how it is important to write unit tests even for Javascript. I never thought I needed unit tests for Javascript.

My favorite talks of the 6 that I attended has to be from Rakesh Pai and Sunil Pai. I enjoyed how they made their talk fun to listen to and had funny meme’s in their presentation. We all like meme’s don’t we :)

Errorception was the product Rakesh Pai demonstrated and quite an interesting product it is. Helps you catch JS errors at the client end, in cases where the error’s did not show up during your tests.

Sunil Pai, urged all front end developer’s to “own the browser”, write JS templates, use javascript MVC frameworks and write “unit tests” for all new features and bugs. His presentation slide is here http://www.slideshare.net/threepointone/amplify-your-stack-jsfoo-chennai-2012

My take away from the conference has to be to start writing unit tests and start using MVC frameworks even for Javascript. The web just got more exciting for me.