Archive for July, 2006
July 27, 2006
Why You Should Test Your Site in IE7 Right Now
Do you know how your site looks and functions in IE7? No? Better get testing: IEBlog : IE7 to be distributed via Automatic Updates!
To help our customers become more secure and up-to-date, we will distribute IE7 as a high-priority update via Automatic Updates (AU) shortly after the final version is released for Windows XP, planned for the fourth quarter of this year.
Emphasis added. Based on this, I would expect IE7 to be adopted pretty quickly even though users will have the option not to install it when it downloads via Automatic Updates.
(Via Gadgetopia.)
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July 25, 2006
Socialtext Releases Open Source Wiki
Socialtext has released an open source version of their wiki product. The open source version is missing some enterprise features that they reserve for the commercial product.
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July 17, 2006
Assessing Coding Quality of Potential Developers
I responded to a question earlier this week about how you can judge the quality of a web application’s code. The question was from someone who would be receiving the source code for the app in question once it was finished and they would be responsible for maintaining it after launch. How can you tell if the code is of high quality and easily maintainable if you are not a programmer yourself?
Here are a few things I would look for in this situation:
- The application provides helpful/friendly error messages to users when something bad happens. If they have put thought into error handling then they have probably done so throughout the application.
- They use a code versioning system repository for developing the application. Any programming shop who knows what they are doing should use a tool like this. If they are not, I’d consider them amateurs.
- Source code is well documented. Browsing through the code, you should be able to understand what each section does, even if you are not a programmer. If the comments are too cryptic or few, then it will be harder to maintain when they hand it off.
- The application uses classes for commonly executed operations. If the same bit of html has to be rendered repeatedly, make sure they have that pulled out into a single class rather than simply repeating the code over and over throughout the application. This makes maintenance much easier.
- They use unit tests. Unit testing can be somewhat challenging with web apps but can be done. Unit tests are a series of tests that will check that the application is functioning properly after a change is made (regression testing). I’d consider a shop doing this effectively to be very competent.
Some of those obviously require a coder to asses for you but at least you know some questions to ask that will get at whether the developers in question have good practices in writing code. It is no guarantee but will weed out the poorest candidates.
Here are a few books you may want to review if you want to learn more about good development practices:
(had an issue with my amazon links, list to be reposted later)
Also see Joel Spolsky’s reading list.
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July 17, 2006
Shark Attacks Silver Spring!
It’s not every day that a large building in your town sprouts fins, tail and head full of very sharp teeth. This is a pic of the Discovery Channel HQ building in Silver Spring, MD. They are using the shark to promote shark week on their channel.
I think this qualified as a Purple Cow, except it is a Big Shark.
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July 2, 2006
WikiMatrix
Here is a nice tool for comparing various wikis, both open source and commercial/hosted: WikiMatrix.
I’ve been hearing lots of interest in wikis lately in conversations with clients and at events. If you are interested too, check out WikiMatrix.
(Via Nancy White.)
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