A few years ago, I took on a freelance project to implement an Internet Explorer component in C++. I was billing a healthy hourly rate on other projects at the time, but this particular client insisted on a fixed price. In a bout of temporary insanity, I made an exception…
Update: Looks like I got banned from Reddit for posting this. That makes me sad. In the mid-to-late aughts, when I was last blogging regularly, I would hustle by any means necessary to get my posts read and grow my RSS subscriber base. It was immensely satisfying when I finally…
M.G. Siegler wonders out loud in a recent post how Apple can continue to grow given the stupendous results they just announced for last quarter. They can't milk the iPhone cash cow forever, after all. But again, the bar is now just set so high. What on Earth can…
The other day I read What I Wish I Knew When I Started My Career as a Software Developer, an article in Lifehacker adapted from a Quora answer by Michael O. Church. I haven't stopped thinking about it since. I guess I find it so thought-provoking because, while I agree…
Until the advent of the web, professional software development didn't have a front-end/back-end dichotomy. There were C programmers, Pascal programmers and FORTRAN programmers, but the language they used was a detail rather than a reflection on their background and career path. Then the web came along, triggering the influx…
