The best tool for the job

August 17, 2009 at 9:39 am | Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments
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Hello,

Following up on the same theme as my previous post, “I’m Sorry Linux” talking about how money really does make the world go round and that we really would be fooling ourselves if we thought it didnt, it got me thinking on the old theory of the best tool for the job. When writing an application various different things comes to mind. One of the biggest questions asked on forums is “Java or C#”, Ruby or Python, JSP or ASP?”. And we all together get sick of answering the same question, that usually you should just pick the best tool for the job.

But what is the best tool for the job?

When it comes to the open source community, the followers could not say a single bad thing about any of the tools they have created and on the other side the advertising team of the companies will tell you that the product they made was the best, but who do you really believe?

When it comes down to it, comparing them all can be easy as long as you don’t listen to the trolls on forums!. Here are the simply points I usually follow when it comes to picking tools.

1. Was it created for the system?
This can really go a long way. If the tool was native to windows and ported somewhat to linux, then at times it can be seen as alarm bells. When it comes to things such as programming languages where parts such as libraries really do matter, why shoot yourself in the foot and use something that was ported in some half ass way and barely documented adding hours of headaches. Stick to native tools.

2. Does money back it, or does it have a strong community?
Notice how I said “Does it have a strong community?” I am not leaving out you FOSS people. If money is backing the project or tool, it really does help. People may say otherwise, but having a million dollars worth of developers hacking away on a tool does eventually make it good as would having a strong community of people digging for bugs and push out releases.

3. What will the future hold?
Always look a little into the future when it comes to picking a tool. If you pick a tool that everyone is starting to drop the support for or people are starting to show a lack of interest in it, you may be flogging  a dead horse. But yes, it can be argued that COBOL ect are still alive and well after all these years, but what about the host of other languages and tools that never made the cut because, (see point 2), the backing and interest died.

4. If its cool.
Yeah we all just like a neat little tool from time to time and all the above doesn’t matter in the slightest to stop you using it, code on my friends!

I’m sorry Linux

August 16, 2009 at 3:06 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment
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Hello,

I have been developing for quite a long time and on various different systems. When I was younger I started on a windows machine then as time passed I progressed onto a Linux machine. I’ve always loved open source software, the concept, the actual end product and everything in between, but at times I start to wonder is it all worth it.

I’ve developed some open source software and also saw the other side of the coin, a year or so ago I got a chance to go into the Microsoft head quarters in Dublin, Ireland and I personally know various different developers working for them and I too was (and could possibly still be) a little brainwashed by the whole process.

Growing up with windows I have always noticed the problems, the blue screens and the anger associated with Microsoft products, but now I really have started to look the other way. Using Linux on my home machine and developing on Linux over time I started to get a little annoyed with the small things.

Even when I needed to create a document, open offices spellchecker was inferior to that of open office, it was as if the damn machine was out to get me.

But we love Linux, we let little things slide. Over time the lack of documentation for software started to get to me,  no unified way of doing things…. parts of systems that were integrated but in the next release just don’t work as well… it all started to mount.

I began to get a little sick of netbeans… and eclipse, some simple things were just not working for me and the added annoyance of having to run the JVM was always present.

Then one day I started the process of building a PHP debugger for a project I was working on and I decided to give Visual Studio one more chance. As sad as I was to admit it I loved it. What was not to like, it was as if everything was where it was supposed to be and CLICK… your application is running smoothly no added jars, no plugins, no nothing.

Was it the documentation available, The simple IDE, The one click and run of the application… something sold it to me. It still all feels a little dirty, but I will continue to hold my Linux users card close to my chest, but when the sun goes down, its visual studio time.

I’m not raining down on open source tools and community, it always will be an amazing thing that has helped me and so many other people understand how various different parts of systems are created. But then, when it comes down to the wire money really seems to help the process.

So from now on I will not glare across the room at someone if they boot up a window laptop, or even call them noobish for using visual studio. Call it what you want, the whole proprietary world doesn’t seem to be bad after all.

And no. I won’t go around telling people “Im a pc!”, thats still really sad.

Please!, Stop killing powerpoint

February 25, 2009 at 4:01 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment
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Hello,

PowerPoint is one thing that we all love and we all love to hate. PowerPoint can be used for the greater good but also the greater bad and more times then ever it is used for the greater bad.

To put all of this in perspective, here is a little example of when PowerPoint is used for the right cause.

1. When you want to summerise what you are talking about.
2. When you want to put up a “Point Of Focus” i.e present a title or keyword that will help people remeber what you are talking about.
3. If you want to flash some pretty pictures.

Thats it! nothing more!

Infront of me I have a PowerPoint document that shows everything about exactly what it should NOT be used for.
Here is a few simple points that people should usually avoid:

1. Power point it not a document format, If you want to write a document, use .doc or .odt dont try and cram everything you have to say into that small little area.
2. Format what you are going to say. A blob of text will still look like a blob of text on a bigger screen.
3. Use BULLET POINTS SPARINGLY….. They are not designed to mark the start of a new line, they are designed to draw attention to a point.

Now if you will excuse me, I have to follow a PowerPoint tutorial on Data Mining.

Do people RTFM to solve problems?

February 20, 2009 at 4:39 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment
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Hello,

I often do wonder, do people really Read the F**king Manual. As a child I learned that if I ever wanted to fully learn something I really had to read in depth on a particular topic. My first encounter with proper programming was Visual Basic 6. I still remember it well that I was holiday and I knew that if I didn’t read this book I would never be able to program (or what I called program an in showing and hiding various different windows).

That I think was when my penny first dropped and then later in college I often become angered when things would not work out, then I would realize that I have breached my own rule…. read before you start.

Reading before you start can really lead into bigger things though like your ability to be able to solve your own problems rather then squeal for help. From of a perspective of a lecturer(not that I am one, I am merely saying this is how I guess they view it), when a student asks for a lot of help, to them they are the student that is excelling rather then the person who kept quiet and has solved their own problem.

Many of my lectures have always told me before that “If nobody asks questions, that means nobody is doing any work”. I view that comment from a different side because when I am in class I rarely asked questions, even when I didn’t understand the problem I still didn’t ask any questions to me that would be cheating myself rather then taking the Problem Based Learning approach and RFTM.

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