Reed Me : software

Scary. But probably true.

reedme — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 19:48:25 GMT

Emphasis in the quote below is Jeff’s; I didn’t fiddle with the bold or italics. I just made it blue, because blue is good, right?

Pretty soon, all programming will be web programming. If you don't think that's a cause for celebration for the average working programmer, then maybe you should find another profession.
Coding Horror: All Programming is Web Programming

Of course, that’s the conclusion of the post which makes Jeff sound like he’s not a right-tool-for-the-job kind of guy (he is). It’s just the bombast to convince you that you should go read it yourself. Heh.

For the record, I’m not a huge fan of web development (the tools are generally not mature enough to support my TDD habit), even though I ran the primarily web-based development team for a dotcom for nigh six years... I am a big fan of the principle of least power (and/or least complexity).

How high is your impulse buy threshold?

reedme — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 20:03:08 GMT

I think Jeff’s on to something:

While there's an odd aspect of race to the bottom that I'm not sure is entirely healthy for the iPhone app ecosystem, the idea that software should be priced low enough to pass the average user's "why not" threshold is a powerful one.

Coding Horror: Software Pricing: Are We Doing It Wrong?

But...

As usual, it’s a good, thought-provoking post from Jeff. He talks about a couple of games that were wildly successful at selling huge numbers of units after they lowered their prices... Which is the key concept that seems to be overlooked: Perceived Value™.

Jeff (like all of us in geekdom) seems to be thinking of finding the Perfect Price™, set it once and enjoy massive profitability. Unfortunately, marketing and economics don’t work that way because they overlap with the unpredictable, irrational “science” of human psychology. Like that country song chorus goes “... and people are crazy.”

Steam/Valve were wildly successful with these price cuts because the were able to LOWER their prices. If they started off at a lower price point, they might’ve front-loaded more sales on the curve, but they would not have the long, sustainable tail of moderate Half-Life or Left4Dead sales at the New Lower Price™ because they wouldn’t have the same perceived value to typical consumers.

People like Jeff and I who paid full price for L4D (the Reed Clan actually bought four copies at full price, but that’s a different problem) aren’t in the same buyer bucket as those people who got motivated when the price was reduced... and I doubt many game companies are going to be willing to start low and then go lower in the hopes of making more money without a lot more evidence than a table o’ speculative numbers.

Especially since the jury is still out on whether companies are going to win with the iPhone App Store’s race to the bottom strategy. Perhaps if the Xbox Live Arcade and Xbox Live Community Games starts producing some profitable companies built primarily on titles in those arenas, that might suggest starting low is the way to go.

My wallet wants him to be right, but I’m just sayin’...

I wasn’t concerned about warbots. Until...

reedme — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 02:44:54 GMT

The quote is long to provide context, but the bold part is what worries me. Ruh-roh.

A recent study prepared for the Office of Naval Research by a team from the California Polytechnic State University said that robot ethics had not received the attention it deserved because of a "rush to market" mentality and the "common misconception" that robots will do only what they have been programmed to do.

"Unfortunately, such a belief is sorely outdated, harking back to the time when computers were simpler and their programs could be written and understood by a single person," the study says. "Now programs with millions of lines of code are written by teams of programmers, none of whom knows the entire program; hence, no individual can predict the effect of a given command with absolute certainty since portions of programs may interact in unexpected, untested ways."

Killer robots and a revolution in warfare (Reuters)

It’s not bad enough that we’re giving the robots guns, we’re not entirely sure what they’ll do when we tell them to shoot.

Do we really need a manifesto for software craftsmanship?

reedme — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 02:28:24 GMT

This seems like a reaction to, maybe an extension of, the Agile Manifesto. I don’t see anything that I object to, but maybe that’s just because I (and the teams I lead who adopted and signed the Agile Manifesto) believed those “implementation details” were already covered.

Not only working software, but also well-crafted software

Not only responding to change, but also steadily adding value

Not only individuals and interactions, but also a community of professionals

Not only customer collaboration, but also productive partnerships

Manifesto for Software Craftsmanship

Can’t hurt, I guess, since some people need to have every little detail spelled out for them.

Comparing the state of the art of software development to where it was before the “agile revolution”, I think we’ve come a long, long way!!

The Problem with Software Architects

reedme — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 01:14:48 GMT

What’s the problem with software architects? Besides the fact that they think everything can be described in PowerPoint and Visio? With maybe a couple hundred pages of Word documents? Heh. It is problematic that “they” think things can be reduced to simple lists... or covered in one book.

I’m not saying there isn’t good information in there! My favorite title’s of the 97 are “Database as a Fortress” and “Control the data, not just the code”. But I have my own bias as a database architect. (Can you tell?)

97 Things Every Software Architect Should Know - The Book

They’re all labeled as “unedited” submissions for the book, but I’m going to make time to read them all this weekend.

Right after I get all the achievements in Left4Dead!