Brent Sordyl's blog

13 ways your app can be more like FarmVille

May 10, 2011 by Brent Sordyl 0 Comments

1. Help me out by adding a first-time-user guided tour (but keep it optional)

2. Never leave me guessing – show inline feedback for everything

3. Allow me to trade my time (I like a challenge), or my money for your service

4. Give me a fun, low pressure way to share your app with my friends

5. Surprise me randomly and encourage me to come back for more surprises

6. Help me connect with my real friends

7. Give me recognition for the time I put into your app

8. Help me visualize how much progress I’m making

9. Engage me – set up quests of varying difficulty for me to complete (but keep it optional)

10. Help me recognize my strong points, and where I can still use some help

11. Let me trade my hard work for something of value (even if it’s made up)

12. Make it easy for me to pay you – give me multiple options

13 ways your app can be more like FarmVill

14. Help me feel unique by only offering some things for a limited time.

(Full Story: 13 ways your app can be more like FarmVille)

programming, ux

engagement, for:amir.haq@kaplan.com, programming, ux

The Ruby Toolbox – Know your options!

May 10, 2011 by Brent Sordyl 0 Comments

Ruby developers can choose from a variety of tools to get their job done.
The Ruby Toolbox gives you an overview of these tools, sorted in categories and rated by the amount of watchers and forks in the corresponding source code repository on GitHub so you can find out easily what options you have and which are the most common ones in the Ruby community.

(Full Story: The Ruby Toolbox – Know your options!)

programming, ruby

Delusions of Programming

April 13, 2011 by Brent Sordyl 0 Comments

Cleverness and performance are major delusions of programming. We let ourselves be seduced by them to the detriment of our code.

(Full Story: Delusions of Programming)

programming, scala

Gavin King – “Ceylon isn’t Java”

April 13, 2011 by Brent Sordyl 0 Comments

Ceylon isn’t Java, it’s a new language that’s deeply influenced by Java, designed by people who are unapologetic fans of Java. Java’s not dying anytime soon, so nothing’s killing it.

(Full Story: Gavin King – “Ceylon isn’t Java”)

java, language, programming

ceylon, for:@twitter, java, language, programming

Code School – your path to better code

April 8, 2011 by Brent Sordyl 0 Comments

An interactive online marketplace where you can learn to code directly in the browse

(Full Story: Code School – your path to better code)

programming, rubyonrails, tutorial

Selling to Developers: Dealing with “I’ll do it myself”

April 7, 2011 by Brent Sordyl 0 Comments

I can write code at work, at home, even on the bus or on the toilet (although I don’t recommend the last one). If I want to enjoy the weather, I can close the laptop and go outside. Development allows for flexibility, but support does not. When something breaks, it needs to be fixed, not later, but right now. At least that’s the case if you still want to have paying customers.
And when does support rear its ugly head? Usually whenever you can least afford it, like the middle of the night, or when you’re on a plane to Cleveland, or if you’re a part-time bootstrapper it’s when you’re at your day job. You have enough support issues as it is, so Windsoc handling your service integration and dealing with changed or broken APIs certainly reduces the load.

(Full Story: Selling to Developers: Dealing with “I’ll do it myself”)

programming

CEO Friday: Why we don’t hire .NET programmers

March 31, 2011 by Brent Sordyl 0 Comments

Programming with .NET is like cooking in a McDonalds kitchen. It is full of amazing tools that automate absolutely everything. Just press the right button and follow the beeping lights, and you can churn out flawless 1.6 oz burgers faster than anybody else on the planet.
However, if you need to make a 1.7 oz burger, you simply can’t. There’s no button for it. The patties are pre-formed in the wrong size. They start out frozen so they can’t be smushed up and reformed, and the thawing machine is so tightly integrated with the cooking machine that there’s no way to intercept it between the two. A McDonalds kitchen makes exactly what’s on the McDonalds menu — and does so in an absolutely foolproof fashion. But it can’t go off the menu, and any attempt to bend the machine to your will just breaks it such that it needs to be sent back to the factory for repairs.

(Full Story: CEO Friday: Why we don’t hire .NET programmers)

.net, programming

jni4net – bridge between Java and .NET

February 28, 2011 by Brent Sordyl 0 Comments

bridge between Java and .NET (intraprocess, fast, object oriented, open-source)

(Full Story: jni4net – bridge between Java and .NET)

.net, java, programming

The Rise And Fall of Languages in 2010

February 7, 2011 by Brent Sordyl 0 Comments

Looking over the ten-year chart, several patterns emerge immediately. The steady decline of Java is real. Ten years ago, it made up nearly 27% of mentions; since then, it’s dropped to 18%. What is less clear is the state of JVM languages as a whole. But we can make a good guess that even if the main JVM languages were added back in to Java’s numbers, the total would still see a decline. Like most readers, I would expect this to be the case, and I expect most of the emigrants migrated to Ruby and Python. We’ll see in a moment if this theory is supported.
Java’s decline, however, has not knocked it from the top position. It now enjoys a thin lead over C, followed (after a substantial gap) by C++ and PHP. These last two languages have been exchanging positions for a long time. While they’ve both declined somewhat during the last year, it’s too early to tell whether or not that’s a trend.

(Full Story: The Rise And Fall of Languages in 2010)

programming, trends, web2.0

programming