I notice that I often avoid certain large tasks because I know I don’t have time to complete them.  If I have a meeting in 30 minutes, I don’t want to open up PowerPoint and design the next generation of business intelligence tools.  All that will happen is that I get things set up, start to think, start to put things down and BAM! have to go.  What’s the point? I will have to start over.

So these large tasks end up being punted forward in time.  The list of large tasks gets bigger and bigger.  Then a funny thing happens.  The situation changes and the large task changes.  I can count at least 4 times in the last year that a large tasks became irrelevant after stalling on it for a few months.

Does this mean that large tasks should be delayed?  It doesn’t sound right, but I’m not sure.  We make huge progress when we tackle big problems.  We make incremental progress when we tackle small ones.  Maybe this is like the pendulum.  It has to swing back and forth to be right.

There is a product development philosophy that I strongly believe in, especially for the Software-As-Service world (a.k.a. Extranet).  I call that philosophy the “Pendulum”.  The pendulum oscillates between features and quality in a product.  A feature is a new thing that the product should do.  Quality is a catch-all for improving the performance, removing bugs, and getting rid of crusty, dead code.

ALl too often the pendulum is stuck all the way on the features side.  This leads to more buttons (Yahoo), more tabs (Salesforce), more advanced actions and modals (Windows).  Elegance and simplicity, like many of Apple’s products, often come from throwing away everything and building from scratch.  The problem is that once you do that, when should you tear it down again?

I believe that every product should rebuild itself from scratch periodically.  The approach I usually take is component-based.   The UI could be rebuilt using the same back-end.  The database could be rebuilt using the same UI.  The framework could be swapped out.  These are not simple tasks.  They are MAJOR projects.  However, the benefit is always enormous.

Code gets laden with crap over time.  People are in a rush.  They write code with the symbol //TODO all over the place.  Those items never get addressed.  Additionally, people start using the product and you learn through that experience.  Real use cases are better than imagined ones.  So when you rebuild, you know what you are aiming for.  You build a system that is flexible and maintainable.

No management team I have ever met was happy with these projects.  However, it makes your product live longer.  Much longer.  It makes creating new features much faster.  It makes performance faster, bug testing easier.  It makes your product nimble and changeable.

The benefits far outweigh the time it takes in investment.

Many engineers know this intuitively.   They wish they had the time to do this work.  They know the benefits.  Fight the goodfight.  Push that pendulum to the quality side whenever you can.  Help your boss to be a better manager.  Help your company succeed.  Fight the good fight.

I just recently saw this posting by Eric Meyer on how browser makers and big companies interact and how browsers (and developers) are put in a bad situation.  The short version is: Browser makers want to update their browser to follow standards.  Terrible developers complain that their f**ked up HTML and JS will break if the browser changes.

In the last month or two, I have had the opportunity to recreate other people’s html.  I am creating Marketo Landing Page templates that “look” like their site.  Each one is pretty quick.  But when I view their source, I am really disgusted by the horrible html being used.  Things like spacer.gif are only the beginning.  Tags like <TD background=”foo.gif”> are just horrible.  Iframes all over the place, nested tables to create padding, it makes my head spin.

I just can’t believe how people call themselves web developers and don’t take their craft seriously.  If you are a cobbler, you should be interested in all new foot technologies.  If you are a chef, you should read up on the latest culinary innovations.  If you are a web developer you should absolutely know CSS and how to make semantic (clean, concise) markup.

After looking at 20 different sites and recreating them, I have concluded that the state of the craft is absolutely dismal.  Maybe 5% of developers are trying to make their code short and clean.  Of course, if you are reading this, there is a good chance you are in the 5%.  However, we must help the craft.

When someone you know, who is a web developer, makes a site with nasty 1998 html, you must intervene.  The first step to recovery is to admit you have a problem.

If developers kept up to date, then browser makers could focus on the right things.  Like fixing their standards!

Every Sunday, I have extr time with the kids.  We want to go into town nd do  little shopping.  Yet, every Sunday, I forget that most stores are closed.  Our favorite Sushi place is closed.  Even Guitar World (we needed to buy some picks) was closed.  Why is this?  The weekend is the one part of the week that I have time to go out.  Wouldn’t it make more sense to take MONDAY off?

If Guitar World was open, then I wouldve purchased picks.  Now, I pretty much have to wait until Saturday, IF I remember.  Maybe I should just buy it online.  Sunday should have shopping and Monday should be off.

I remember the 2000 primaries.  Al Gore was battling Bill Bradley.  I don’t remember all of the details, but specifically, I remember feeling guilty after the election.  I thought, Bill Bradley would have been a better candidate.

Right now, I am having deja vu.  Is Barack Obama the new Bill Bradley?  Will I feel remorse after the fall and think, “Ahh, Obama would have been a better candidate?”  Of course, he is no Biden, but that this point it is a three way race.    I still will vote for Biden if his name is on the ballot, but if it isn’t then I was thinking, “Who is best?”

On the one hand, I think about the big picture, long term view.  Will Barack Obama be better for African Americans than Hillary Clinton would be for women?  Both are oppressed groups.   On the other hand, I think about the short term election.  Winning is not a sure thing at all.  Iraq is looking a little better.  Who knows where we will bee in a year?  Which candidate has a better chance of winning?  Based on my first law of presidential elections (”Charisma wins”) then I would have to say that Obama has more charisma than Clinton or Edwards.

Well, on the bright side, at least California will not have a winner predetermined. Our vote counts for something.

Forums have led a strange existence on the web for a long time.  I have seen the evolution from AOL and bulletin boards to more sophisticated technologies with lots of features.  The problem is, I feel that forums have not evolved and become more useful.  My favorite type of forum is Experts Exchange.  By using a clever system of points and rankings they have encouraged a generation of technical people to help each other.  I only wish that they could open source their structure so that other kinds of exchanges could be created.  Example: Home improvement.  You ask a question and get an answer.  Same points systems.

The jQuery team has been discussing different forum options as the mailing list seems to have reached its maximum scale.  At Marketo, we are customizing a forum software to build an online help and community system.

Interestingly, in both cases, I am suggesting that we remove 90% of the features.  ALl of the polls and avatars and rankings get in the way of communicating.  For jQuery I suggested adding a “resolved/unresolved” flag so that it makes it easier to find unanswered questions.  (This is how Experts-Exchange does it).  Athough I would love to see the whole points thing come to life, I think it would be difficult to mirror the system on EE.  It would be better to go shallow and just focus on the primary pain point.

With Marketo, I feel like simple is good.  It’s almost a cross between a blog and a forum.  A blog is primarily a “journal” technology.  Whereas in a community, learnings are persistent and not time oriented.  Plus a blog is usually a star-burst configuration, where the author is central to the whole thing.  If you want cross-communications you need to allow members to start their own independent threads.

I think it would be a great product to sell something like EE as a forum software.  I hope someone over there is listening.

Recently, we got the Wii for the family.  It has been a really interesting and well designed experience so far.  Alot of great innovations are baked into this thing.  The last week, we added a few new features.

First, I downloaded the internet channel. The Wii connects to our family Wi-Fi network just like a laptop.  It uses Opera as the browser. Interesting choice.  Why Opera?  Why not Firefox?  Anyway, it works pretty well.  I used it briefly with Gmail, Youtube and Marketo.  All seemed to work well, but there was a catch.  I didn’t realize how small the resolution is on an HD giant flat screen.  1080i is about what you get on a 1024×768 screen.  But this was less than that.  It was 480p, which is equivalent to about an 800×600 experience.  Maybe a bit worse actually.  How is it that my giant LCD project screen, doesn’t have resolution of a laptop?  Why is 1080i the standard HD?  Can’t we go higher?  How long will 1080i reign supreme for programming?  Who knows?  I am just happy to get anything at all, I suppose.

I actually added in the Wii HD component cable.  However, I haven’t seen any noticeable difference in the display.  I also told the Wii that the screen is widescreen, but it is basically ignoring me.  Hmm, I wonder what I am doing wrong.

We also added a third controller, and a fourth is on the way.  This way, we can all play tennis together. I think we need more room though, and a bigger TV.  Maybe we could run an extension over to the park, and put the TV on the tennis court.  Then we could play Wii Tennis with lots of room to spread out.  Yes, I think this is a good plan.

Apparently a very old post of mine is on StubleUpon.  Wow, this is from December of 2005.  This link drove almost 200 visitors to the page.  I haven’t ever used StumbleUpon before.  I know what it does, but I just haven’t had the energy to try it.

It’s amazing to me that so many people are so bored that they need sites like this to help them “surf”.  Between work and email and RSS feeds, where do people have the time to look at other stuff?  I guess people aren’t quite as hammered at work as me.  I wish I had time for a game of Freecell.

Back to work.  Thanks StumbleUpon!  Maybe in 2 years, this post will be popular too!

Toys R Us’ website sucks.  I have been trying to buy a Wii controller using some gift cards for weeks from them.  Here is the pattern of my unhappiness:

1. Search stinks.  If I search for Wii controller, show me a page of Wii controllers.  How hard is that??  Makes me click 5 times to get to the Wii controller.
2. The item is out of stock.  I can only click “alert me” when it’s back in stock.  Why can’t I say, “I want to buy this, just put me in line and send it to me when you get some.”  No, I have to come back later.  Bad experience.  So I sign up to be notified.
3. I get the email.  Fine, I click the link and add 2 to the cart.  Then it asks me to login or buy as guest.  I do guest. I enter in my gift card codes, all three of them, and my billing address.  I submit the form.   All good.  Then it says, “Do you want us to save your information?”  I said, “Ok. Yes”.
4. A few days later I get an email saying, “He, we canceled your order.  We ran out”.  What??  Don’t cancel my order just send me the next one you get!  Crap!
5. So I go back to step 1.  I find the item.  Sign up for the alert.  I get the alert.  I try to sign in this time with my username/password.  Lo and behold, it didn’t save ANY of my information.  I have to put everything in again.  Address, gift cards, credit card.  Come on!  At least don’t make me repeat myself over and over.
6. Buy them AGAIN!  Then I get the same email a few days later, “Sorry, we canceled your order”.  What the hell is wrong with these people?!?  Take my damn order and send me the item when you get it.  Toys R Us.com sucks.

Toys R Us has had a terrible history on the web.  They were the first to use Cold Fusion in a major e-commerce application and they messed it up royally, and probably damaged Cold Fusion significantly in many minds.  Then they because Amazon partners.  Things were find for a while in that mode.  Then they decided to go their own way.  Now it’s messed up all over again.  My advice to ToysRUs.  Go back to Amazon.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average took a plunge this morning.  It got me thinking.  I wonder what the Dow looks like for the last 16 years.  8 years of Bill Clinton and 8 years (almost) of Bush.  I used data/sceenshot from Investor.com

Notice how the Bush years aren’t quite as good as the Clinton years.  Bush was touted as a business man when he was elected.  An energy guy too.  It was thought, incorrectly, that he would be able to implement a sensible energy policy and the Dow would do well.

I think Bush is not incompetent.  I think he did exactly what he wanted to do. He lowered taxes on the wealthy.  He made sure the energy companies had record profits at the expense of everyday people.  He toppled Saddam Hussein, who had insulted the family honor apparently.  He moved the judiciary WAY to the right, especially the supreme court.  We will be paying THAT bill for a long time.

I think Bush did exactly what he wanted to do.  I am disappointed that the Democrats can not find a way to combat his methods.  If it were up to me, which it isn’t, I would send bill after bill to Bush so that he can veto them. I would force the Republicans to do actual filibusters on TV, 24/7.  We should force them to show that they don’t care about anyone except themselves. Dems need to get serious and start fighting for what they believe in.

Oh well, maybe next time.  I just want to live to the day I can be scanned into my nanobot body.