Adam J Wolf

DISQUS Comment Fu

2009-11-12T00:00:00-07:00

DISQUS is a cradle to grave comment management service that every blogger should look into. Why, you ask, because it has everything a user needs and none of the things an administrator hates. It’s completely free and SAAS ( Software as a Service ) enabled. No software, database or backups, only features and convenience.

DISQUS Comments is a comment and moderation system.

This blog, and many more, are using DISQUS because of the feature set and ease of maintenance. The people behind DISQUS have taken the best commenting features from the web and have compiled them into one outstanding service. No other blog engine has the features and or flexibility that DISQUS Comments have. None. The best part is new features when added to DISQUS will not cause you to update your blog. Maintenance free baby, I love it.

Comment Features

Comments
Filters
White and Blacklists
Manage comments by email
Comment Flagging
Multiple moderators

DISQUS Profile allows you to track and manage your comments on the web.

Profile features

Twitter and Facebook integration
Comment notifications

Getting started, and more importantly, finishing with DISQUS is easy. Sign up, drop some html on your site and you’re done. No kidding. I don’t know how this could get any better. This is how SAAS products should work. Don’t take my word for it, take it for a spin by commenting on this blog post.

Fork the Technical Craftsman

2009-11-11T00:00:00-07:00

The Technical Craftsman is now on GitHub

That’s right, you can now fork the source of this Jekyll generated site and all of its content straight from my public repository on GitHub. This blog started out as a fork of the awesome www.appden.com blog, so it’s only fair to make this blog fork-able as well. Thank you Scott Kyle for the Jekyll source and Iris Leung for the design.

This also means that this whole site is under source control using Git. I could have put my blog engine site under source control but it would have been much harder.

My Problem Solving Loop

2009-11-10T00:00:00-07:00

There is nothing more satisfying in the world then solving a good problem. Some would say, and I would have to agree, that programming is more about solving problems, then just telling a computer what to do. If problem solving is important to programming, why do most programmers do it so badly? I think it’s a lack of a systematic application of a problem solving loop.

I know what you’re thinking. “He’s lost it, gone crazy, too much coding time, time for reboot.”

I don’t think I’am crazy, but if you do by the end of this post, drop me a comment and let me know.

Answer honestly and nobody gets hurt.

If you can answer all of these questions with “No,” then you have a great problem solving loop or no problems. Either way, you are good.

Have you ever solved a problem that someone did not have?
Have you ever beat your head against a wall for more than 8 hours trying to solve a problem?
Have you added features to a program that are never used?
Have you ever fixed a problem with some google code that broke when deployed to production?
Have you ever…I think you get the point.

Here is my approach to solving problems

Identify

Ask yourself, do you truly have a problem and is it worth solving?

Some people see a problem and just start fixing it, immediately, without even thinking about the consequences. There are always consequences even in programming. You need to consider the pros and cons of fixing the problem. Working on problems might not be as important as working on your client’s real problem.

Research

Ok, now you need to know if anyone else has solved for X or a derivative of X? Research the problem with your trusty browser and see how others have solved the same problem. Most problems are not new. Most, if not all, have been solved for at least twice. Study history and you will not repeat the same mistakes, works for programming also.

Test

Define a metric for success and automate the test. If the tests pass, you have no more problems. This eliminates the gold plating or extra features problem.

Apply

Code the solution and integrate. This, of course, would include unit testing and tracer bullet type development practices.

Confirm

Run those automated test again and see how well you’ve done. You rarely get it right the first time, and if you do, I would be suspicious of your tests.

Recognize

Try to recognize the sound of your head hitting an immovable object before you waste anymore time. I have been guilty of this myself once or twice. There is nothing wrong with heading down the wrong path, as long as you recognizing it early.

Reevaluate

Is solving the problem still worth the time you have spent plus another loop around the problem solving loop?

Repeat

If the problem still needs to be solved, then spin it again, from the top.

Conclusion

Programming takes a special kind of analytical mind that likes to solve problems, but solving every problem is a problem in itself. The better programmers know where to apply their limited resource. Do you?

Blogging with Less

2009-11-08T00:00:00-07:00

A little over two years ago, I started blogging on this website as a way to help fellow developers and get my name out in the community. The experience has made me a better developer and writer. What it has also taught me is the tedious and boring tasks of maintaining and using a blog engine.

This site was powered by BlogEngine.Net, but no more. I have freed myself from the need for blogging software to serve up mostly static pages. In addition, I have also jettisoned the poor WYSIWYG editors that never give you What you see, and do so at the expense of horrendous HTML.

I’ve begun a new journey with the help of plain text, Jekyll, Textile, Pygments, Git, and Rake where we go is anyones guess. Most, if not all, of these are new to me and I am guessing new to you also. Don’t be alarmed, it’s going to be great, trust me.

What’s so great about plain text and jekyll?

I have been programming for the web a long time and whenever I wanted to change the structure of my blog I had all this infrastructure in my way. So changing the blog was just something I never did. Jekyll is different; it is a web site generator that works with templates, textile post files and Ruby code. With Jekyll and TextMate, I can change the whole site in a matter of minutes, upload the new version using a handy Rake task all before breakfast on a slow day.

I know that most of you are shocked and appalled that this M$ Kool-Aid drinker is using Ruby and serving up plain html without using a database.

The fact is, I think the less amount of software between me and a blog post the better. BlogEngine is a great OSS project, please don’t take my exiting the fold as a bad review. I don’t need the help or features that a blog engine provides and if you’re reading my blog, I doubt you need them either.

Introductions

Jekyll Ruby website generator hotness.
Pygments python code colorizer from Ada to Zen.
Git distributed source control.
Rake productivity and build system.
DISQUS comments anyone.
Textile less angle bracket tax.

Conclusion

I hope you will journey with me, jekyll and company, as we explore blogging with less friction. With less infrastructure. With just less. I know that this will enable me to blog at a more regular pace while not dreading touching the site. A word of warning for you Microsofties some Ruby, Objective-C and Python are coming your way.