Comments for Unusual Subroutines

Comment on What I look for in a co-worker by My Homepage

My Homepage — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 02:09:11 +0000

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Comment on Quotable quotes: van Rossum on language design by My Homepage

My Homepage — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 14:08:39 +0000

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Comment on Use PyFram to create a guestbook! by Selvedyek

Selvedyek — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:17:10 +0000

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Comment on Quotable Quote: On Languages by URL

URL — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:58:11 +0000

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Comment on What is OOP by Homepage

Homepage — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:57:42 +0000

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Comment on SBCL vs. CLISP: FIGHT! by traqbaq

traqbaq — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 00:41:11 +0000

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Comment on Does gamification really work? by Does gamification really work? | Unusual Subroutines | The … | The Ultimate Gamification and Game Design Toolkit

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 12:17:42 +0000

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Comment on Don’t change my UI, that is bad UX by Aaron Traas

Aaron Traas — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 22:28:55 +0000

I have to disagree that changing the UI is never a good thing. It often isn’t (c.f., Microsoft Office “ribbon” interface), but sometimes the short-term losses in productivity are worth the long-term gains. If you can simplify, streamline, and make an interface that’s easy to learn, and fast to do the majority of operations, then it’s often worth changing.

But these sort of things should be measured in a lab. Users should be tested. New UI paradigms should be vetted. The larger the change, the more it should be tested, analyzed, and scrutinized.

I think the problem with Google is that they’ve been changing, well, everything over the past few months. The direction of the company has radically shifted. They’re building all of their technologies around search, Google+, Android, and ChromeOS. The problem is, the various different Google web apps/services have incredibly dissimilar UI; there’s really no continuity, theme, rhyme, or reason behind it all. They’re trying to fix it. The real issue is that they’ve been using their users as guinea pigs. Some of the stuff should have been worked out before it hit users, and then all the changes should have happened pretty much at once. I totally get their need to cut services that no one uses (like Wave) and spend more effort focusing on their core products. Lord knows they need to! It’s just we’re all in the middle of this.

Also, as a Google Apps user, I’m like always a version behind, and have the option of being further behind still. They treat apps users like paying customers (as many of them are), and everyone else like their lab rats.

Comment on My browser does too much. by Christopher Allen-Poole

Christopher Allen-Poole — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 16:49:31 +0000

My real complaint? I just closed Chrome and my music stopped. What I really need is an application which plays Pandora and works cross-platform.

Comment on McCarthy’s Lisp by Christopher Allen-Poole

Christopher Allen-Poole — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 01:15:00 +0000

Like I said, I bow before his superior knowledge.

I know that there is a greater exposition of the history out there than Wikipedia’s treatment. I specifically recall hearing not only was McCarthy surprised at the implementation, but that he had not originally intended it to be used as a programming language (as stated, I recall reading that he had viewed it as more of an exercise).