Commercial doesn't mean it's bad

on Feb 27, 2002

“Commercial” is often used as an invective, to mean that something’s bad taste, stupid, or wrong. At least in my country. But the people that do that, tends to forget that things that sell ultimately …

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Better technical writing

on Feb 27, 2002

Why is it that software specifications are always written so horribly? In fact, almost all technical writing is bad: Documentation, RFPs, proposals, you name it.





Sure, the really talented writers wou…

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More books

on Feb 26, 2002

I’ve added another couple books: Gig, which I finished a couple months ago (and which is a good swimming-pool type book—you dive in every once in a while, when you get a chance and you feel like it), …

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I'll be relasing my code

on Feb 26, 2002

A number of people have asked me for the custom code that I run on my site, on top of OpenACS.





What’s been holding me back is that it’s really custom-built. Originally, I wouldn’t code anything unles…

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Knowing where to go

on Feb 25, 2002

You know the feeling when something just happens to pop up again and again? You walk by a bookstore and notice some book. Then you see that same book at a friend’s place. And then you come across some…

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Standards and quantification

on Feb 24, 2002

I have a love/hate relationship with standards.



On the one side, my human side wants me to reject the idea that it’s about standards. It’s much more complex, about feelings, human nature, blah, blah.…

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Making a <i>system</i> that works

on Feb 22, 2002

For several years, I’ve been saying that the genius of American business is that it knows how to make stupid people do something valuable, as epitomized by McDonald’s. Mostly people I’ve told it to ha…

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