Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can. Zawinski's Law of Software Envelopment I wonder if there's a similar law having to do with APIs, or backup/export functionality, or open standards. If there is not,…

What does the concept of Linked Data mean to you as a developer? It means that you have datasets that have the following properties: Globally unique IDs (since they use URIs for IDs). Also, you can almost always dereference those IDs and get more detailed useful data from them. Globally…

If you're setting up a web application (or even a testing/staging server for one), sooner or later you're going to have to bite the bullet and do it properly. Assuming that you're deploying a non-PHP type application (Ruby, Node.js, Smalltalk, Go, and the like), you will need to…

Shortly after New Year's, I said goodbye to my colleagues at Basho, and joined the Solid project MIT CSAIL (specifically, the DIG / IPRI groups). I loved working at Basho, learned a mind-boggling amount, liked and respected my colleagues, and still remain a huge fan of Riak. And am also really…

reification: The consideration of an abstract thing as if it were concrete, or of an inanimate object as if it were living. The consideration of a human being as an impersonal object. (programming) Process that makes out of a non-computable/addressable object a computable/addressable one. (see also the Wikipedia…

In biology, the individual organism is ephemeral. Each individual is incredibly fragile, and has a built-in limited lifespans, not to mention a good chance of meeting with accidental death at any moment. The only things that matter, that have at least a shot at longevity, are genes (and species, really)…

Something I didn't know about, and was excited to find out yesterday. Github finally has traffic analytics built-in! (Well, finally as in this past January. But still, I didn't realize!) And all thanks to Ilya Grigorik and his excellent ga-beacon repo. See, for the longest time, if you had a…

I'm still not sure how I feel about the "All the things must be flat" design trend. (Well, that's not true, I certainly hate Windows 8's Xbox-like desktop, the way that the Xbox UI was changed to match it, and the iOS 7 UI update.) Also, I did notice, the…

You need to understand what MapReduce is. If you've never heard the term and you don't work in the tech sector, stick around. It's easy to understand, and it's important. A one-line answer Q: What is MapReduce? A: MapReduce is a counter-intuitive but very powerful way to answer questions and…

A few months ago, I came across a mention of a CS high school opening in NYC: New York City gets a Software Engineering High School. I think this is a brilliant idea. High school (and, honestly, even earlier, in middle school) is the ideal time to learn programming. (I…