Design By Tim

Matt posted a great response to an article on managing geeks that I sent him before it hit Digg a few days ago. His responses were concise and well thought out with #10 being my favorite:

10: Forget that geeks are creative workers
… I look at programming as engineering. My Dad was/is an Industrial Engineer. When you need to build something that’s never been done before, who do you call? Someone like him. It’s the same thing with us in web programming. Sure, we may not be re-inventing the wheel every day, but our application of the tools we have is rarely the same any two times, and sometimes we’re completely figuring it out on our own. It is a creative process. People forget this FAR too often.

I haven’t posted in a while, largely due to the fact that life is hectically busy. I took a little time off to work on some projects that I’ve been meaning to finish without killing myself in the process. I also have been promoted where I call a daily job, didn’t happen until I quit. (Which considering the circumstances I don’t recommend quitting to get ahead to anyone). My coworker, Matt has disappeared to another company (we quit on the same day - he left and I was promoted). Enough side story.

I’ve been working on several different ideas - the first of which I am making public today.

Innovation is a creation (a new device or process) resulting from study and experimentation. Which I take to mean that something has already been in place in order for it to be studied. Therefore innovation is the method of breaking the rules in order to innovate. Now to only find someone who has the same feeling about breaking the rules. Till that happens here is my method of madness:

Always ask why.

If the answer isn’t suitable - break the rule till it can be satisfactorily answered. If it is satisfactorily answered - can you do it better - break the rule to find out. I have found that leaders of breakthrough new businesses have a simple and intuitive strategy for motivating their teams. Tell them that they will be part of a nimble, entrepreneurial, and innovative new business unit that can create the future and change the world. Tell them that the new business unit will have a different culture — more open, more egalitarian, more empowering. Tell them that they were hired to be part of an elite team because they were the best. Tell them that they were selected because they can think differently, because they are natural rebels, and because they are ready to break out of the traditional mold. Tell them that they are the type of people that can succeed in ways that others in the company can not. Tell them they are going to help save the company from itself.

Recent 37Signals posted on the missing business ingredient It’s not talent. It’s not ideas. It’s not money. It’s not marketing. It’s not technology … It’s discipline. I think that discipline (not the punishment kind) is the ability to limit oneself within a creative boundary to innovate - discipline helps set the guidelines to determine whether or not to break the rules. Policies haphazardly imposed (or created) in a rush response to knee-jerk responses to “bad” things are foolish. However if a policy is to be crafted then it should loosely define instances so that the spirit would be followed rather than to the letter.

I realize that some individuals have a problem following the spirit - therefore an easy solution - don’t lead… I know this leaves open a lot of interpretation so fire away in the comments. But this post is about how to properly break the rules.

With the recent influx of haters and applauders of simplistic designs it should be noted that the same rule is not for everyone however, there are some loose guidelines that should be followed in order to reach a larger audience. A simple analogy is using the volume dial on the radio - some like it bone chattering loud and others just a whisper - but if you can find a smooth medium you’ll attract a larger group (think bell curve). If your site is meant to shout convey it - however with inflection comes a conversation. And the ultimate goal is communication/conversation of information. Shouting will bring the masses quickly but length to which they listen decreases.

Policy makers should take a similar approach - because creating boundaries can determine the future success of any company or organization. Rash reaction mandates have the possibility of wasting valuable time both in current development and processes as well as hinder future innovation.

There was an interesting article about the best places for small businesses (granted written in ‘97) that I thought was pretty interesting to see the time shift of Richmond Virginia:

This year’s top-rated midsized metropolitan area is no stranger to our ranking - and it’s no surprise why. A hotbed of high-tech activity, the Richmond/Petersburg, Virginia, area boasts the kind of pro-business climate that draws Fortune 500 companies and entrepreneurial enterprises alike. Circuit City Stores, Reynolds Metals and Eskimo Pie Corp. all have headquarters here, a stone’s throw away from our nation’s capitol.

Cited in a recent national study as the second most cost-effective metropolitan area in which to do business, Richmond also affords entrepreneurs the advantage of being no more than a two-day drive from 40 percent of U.S. markets. And, as far as educational resources go, the Virginia Biotechnology Research Park complements four-year academic institutions such as the Virginia Commonwealth University and the University of Richmond.

Speaking of resources, an active Capitol Area Small Business Development Center as well as the Greater Richmond Partnership - a regional economic development organization - assists and encourages businesses to bloom in Richmond just as surely as the state’s flowering dogwoods grow.

If there’s a downside for the area’s small businesses - many of which are concentrated in the service sector - it is that such a boom in companies and workers places greater demand on Richmond’s infrastructure. The local airport, in particular, could use some upgrading. That said, however, this area’s entrepreneurs are generally optimistic - and rightly so. - Source

The Regex Coach is a new program that I have fallen in love with. I use regular expressions in just about every project I work on. Being the lazy bastard I generally don’t learn my languages as a I should, but in my opinion regular expressions should be the staple of any good programmer.

For those of you who have applications (or are in the process of writing these) that have to report based on time/date ranges there is hope. The recording of date and time in a MySQL database is a very common requirement (if you didn’t fit into the description above). More importantly knowing how to record chronological data and how to retrieve it in various formats. Although this is a seemingly basic topic, there are many built-in time functions that can be used for more accurate SQL statements and better formattin of your data.

Since date and time are only numeric strings, they can be stored in a regular character column. However, by using temporal data type columns, you can make use of several built-in functions offered by MySQL. Currently I only know of five temporal data types available: date, time, datestamp, timestamp, and year. The date column type is for recording the date only and is basically in this format: yyyy-mm-dd. The time column type is for recording time in this format: hh:mm:ss. To record a combination of both date and time, there is the datetime column type: yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss. The timestamp column is similar to datetime, but it is a little limited in its range of allowable time. It starts at the Unix epoc tim (1970-01-01) and ends at 2037-12-31. Finally, the data type year is for recording only the year in a column.

To record the current date and time in a MySQL table, there are a few built-in functions that may be used. First, to record the date there are the functions current_date and curdate() (both produce the same results) - yyyy-mm-dd. Notice that curdate() requires the parenthese while current_date does not.

Note: During the examples used the field name that will be evaluated for time will be called creation_date and all other fields and tables are purely fictitious and may not be used consistently.

A while ago on Digg there was an article on the Seven Secrets of Successful Programmers. While receiving mix (while largely) negative view points of this being an article to grab notoriety publishing a list. I agree with most comments that this was a simple list that should be covered in most elementary courses and should not be front page material. However I thought it was a good refresher to look back through code and see how well it follows these guidelines… So this post will be my feeble attempt at refuting as well as embellishing upon this list of “secrets” into a more relevant (in my opinion) source of guidelines:

1. Code for human consumption

It is one of the most pervasive misunderstandings in computing that the source code is for the computer’s consumption. Supposedly the reason that languages were developed was to help the programmer speak “English”. In practice, coding for human consumption means coding for clarity first, over efficiency and speed second. My opinion is that while it maybe easier to read a language over 1s and 0s it does not give reason to make the code slow and inefficient. If you can’t read the code then maybe you shouldn’t try. This isn’t to say there is poorly written code guised to be fast - there’s no call for that either. In short if you write good code you should be able to read it in 6 months without a problem because good code is short and sweet (fast and efficient).

2. Comment often and comment well

The comment is the extreme example of a language element for human consumption. Most compilers will strip the comments from the executable program. The purpose of the comment is to tell you (and any future developer) what the program is intended to do. I think that comments are great - but if your code is written properly you shouldn’t need more than a few to describe the workings - however in 6 months when you review the code it’ll help speed the process of trying to figure out why you were insane to write that in the first place. A good indication that you have got the level of comment right: could someone understand what your program does if all but the comments were removed? Comments are not meant to teach someone to program, rather they are there to serve as comments (what an idea!).

3. Layout code to increase legibility

Since the dawn of time books are split into chapters and paragraphs that aid reading likewise the layout of the code can affect efficiency. MVC (Model View Controller) style programming relies on this as bread and butter (but we’ll save this for another post). In particular any code branch (an IF..THEN…ELSE construction) and any code repetition (a WHILE…END WHILE construction) should be easy to see where they start and end.

4. Expect the unexpected and deal with it

Before you open a file, make sure that the file is present. Before you set focus to a control, make sure that the control is visible and enabled. Try to work out what conditions could cause your code to fail and test for them before they cause the program to fall over. Error checking is the most underrated tool that a developer has. And any language that doesn’t give the ability for error checking should be scrapped as soon as possible.

5. Name your variables to aid readability

There are a number of strategies to variable naming. The key is to be consistent and to be as informative as possible. I personally prefer the Hungarian notation style - but whichever style you use, consistency is the key. As in anything in life - consistency is the root (pun) of professionalism - want fast code that easy to read? Be consistent. Even if it sucks (the process or the code) as long as it’s consistent those who forge on behind you will write a kind epitaph rather than curse the day you were born.

6. Keep your functions and subroutines simple

A function or subroutine should ideally only do one thing. One of the greatest sources of misunderstandings, in my experience, is a subroutine that does a number of different operations. This should be split into separate functions for each different thing it is doing so that these in turn are easy to reuse, and the scope of a code change is easy to understand.

7. Scope functions and variables appropriately

Functions and variables that are only used in one module should not be visible outside that module. Variables that are only used in a function or subroutine should not be visible outside that function or subroutine. This prevents any use of a variable or function outside of where it makes sense to use it.

“Programs must be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.” - Abelson & Sussman, SICP, preface to the first edition

If I have only one word to part to my padawans - it is consistency - from there simplicity - all else will fall into place.

Recently I’ve been working on some forms for an admin section and been working through how to process a form to either multiple locations or to have customized processing of the form. First the included JavaScript:

[code lang=”javascript”]
function Page_Status(processAction)
{
document.form.process.value = processAction;
document.form.submit();
}
function Page_Status_Custom(processAction,page2process)
{
document.form.process.value = processAction;
document.form.action = page2process;
document.form.submit();
}
[/code]

Then drop any input or link into your form and throw in a OnClick like such

[code lang=”html”]
OnClick=”Page_Status(’Submit’);”
OnClick=”Page_Status(’Cancel’);”
[/code]

or

[code lang=”html”]
OnClick=”Page_Status_Custom(’Submit’,'page2process01.php’);”
OnClick=”Page_Status_Custom(’Cancel’,'page2process02.php’);”
[/code]

This way you can either break down code processing or allow for multiple functions on a single form. Then again if you’re using AJAX - probably not a big need for this, but it does give options.

Excerpted from an article I wrote on beginning a website for an existing business

If you are in a business and don’t have a web presence, you’re pretty much crazy. Running modern business behind the times is not good for its longevity. Having a website is only going to do great things for the business. Internet cafes and computer retailers, people with mini-computers on the train, or laptops at the local park (receiving wireless broadband Internet) are popping up all over.

Say you own a small dog washing business. You’re primary advertising is from the Yellow Pages and drive bys on the street. You are making a good cut, so why would you want or need to get a website? First of all, there’s nothing even remotely technical about washing a dog. (That is unless you have one of those new fangled doggie dryers). While the computer doesn’t help you scrub, it sure helps bring more dogs to scrub. Check these sites out if you’re skeptical about the traffic from the web, search dog wash into Google.

Why would so many different people have put their dog wash businesses online? Check these sites out, did you notice that they constructed their sites from the very simple to the quite elaborate. One point you might want to notice is how each site is totally individualistic. Websites are an opportunity to promote your specific approach to your business.

Having a website for a business gives the opportunity to share potential with its customer-base. It’s also chance to show them who you are, why you’re business is different from others, and why you’re the best value.

In the end - a website is PR. Not having one will hurt you, and having one can’t hurt. To me that’s a no brainer.