Choosing Technologies: A Series
Selecting the right tools for the job.
JavaScript Fatigue Strikes Back
The new frameworks will continue until morale improves.
In recent months, I’ve returned to writing code daily. It’s been a lot of fun. While I enjoy Swift, Python, and Ruby, we’ve been building in TypeScript lately since it’s a good fit for our latest project. After about a decade away from regularly writing JavaScript, it’s been fun to...
The Persistent Gravity of Cross Platform
Coordinating a large product org is hard.
Agilebits recently caused a stir with their announcement that they’ve rewritten 1Password 8 as a cross-platform Electron app, replacing their well-loved native Mac app. The takes came hot and fast. Like many developers, I love and appreciate a well-crafted native UI, and I’ve been somewhat skeptical of the consistent trend...
Navigation Should Be Boring
Apps should be interesting, but not like that.
When launching a product, especially a consumer-oriented one, you want it to be interesting. A novel, bold, or distinctive UI can make an app stand out from the crowd, be memorable, and inspire curiosity. Plus, it’s cool. Luckily, there are a lot of ways you can make an interface interesting....
Chain of Fools
We dive into smart contracts - and bananas.
I’m officially sick of hearing about blockchain. As the recipient of various “idea for an app” emails every week, I don’t have much patience for get-rich-quick schemes. Suure, you’re going to put hyperlocal photo messaging “on the Bitcoin”, good luck with that, don’t talk to me or my son ever...
Top Banana
A general plan for generalists.
Being a generalist is great fun. There is much joy to be had in jumping between programmer and artist, project manager and product designer, bug finder and bug maker. You can also be a musician and athlete, parent and world traveller, superfan, superstar, and whatever else strikes your fancy if...
The Joy of Shortcuts
Parse teaches us about shipping.
Some time ago, we had a client come to us with a problem. Their app was a mess. It consisted of roughly 400 kilograms of copy-pasted Objective-C, written by a departed team member in some kind of over-caffeinated fever dream. There was no server logic, or anything else that would...
A JS Framework on Every Table
There are too many JavaScript frameworks.
Most programming languages support a small number of popular, stable application frameworks. Objective-C and Swift apps use Apple’s excellent Cocoa framework. Ruby apps more often than not use Rails. Java has a handful of established web app frameworks, and they come and go relatively slowly. In the meantime, the latest...