Why I left Google to join Grab
I've officially switched from Blogger to Medium. See you over there !
Stevey's Blog Rants
Random whining and stuff.
Latest posts
Why Kotlin Is Better Than Whatever Dumb Language You're Using
Ah, clickbait. Where would the internet be without it? The answer will shock you! But seriously, I didn't mean to insult your favorite language… much. After all, your language of choice is probably getting better at a glacial pace. Right? If your language isn't dead, then it's gradually getting better as they release updates to it. How slowly, though? Well... If the language you're using happens…
The Monkey and the Apple
It's been a while! I took a couple of years off blogging because I felt I didn't have much left in the way of interesting things to say. So I've been just been programming, and studying, and learning this and that. I've been doing a bit of Cloud development, and I taught myself iOS development, and after years in the Google cocoon I poked my head out and learned how people do things in the real…
The Borderlands 2 Gun Discarders Club
This is basically a review of, and a pros/cons rant about, Borderlands 2. If you're not into it, just don't read it! I'll write about stuff you like some other time. Maybe. So! I'm not the kind of person to say "I told you so." Noooo. Never. Well, never, unless , of course, I get to say it loudly, within hearing of a biggish stadium full of people. Which I can. So here goes: I told you so . Toldya…
The Borderlands Gun Collector's Club
Craw is so damn frustrating!!! He and his sidekicks have killed me so many times that I think I am starting to get sore in real life....arghhh need better weapon!! He will die though, oh yes he will die and I will do the brick dance around his stupid purple corpse. -- dedbydwn At the end of it all, Borderlands is well presented, but get under the {incomprehensible mumble} polish, it's just a dull,…
Hacker News Fires Steve Yegge
I woke up this morning...ish... to discover that Hacker News had finally had enough of me being at Google, so they forced me into early retirement. On Monday I was honored to be able to deliver a keynote talk at OSCON Data . In the talk, I announce at the end that I am quitting a project that I had very publicly signed up for, one that I am not passionate about and don't personally think is very…
eBay Patents 10-Click Checkout
San Jose, CA ( Reuters ) — Online auctions cartel eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) and its collections and incarceration arm PayPal announced that on July 21, 2011, the two companies had jointly been awarded United States Patent No. 105960411 for their innovative 10-click “Buy it Now” purchasing pipeline. The newly-patented buying system guides users through an intuitive, step-by-step process of clicking…
Haskell Researchers Announce Discovery of Industry Programmer Who Gives a Shit
The worldwide Haskell community met up over beers today to celebrate their unprecedented discovery of an industry programmer who gives a shit about Haskell. On Wednesday, researchers issued a press release revealing that 27-year-old Seth Briars of North Carolina, a Java programmer at Blackwater accounting firm Ross and Fordham, actually gives a shit about Haskell. "Mr. Briars has followed every…
Wikileaks To Leak 5000 Open Source Java Projects With All That Private/Final Bullshit Removed
EYJAFJÖLL, ICELAND — Java programmers around the globe are in a panic today over a Wikileaks press release issued at 8:15am GMT. Wikileaks announced that they will re-release the source code for thousands of Open Source Java projects, making all access modifiers 'public' and all classes and members non-'final'. Agile Java Developer Johnnie Garza of Irvine, CA condemns the move. "They have no…
Blogger Finger
Well! I've sure had a nice relaxing blog-free year. No worries, no haters, no Nooglers wandering by my office and staring at me through the window as if they expect me to crap in my hand and hurl it at them. Not that I wasn't tempted. Nope, it's just been peace and quiet and reading and coding and practicing my guitar and stuff. It's been awesome. And now that everyone's completely forgotten who I…
A programmer's view of the Universe, part 3: The Death of Richard Dawkins
We're getting close to the end of my blog. After today's entry, I only have three left to write. After that, I'll only blog anonymously or (more likely) not at all. This is part three of five in my "Programmer's View of the Universe" series. I struggled for a while with how best to introduce the ideas in this installment, and ultimately opted for a short story. This is a science fiction short…
Have you ever legalized marijuana?
Over the holidays I read a neat book called Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions , by Dan Ariely. The book is a fascinating glimpse into several bizarre and unfortunate bugs in our mental software. These bugs cause us to behave in weird but highly predictable ways in a bunch of everyday situations. For instance, one chapter explains why bringing an uglier version of…
Story Time
So I've got all these fancy blog posts planned. More than planned, actually — they're well underway. But it's also been a busy couple of months, so nothing's really ready yet. To make my schedule even worse, I kind of sort of got myself a little bit addicted to the writings of this one blogger. Normally I can't frigging stand blogs, including my own. Everyone always asks me what blogs I…
A programmer's view of the Universe, part 2: Mario Kart
This is the second installment of a little series of discussions. They're not much more than that, just discussions. And I hope I'm inviting discussion rather than quenching it. But I'll be honest — the goal of this series is to pound a stake through the heart of a certain way of thinking about the world that has become quite popular. If my series fails in that regard, I hope it may still…
Fable II: Arguably Better than Getting Your Head Crapped On
I finished Fallout 3 maybe six or eight weeks ago, and it was hands-down one of the best games I've ever played. A game like that gets you in the mood for more gaming, so I thought to myself: "Hey, I should plop down $160 for Fable II !" Actually that's not exactly what I thought, but it's what happened. I bought the game for $60, fired it up, got up to the part in the intro where a bird craps on…
Ejacs: a JavaScript interpreter for Emacs
So! I have all these cool things I want to write about, but I broke my thumbnail. Can you tell that's a long story? See, this summer I got excited about playing guitar again. I usually switch between all-guitar and all-piano every other year or so. This summer I dusted off the guitars and learned a bunch of pieces, and even composed one. I was prepping for — among other things — a…
A programmer's view of the Universe, part 1: The fish
I write a column for computer programmers called "Stevey's Blog Rants." It's basically a magazine column — I publish to it about once a month. The average length of my articles is about 12 pages, although they can range anywhere from 4 to 40 pages, depending on how I'm feeling. But for precedent, don't think blogs: think of Reader's Digest. The blog format sets the wrong expectations. Hence,…
The Universal Design Pattern
This idea that there is generality in the specific is of far-reaching importance. — Douglas Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher, Bach Note: Today's entry is a technical article: it isn't funny. At least not intentionally. Update, Oct 20th 2008: I've added an Updates section, where I'll try to track significant responses, at least for a week or so. There are three entries so far. Contents Introduction…
The Bellic School of Management Training
I haven't been blogging much this summer. Mostly it's because all my free time has been spent engaged in an important research project called "What Would Niko Bellic Do?" I've been enrolled in a high-quality Management Scenario Simulator with the unconventional name "Grand Theft Auto IV", probably some sort of inside joke, and I've been going through all its Developer Management training courses.…
Programming's Dirtiest Little Secret
"And as for this non-college bullshit I got two words for that: learn to fuckin' type" — Mr. Pink This is another one I've wanted to write forever. Man, I've tried a bunch of times. No ruck. Not Rucky. Once again I'm stuck feeling so strongly about something that I'm tripping over myself trying to get my point across. So! Only one thing left to try: bust open a bottle of wine and see if that…
Business Requirements are Bullshit
Some CEO emailed me the other day. I don't remember who it was; people mail me all the time about their blah blah yawn product service thingy, and on the rare occasions I bother to read mail from strangers, I don't usually remember anything about the email, even if I respond to it. I can remember broad categories of questions I get, but everything else is just a blur. That's senility for ya. But…
Done, and Gets Things Smart
Disclaimer: I do not speak for Google! These are my own views and opinions, and are not endorsed in any way by my employer, nor anyone else, for that matter. Everyone knows and quotes Joel's old chestnut, " Smart , and Gets Things Done ." It was a blog , then a book , and now it's an aphorism. People quote Joel's Proverb all the time because it gives us all such a nice snuggly feeling. Why?…
Rhinos and Tigers
I will once again plagiarize myself by transcribing a talk I gave. First: be warned! I offer this gesture of respect to you — yes, you! — when I say that this is at least 20 minutes of reading. This is long even for me. If you're surfing reddit, gobbling up little information snacks, then it's best to think of this entry as being more like a big downer cow. Unless you're really hungry, you should…
Dynamic Languages Strike Back
Some guys at Stanford invited me to speak at their EE Computer Systems Colloquium last week. Pretty cool, eh? It was quite an honor. I wound up giving a talk on dynamic languages: the tools, the performance, the history, the religion, everything. It was a lot of fun, and it went over surprisingly well, all things considered. They've uploaded the video of my talk, but since it's a full hour, I…
XEmacs is Dead. Long Live XEmacs!
"We're going to get lynched, aren't we?" — Phouchg And you thought I'd given up on controversial blogs. Hah! Preamble This must be said: Jamie Zawinski is a hero. A living legend. A major powerhouse programmer who, among his many other accomplishments, wrote the original Netscape Navigator and the original XEmacs . A guy who can use the term " downward funargs " and then glare at you just…