A concise blog.

I was reading this post on Medium today, and it ends with the following call to action: Are you proactive? If so, check out my 7-page checklist of the most effective morning activities. Seven pages!!??  Really?  That's a travesty.  Checklists are awesome when done right: they save lives in the operating room and make complex operations like flying an airplane routinely successful, but nobody  can live with a seven-page checklist.  For a surprisingly good read on checklists and how to use them, read The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande.

You've heard the tradition of a bride wearing "something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue."  Well, that's somewhat like a good piece of code.  Here's why: Something old: code you've already written (don't repeat yourself) if you can. Something new: customize the old framework. Something borrowed: similar to the 'something old', if you can find code that someone else has already written and has shared, use it!!  Libraries were written to be used! Something blue: OK, I admit this one is more of a stretch than the others, but bear with me: in this case, 'something blue' is to make something really useful for the user . . . and that starts with character!  Your users will use your application if it's easy to use and solves a problem, but they won't love it unless it's entertaining.  Caveat: Clippy  is proof that this last point needs to be taken with a grain of salt: sometimes, applications are better of...