04.23.13 |
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Developer and CSS Wizardry writer Harry Roberts:
The problem with leaving hacks and nasty code is obvious; it’s hacky and nasty. However, other problems with leaving this code can arise…The first bits of bad code set a precedent and make subsequent developers feel less bad about using poor code themselves. It was like that when I got here! Give developers a clean slate and they’ll really think twice about messing it all up.
What is needed is a way of allowing these hacks when necessary, but making sure that they don’t go unnoticed and unresolved.
There has been some controversy online about this, but I actually think Harry’s suggestion of a separate file to isolate and focus on crappy CSS to be refactored later is really smart. I might give it a try in an upcoming side project.
04.23.13 |
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Ben Kuchera writing at The Penny Arcade Report about the state of video game journalism:
This system sucks, and many writers and editors involved with the system know it sucks. The writers who are often asked to create these stories know it sucks. You think you hate to read shit, imagine having to create shit that you know will do way more business than a well-researched and thought out story on a topic you’re passionate about. Now imagine making a pitiful amount of money for both stories. Is it any wonder so many talented writers leave the business?
We talked about talented, older developers leaving game development, but the same thing happens to reporters. Few sites have the money to offer writers a full-time position, and even fewer offer benefits. It’s incredibly hard to spend the years building up the contacts, expertise, and skill it takes to report a story well when there is no money in doing so, and it makes more business sense to simply re-write an existing story or go with that cosplay gallery.
It’s rare to get such a frank look at ad buys and the importance of clicks per article. It leaves you pretty cynical on the whole situation, which is why Ben’s suggestion of a business driven directly by reader subscriptions could make sense.
04.19.13 |
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Kotaku‘s Jason Schreier:
For one, people are gaming the system. On both sides of the aisle.
There’s the story of the mocked mock reviewer, for example. Some background: game publishers and developers often hire consultants or game critics to come into their offices, play early copies of games, and write up mock reviews that predict how those games will perform on Metacritic. Often, if possible, publishers and developers will make changes to their games based on what those mock reviews say. Mock reviewers are then ethically prohibited from writing consumer reviews of that game, as they have taken money from the publisher.
One developer–a high-ranking studio employee who we’ll call Ed–told me he hired someone to write a mock review, then threw that review in the shredder. Ed didn’t care what was inside. He just wanted to make sure the reviewer–a notoriously fickle scorer–couldn’t review his studio’s game. Ed knew that by eliminating at least that one potentially-negative review score from contention, he could skew the Metascore higher. Checkmate.
Metacritic is an invaluable resource to just casually get a first take opinion on a game. Yet it’s scary to see its effect here on the gaming industry.
04.18.13 |
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From the Forecast.io blog:
So why does it feel as if the average native app is so much better than the average web app?
The reason, I think, is this: it’s easy to make web pages. Anyone with a text editor and a browser can do it. You can learn the basics and actually publish a website in a weekend, as an amateur, without much trouble. Making a native iOS app, by contrast, is difficult and time consuming: you have to pay Apple $99; you have to download XCode and learn how to use it, along with a strange language called Objective-C; you have to create, sign, and upload certificates; you have to compile your code and figure out how to run it on your device; and you have to publish it for others to see, which requires navigating all the rules, regulations, and technical issues surrounding the App Store. All these things make for a large barrier to entry that just doesn’t exist on the web.
04.18.13 |
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Developer Steven Bradley, writing for Adobe, put together one of the best overall introductions to the new flexbox CSS spec that I’ve seen. Rather than just jumping into code, Steven starts with a diagram on overall formatting and layout. It helped me visualize the basics a lot better than some of the canned demos that have floated around the internet lately.
04.17.13 |
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Designer and Paravel founder Trent Walton on the strength of small teams with a skill set balanced among planning, design and development:
When various skill sets are combined in this way, people learn from each other. Rather than creating to-do lists filled with nudges and site tweaks for developers, designers could learn CSS and edit designs in the browser alongside more intensive development. Developers could hone their design sensibilities and contribute by making enhancements such as gestures, geolocation, and performance a part of the design process.
Trent’s right. The faster we mix and integrate our teams, the less “siloed” work and more “T shaped” contributors, the stronger our web work becomes.
04.17.13 |
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It’s a new season of Mad Men which means a new set of Tom and Lorenzo posts on the series’ costume design and fashion choices. If you don’t believe costume design is a critical cinematic influence, read these posts, you’ll be a believer. I especially liked a reference to Sally’s first appearance on season six:
It’s notable how much Sally stands apart. Betty and Mama Francis are tied together; Betty and Sandy are tied together; but Sally, in her brilliant blue dress and simple hair (the simplest female hair in the scene, if not the entire show, signaling the adoption of more relaxed hairstyles for young girls in the post-hippy period), she’s a bolt of sarcasm cutting the room in half.
04.16.13 |
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A lot of tech companies, especially smaller ones, can struggle with an effective and organized deploy plan. Beanstalk helps solve that gap, adding some slick version control and collaboration tools in the mix. Admittedly, until I heard a shout out from Chris Coyier of CSS Tricks, I hadn’t heard of the resource, but browsing over their site I was impressed by the feature set (the side by side HTML/image preview is brilliant) and reasonable pricing.
04.16.13 |
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Grantland‘s Zach Baron:
He [Carruth] is obsessive, won’t deny that. For Primer he taught himself everything, from editing to operating a camera to acting to writing music. It took a while. The movie almost never got made because of it, because of his tendency to go down wormholes for weeks and months and years at a time. “I don’t typically have a social life, I don’t have a family, and I will stay up all night, every night, for days on end, to solve something that I think is solvable,” he says. “And it’s very frustrating sometimes, because I know that I’m like that, and it’s not always a positive result.”
‘Visionary’ and ‘auteur’ are words overused when it comes to describing filmmakers. But Carruth is unquestionably both. I revisited Primer last weekend for a second time, and it’s just as cerebral and deep as I remembered from my first viewing years ago.
04.12.13 |
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There’s been a trend in recent years where luxury fashion companies hire big name film directors and stars for a TV spot or short video. I’ve found most to be pretty lack luster for the exception of David Lynch’s work with Calvin Klein and Gucci; even on blatantly commercial endeavors Lynch’s vision shines through. But I had fun with this series of spots for Prada by famed indie director Wes Anderson and his frequent collaborator Roman Coppola. It’s no Rushmore, but it was cool seeing Anderson’s usual tropes of centered framing and whip pans in this context.