Author Archives: Adrian

Best Books of 2011

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Just like in 2010, 2009, 2008 and 2007, here goes the traditional book of the year post for 2011! This year my reading list included design, history, and lots of JavaScript.

Here goes the list, in a completely arbitrary order of personal preference:

“Design for Hackers” by David Kadavy

It all started, around August, with a conversation with Paul, my cousin from London, the founder of Zerofee; we were talking that while designers could easily find tutorials and documentation to learn about software development, it was much harder for developers to find material about design, at least to learn the basic concepts.

Somehow, David Kadavy must have heard us, and he came up the following month with this great book. I have recommended it to every one of my students since I read it; it is built like a computer book, with clear explanations, diagrams and lots of pictures; every concept is described in detail, including historical references and examples.

David provides a healthy introduction to design, going through subjects such as fonts, proportions, color theory, structure, grids, and much, much more.

I insist; this is a must read for any developer, particularly those who, like me, are self-taught and eager to expand their own possibilities.

“Steve Jobs”, by Walter Isaacson

The day Steve Jobs passed away I was in South Africa, giving some trainings in Johannesburg, precisely about iOS. I remember waking up, opening my copy of Echofon in my iPhone, and seeing lots of tweets with just an apple sign on them.

I said to myself, as I started to scroll downwards, that this was it. I sat on the edge of the bed, realizing that it was the end of a huge chapter for the computer industry.

That very same morning, I gave an introduction to iOS to some developers, and of course there was a special thing to that training. Somehow there was a legacy of the guy in every NSObject that we allocated in memory.

Later that same month, I went to the USA and landed in Newark. While waiting for my connecting flight, I was dragging my feet in the terminal, and the corner of my eye saw the book in the shelves of a bookstore.

I read it in about 5 days. There had not been a book that hook me as much as this one in ages.

I will not go as far as saying that this was the book of the year. I won’t add anything to what is already available online about it. It was, without any doubt, the most hyped book of the decade. And it is a surprisingly good one; not biased, very acid in some parts – I guess Jobs would not have liked reading some sections of it. I picture him throwing the book out of the window, outraged, while weeping at some chapters.

I admit, I’ve shed some tears in some parts. All in all, a very emotional piece, not to be missed.

“JavaScript Patterns”, by Stoyan Stefanov

2011 was the year of the mobile web. Not only because some analyst said so, but because the demand for mobile web solutions from companies has increased dramatically in one year. Also because the capabilities of smartphones have grown in such a way that today, web apps are a viable choice for consumers.

This means, by all standards, that JavaScript regains a preeminence on the web; longtime a language that was bashed and forgotten, JavaScript reappears in front of many developers as the instrument by which the mobile web becomes a reality.

This book is a perfect way to rediscover JavaScript; to forget the pain of the past, to see that it is a wonderful language that, as Crockford would say, was hugely misunderstood.

By the way, readers should have read Crockford’s “JavaScript: the Good Parts” before this book; Stefanov builds on top of that knowledge and provides the developer with a fresh bouquet of idioms and constructions that will be useful in every JavaScript project.

Finally, given the rise of Node.js in the past few years, reading it provides also with a solid background for the next wave of JavaScript frameworks hitting the market these days.

“Programming the Mobile Web”, by Maximiliano Firtman

Maximiliano is a genius. The guy has pulled the complete bible, the absolute reference, for everything that has to do with mobile web development. The book is a treasure of capabilities, comparisons, history, and nitty-gritty details about every possible mobile web browser in the planet.

How he does it, it’s his great mystery. After publishing this book, he came up with the great Mobile HTML5 site which, if you haven’t seen it yet, you should.

Even better, he’s argie like I am, and I’ve had the opportunity of inviting him to Zürich last year, to hear him talk about jQuery Mobile. Which reminds me of…

“jQuery Mobile: Up and Running”, again by Maximiliano Firtman

… his latest book; this time, Maximiliano tackled the hottest mobile framework of the moment. I’ve read the book in “early release” mode, prior to the final publication, and so far it looks very promising.

In this book, Maximiliano explains the core concepts of jQuery Mobile, the semantics and the capabilities of the framework, clearly explaining its strengths as well as its weaknesses.

I have learnt a lot about jQuery Mobile through this book, so I strongly recommend it to anyone interested in the subject.

“Mobile Design for iPhone and iPad”, by Smashing Magazine

A very nice and concise eBook by the great people of Smashing Magazine, with great tips and tricks about how to create UIs for the new generation of touchscreen devices. I’ve learnt a lot with this book.

“iPad at Work”, by Apple

Finally, a nice free eBook by Apple, very useful for explaining the iPad and its multiple capabilities to business people; I am personally seeing more and more iPads in enterprise contexts, so I think that this is an important (and small) title to read.

MoMA and Software as an Art

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What would be the place, in a museum like MoMA, of a collection of art dedicated to software?

If there is something that MoMA can make, is to boost your imagination. Anything is possible; the myriad of options for the expression of human creativity has no end, the mind boggles.

My dream has been, for years, to explain software, its intricacies, to make this part of our world accessible to anyone. Software rules our world, it is one of the most complex creations of man, yet it remains understood (albeit partly) by just a few.

There are many dimensions to software; the first to explore is size. When you tell anyone outside of the field that Windows 2000 took 5 years to a team of 1400 developers to complete, and that the whole thing is about 29 millions lines of code, it is still not enough; however, if you printed the whole code of Windows and put it in a series of books, how many books would it be?

On Kawara has created a piece called “One Million Years”, on display at MoMA; the whole thing is a series of books where the pages show, one after the other, as the name implies, one million years.

IMG_1696

At 80 lines per page, at 1000 pages per volume, the source code of Windows 2000 would take… 363 volumes. Given that the Encyclopædia Universalis or the Encyclopædia Britannica consist of 20 or 30 volumes each, we are talking that a single company has been able to pull 12 encyclopædias out of the hat for a single version of a product. I’m not talking about quality or other characteristics; just size, raw and simple.

That’s the magnitude of software. Now we can begin to understand the magnitudes, the cost, the implications.

Another magnitudes worth exploring would be cost, number of people involved, number of errors… Infographies would explain in detail the interconnections and the different dimensions, their relations, their impact. But again, the whole thing remains so virtual, so out of reach, so different of anything else, that we just run out of analogies in no time.

What other dimensions could be used?

Preferred iPad Apps

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FlipBoard, Reeder, iA Writer, 1Password, Echofon, iWork (Pages, Numbers, Keynote), The Economist, OmniGraffle, InkPad, Adobe Ideas, iBooks, Kindle, Instagram, Instapaper, swissinfo, digital 2.0, Unzip, Typefaces, Prompt, FaceTime, Mirror, NYPL Biblion, iMovie, GarageBand, Keynote Remote, Zattoo HD, Aelios, TuneIn Radio, Planetary, VinylLove, Shazam, iDisk, Dropbox, Digits, GoodReader, DocsToGo, Articles, France24, CNN, La Nación Digital, OffMaps 2, Google Earth, Dictation, SBB Mobile, Penultimate, Elements, PCalc, Skype, Skype wifi, Hipmunk, Deep Green, Real Racing HD, ArtRage, Photoshop Express, HP Print.

Boom.

Makeover

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I thought it was time to change the look and feel of this blog. Well, it’s done. And I’ve gone as minimalistic as possible.

By the way, no more comments. At all. Ever again. I’ve had enough of spam, hatred, flame wars, and idiots of any kind. For those who played the game, thanks for reading and commenting in a constructive way.

A happy life to all of you.

Guía irresponsable y atorrante para conocer Nueva York

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El otro día escribí esto para una amiga que está por viajar a Nueva York, y me gustó, así que aquí va.

Nueva York es la ciudad por antonomasia. Yo estuve ahí en el 2000 y 2001, y después en el 2010 con Clau para ir a comprar iPads :)

Los lugares turísticos clásicos, no te los podes perder; el Empire State, Central Park, la estatua de la libertad (me dijeron que es mucho mas petisa de lo que uno cree, yo nunca fui ahí), Times Square. Continue reading →

Audio de la Entrevista en la Metro 95.1

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Para los que no pudieron escuchar la entrevista que me hicieron en la emisión “Su Atención Por Favor”. Creo que es la secuencia más larga de clichés que se pueden decir de Suiza en unos 14 minutos :)

Es más, hay algunos datos que no son totalmente correctos (como lo de que no hay presidente, cuando en realidad si, pero no cumple el mismo rol que en Argentina), pero bueno, Sherlock Holmes tampoco nunca dijo “Elemental mi querido Watson” :)

El audio, en formato MP3, grabado mediante Snowtape 2, esta a vuestra disposición en Dropbox!

Votar en Suiza

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Como muchas cosas en la vida, el pasaporte colorado no viene gratuitamente. Una de esas cosas que hacen a la vida suiza es la obligación de hacer la colimba (o de pagar el impuesto militar si no sos apto para el servicio). La otra es la capacidad de votar. De la colimba, ya escribiré otra vez, pero esta vez hablaremos del voto.

En resumidas cuentas, el voto en suiza tiene las características siguientes:

  • El voto no es obligatorio. La tasa de participación oscila entre el 30%, un promedio bastante común, y el 60%, en el caso de las votaciones con mayor interés. Generalmente son los temas de impuestos y del sistema jubilatorio los que generan mayor participación.
  • El voto femenino se instauró a nivel federal recién en 1971; algunos cantones permitieron el voto a las mujeres desde los años 50, pero algún que otro cantón lo siguió prohibiendo hasta los ’90. Obviamente, como en Suiza se vota todo, también se votó para este tema, y el electorado masculino votó en contra del tema varias veces.
  • Se vota cuatro veces por año, casi siempre más o menos en las mismas fechas. En cada fecha se mezclan temas federales, cantonales y comunales, que muchas veces no tienen nada que ver entre si. No es obligatorio votar en todos los temas que se proponen; se puede cortar boleta y solo opinar sobre un tema de los propuestos.
  • La mayoría de las votaciones son referéndums, donde se vota por un si o por un no. En las boletas se escribe a mano la respuesta (“Oui” o “Non”, “Ja” o “Nein”) y listo. Generalmente, cada tema de referéndum viene con su contraproposición, elaborada por los partidos opositores al tema del que se vota, y al votar se puede elegir el tema, la contraproposición, y de emitir una opinión en caso de empate (lo cual ha sucedido).
  • Se puede votar por correo. Unas 3 o 4 semanas antes de la fecha del voto, te llega un sobre con las boletas de voto y las instrucciones de como llenar los formularios, y, aún mas importante, toda la documentación que explica lo que se vota. El voto por correo es digno de otro post!
  • Generalmente las votaciones implican una modificación de algún artículo de la constitución. En este sentido, la constitución suiza es mucho mas dinámica que la argentina, y el procedimiento para modificar artículos es mucho mas simple y directo. En realidad, la constitución suiza se parece más a una extensión del código civil, con un valor judicial extendido y un nivel de detalle bastante espeluznante.
  • El resultado de las votaciones tiene generalmente valor de promulgación; una ley que recibe un voto afirmativo entra en vigor casi inmediatamente.

Es una lástima que me olvidé de sacarle fotos a las boletas que me llegaron para las próximas votaciones, las del 4 de setiembre próximo. Será para otro post!