Category Archives: Technology

Best Books of 2010

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It is that time of the year again, just like in previous years. This is the list of the books I enjoyed most in 2010! You know that I like reading at least 6 books per year, and learning a new programming language every year. Last year’s programming language was LISP, and the books, well, here they go.

eBooks

By all means, it is clear that 2010 was the year of the eBook. Maybe it’s because of the iPad, but I’ve been consuming more and more eBooks, even if I still enjoy buying some classics in paper form. Kindle, iPad, iBooks, Nook, GoodReader, PDF, ePub, all of those names have shaped my way of reading last year.

But one of the most visible changes of switching to eBooks was the speed of reading; consuming eBooks is fast, much faster than reading normal books. I can’t say that I prefer one or the other; it’s simply different. But reading eBooks is faster than reading paper books. Probably there’s a warmth factor in paper books, which makes me enjoy them longer, I don’t know, but the fact is, in 2010 my book reading consumption has gone up in an alarming rate. Continue reading →

I hate you, airline industry

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I hate flying. I hate airplanes. I hate airlines. I hate crews. I hate ground handling teams. I hate everything that has to do with that shit. Deeply. Disturbingly. Profoundly.

I hate the way you airlines cram hundreds of people into the smallest of spaces. Do you really think my femur fits the distance between your seats? Do you really think I enjoy being pushed sideways for hours by my seat neighbor because the armrest is too narrow for the both of us? Do you really think I can eat my meal when the seat in front of me is in the horizontal position? Do you really think I can’t avoid numb legs and feet during long flights? Do you really think I can go to the toilets without waking up all the people in the row in front of me or my neighbors?

I hate how long boarding and getting out of the damn plane takes. Haven’t you noticed that airplanes usually have more than one door? Then why the fuck are all 380 passengers of a 747 getting into the plane though the same, unique, small door? Can’t you design airports that take that into account? Can’t you, jetty makers, airport designers, add an extension to boarding gates that goes above the wing or below the tarmac so that we can all get in and out through several doors at once? Continue reading →

Welcome to the company!

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Many people have asked me why, when I was an employee, I used to change jobs so often. The answer stands in between my own curiosity to take on new challenges, and the various assholes I had to deal with through the ages. Just as an example of this last case, here goes a true story, one that stands between being a candidate story for The Daily WTF, or as sample material for The No Asshole Rule book by Bob Sutton. You decide.

Prologue

A couple of years ago I found a job as a PHP + JavaScript developer in a small company in Geneva, Switzerland. I remember going to their offices two or three times, and having several interviews with various people there; one of them was the lead PHP developer of the company, the other being the CEO, a relatively well-known person in the tech area in Geneva; both shall remain nameless. The last interview I had was with the CTO, who would be my direct boss, as I was told.

They finally chose me, and very happily I signed the contract. I handed my resignation for my current job at the time, but had a couple of months of work to do before leaving (this is usual practice in Switzerland, one that I despise deeply, but that you are legally forced to follow). All in all, three months passed between me signing the contract and the first day of my new job.

The First Day

So one day, I headed to Geneva to start my new job. I arrive at around 9am to the address where the interviews had taken place, and, oh surprise… there was nothing. Stay with me: there was nothing. Not a sign in the wall indicating that the company used to be there, not a single desk, not a phone plugged on the wall. Nothing. Continue reading →

Tweeting without Twitter

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During my flight to WWDC this year I could not really sleep, and the 12 hour flight was the source of memorable tweets that will never make it to Twitter. Because of timing and context, and also because of the inexcusable lack of wifi network in some major airlines.

Anyway.

I used Pages during the flight to keep track of all those insomniac, bilingual tweets, while the plane was a going through the Atlantic and Canada towards San Francisco. Some are about the flight itself, others about the Argentine film “El Secreto de sus Ojos”, and finally some about the Football World Cup. Project yourself in the situation, and enjoy the rants. I certainly did :) Continue reading →

Best Books of 2009

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047014873X.jpg Every year I’m doing the same post (well, in 2006 I completely forgot to do it) that starts more or less with the same phrase: “every year I like to read at least 6 new tech books, and to learn a new programming language.”

Last year’s language was Go, and the books, well, here we go:

Software Engineering: Barry W. Boehm’s Lifetime Contributions to Software Development, Management, and Research

Barry Boehm is a name that might not strike a chord immediately, but if you work in the software field, it should. He has been working non-stop for the past 50 years (that’s right, 50), discussing all kind of subjects related to the practice of software engineering. This book is a compilation of his most well-known papers, with subjects ranging from project management to components, from iterative techniques to developer productivity. The guy has written about all of it, and when you realize how right he was, you wish you had read those papers earlier in your career. Continue reading →

Ask Me Anything

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Exactly what you have read: if you have any question for me, don’t hesitate and post it in formspring.me/akosma. I’ll be glad to answer it for you! Of course, iPhone-related questions are top priority. But progressive rock questions are, too. And of course, anything related to Argentina and Switzerland. And software in general. Well, that makes for a lot of subjects; start firing!

Roundup of Swiss Companies Writing Mac Apps

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A lot has been said and done about the iPhone, but there’s much more to Cocoa and Objective-C than our beloved pocket device.

During a chat session with Stefan Fürst from Media Atelier we put together a quick list of significant Mac applications created in Switzerland (and southern Germany), and indeed the list (in no particular order) is nothing short of impressive; check it out:

It really looks like the Swiss enjoy writing Mac apps (I certainly do and will publish mine soon!). Have I forgotten anyone? Please don’t be upset, and feel free to leave your links in the comments below. I’d love to know who else is creating killer apps for the Mac in a radius of 300 km around Zürich!

Disclaimer: I’m not affiliated with any of these companies (I’m just a friend of Stefan). And if you’re more into “enterprisey” stuff, here’s the “Swiss-Made Software” label site that you migth find more interesting ;)

Update, 2009-10-23: Some more applications added after the publication of this post:

  • Luscious SMS, the SMS client for the Mac;
  • Special mention for Cyberduck, an open source FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, Cloud Files & Amazon S3 Browser for Mac OS X, or “the poor man’s version of Transmit” :)

Update, 2009-10-24: Sophie Teuschler tells me not to forget the multiple Apple Design Award winners SubEthaEdit and BoinxTV by The Coding Monkeys, not far from Switzerland, in Bavaria…!

Update, 2009-10-25: I’ve just received an e-mail from Cyril Pavillard about his company Mnemis and their product Uniboard which looks absolutely awesome by any standards. Be sure to check out this cool Swiss project!

Update, 2009-11-12: Just found out about noidentity and their MoneyBook iPhone application. It seems that this application is just a copy from another one called “pennies”. Shame on you noidentity.

About the JAOO Conferences

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This week I had the opportunity to attend the JAOO Developer Conference 2009 in Århus (Denmark), invited by Trifork, the company behind this and other fine events, like QCon and RubyFoo. Despite being relatively unknown in the Swiss landscape, JAOO is an event unlike any other, and here’s why you should attend next time.

jaoo

Continue reading →

Epic Interview: A New Literary Genre in the Tech Section?

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Here’s a simple recipe:

  1. Contact the most important people in some field.
  2. Sit down and ask a similar set of questions to each one of them.
  3. Record all the interviews and then write them down.
  4. Publish the resulting book, usually with great reviews (such as this one).

This does not constitute, by any means, a new genre; but it’s certainly a fashionable one in your technical bookstore right now. At least Apress and O’Reilly have realized that this simple technique yields epic books.

I have already blogged about Founders at Work, thus it’s worth mentioning that Coders at Work (which I’m reading right now) has just been released. Both books share a similar structure (as well as a similar cover), and both are highly recommendable, with interviews of David Heinemeier Hansson, Steve Wozniak and Paul Buchheit for the first, and Donald Knuth, Joe Armstrong and Brendan Eich for the second.

founders_work coders_work

On the other side, O’Reilly is very well aware of the force conveyed by this kind of books: their “/Theory/In/Practice” series of books has some gems which, I think, are really worth reading:

beautiful_code beautiful_teams masterminds_programming

“Beautiful Code” features interviews with Brian Kernighan, Charles Petzold and Yukihiro Matsumoto; “Beautiful Teams” (already my preferred book for 2009!) features Tim O’Reilly, Barry Boehm and Grady Booch; finally, “Masterminds” has great interviews with Bertrand Meyer, Bjarne Stroustrup, James Gosling, Brad Cox and Anders Hejlsberg.

I think that the names of the interviewees, in each of the five books, speak for themselves. In all of them, I have found inspiration, advice, tips, humour, awe and enlightenment. The good thing being that, in most cases, you don’t need a Computer Science degree to read these books; it’s just a matter of empathy and sociology. Our world is driven by software, and the stories behind its construction are not only interesting, they are also important to understand the cost, the difficulty and the wonder that constitutes a piece of working software. These books are a way to approach the immense complexity of our society.

I really look forward to read more books of this kind! If I forgot to mention any other similar book, just leave the reference in the comments section below. I’d love to read your suggestions.