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Author Topic: An Excerpt from Rosenberg's: Dreaming in Code  (Read 5294 times)

KenR

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An Excerpt from Rosenberg's: Dreaming in Code
« on: February 03, 2007, 08:36 PM »
Although I am not completely certain, the title of this book sounds more nightmarish than transcendent.

Stamping [a feature in Chandler that would allow users to transform one kind of data into another, like making an e-mail message into a calendar event] aimed to introduce a kind of productive ambiguity to the computer desktop that more closely mirrored the way people think. It was not a simple concept, even for the designers who'd invented it; for the developers who had to make it work, it was even trickier. Computer programs used silos and trees and similar unambiguous structures because they helped keep data organized and limited confusion. If an item belonged to one group, it did not belong to another; if it lived on one branch of a tree, it did not live on another...

Kenneth P. Reeder, Ph.D.
Clinical Psychologist
Jacksonville, North Carolina  28546

tinyvillager

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Re: An Excerpt from Rosenberg's: Dreaming in Code
« Reply #1 on: February 03, 2007, 10:56 PM »
He did an interview on IT Conversations too.

http://osc.gigavox.c...hows/detail1707.html

wuwei23

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Re: An Excerpt from Rosenberg's: Dreaming in Code
« Reply #2 on: February 08, 2007, 07:29 PM »
During a particularly horrific uni assignment, I had one nightmare that was completely in assembler.

I'm not entirely sure about Rosenberg's book. Is following the progress of an as-yet unsuccessful application that hasn't delivered on any of its promises really going to teach anyone anything about software development other than "Don't crow about your product until it's launched?" Or, given Rosenberg's last comment in the interview, do you really want your friends and family to think that _all_ developers are a bunch of isolated egotists?