brettmjohnson

6 ms·

1.
by brettmjohnson 16y ago
In 1984 I was working for a small company that made Z80-based desktop computers running CP/M. All of the software was written in Z80 assembly language. MS-DOS was gaining traction, so we built a machine that contained both a Z80 and an 80
2.
by brettmjohnson 16y ago
Why just Obj-C for iPhone (or more accurately iOS) dev? What about Objective-C for Mac development?
3.
by brettmjohnson 16y ago
As a developer and long time Mac user, I can only ask, "How is Adwords any different on PowerPC?" [In other words, if your niche uses some obscure jargon or acronym, don't assume most people know what it means...]
4.
by brettmjohnson 16y ago
Agreed. Using git or mercurial would get around this. I worked for nearly a decade on cross-platform code that followed a similar methodology. Our rule was the code most compile w/o warnings on 3 dissimilar platforms before you could com
5.
by brettmjohnson 16y ago
It is realistic. I worked on a cross-platform product for nearly a decade that followed a methodology very similar to this. Our code worked on 16-bit, 32-bit, 64-bit, big-endian and little-endian systems. Following these rules did not sl
6.
by brettmjohnson 16y ago
Hmmm, "heard/read" limits it a bit, as "self realization" is more memorable. However, in the 7th grade (age 13-14), my math teacher explained to me that education was a "privilege, not a punishment". I don't remember how it changed my thou
7.
by brettmjohnson 16y ago
Although not totally worthless, it is nearly so. It is ~350 slides, most with a single word. To find those commands you've never heard of, you have to wade through a deluge of meaningless, when out-of-context, crap. Most readers, like me
8.
by brettmjohnson 16y ago
What seems like a lifetime ago, I was taking graduate CS classes at my local University. I had been writing software professionally for more than 20 years, so I was atypical in my class. We were given some assignment to write a mail server
9.
by brettmjohnson 16y ago
I have a 12 character password and it is a pain in the ass to type it several times a day. I couldn't imagine using a 50 character password.
10.
by brettmjohnson 16y ago
Once they start breaking your fingers, it gets a whole lot harder to enter that 50-character password.
11.
by brettmjohnson 16y ago
Paved roads in the U.S. are not really cheap. A typical 2-lane rural road is about 1.7 million dollars per mile. A suburban road is double that; 3.5 million dollars per mile. ftp://ftp.dot.state.fl.us/LTS/CO/Estimates/CPM/summary.pdf
12.
by brettmjohnson 16y ago
Why does this surprise you? Since deficit spending is generally disallowed for state and local governments, nearly all sizable projects are funded through bonds. Bonds are basically loans with a promise to pay back in the future, generall
13.
by brettmjohnson 16y ago
The problem with these types of Ballot Initiatives: Do you want to eliminate the state income tax? X Yes _ No Do you like to drive on paved roads? X Yes _ No Do you want fire fighters to show up if your house is on fire?
14.
by brettmjohnson 16y ago
Back in 1995 or 1996, I spent a long week-end doing extreme pair programming with Philip Nelson. We set up in his dining room and took an image from his whiteboard to a 80+% done product in 3 or 4 days. No meetings, no phone calls. With v
15.
by brettmjohnson 16y ago
#include <stdio.h> int main (int argc, char **argv) { puts("Screw you guys! I'm going home."); } I'm thinking they were glad to see you go because you took an hour to do 60 seconds worth of work.
16.
by brettmjohnson 16y ago
I, too was annoyed at the obtuse presentation of message passing. I've been writing software for Mach/NeXTstep/MacOSX since 1988, and even before that, message queues between threads were in common use. I can't believe it took 5 or 6 slid