Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 6th May 2008 15:15 UTC, submitted by Shlomi Fish
"Which parameters make software applications high-quality? And which parameters or methods, while desirable, are not directly 'quality'?" This is the question the author of this article asks himself. Most of his 'parameters' make a lot of sense, but be aware that the article is about what makes an open source program high quality, and not programs in general. This important bit is stated in the one-sentence 'abstract'.
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Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:15 UTC
"This is my NeXTstation Turbo Color booting the Mac System 7.1 Operating System using a hardware add-on called 'Daydream'. The Daydream has a Mac ROM and a few custom ICs in it and hooked up to the NeXTs DSP port. Turns your NeXT into a full fledged 68k powered Mac." So cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:11 UTC, submitted by Drumhellar
"The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce NetBSD 6.1, the first feature update of the NetBSD 6 release branch. It represents a selected subset of fixes deemed important for security or stability reasons, as well as new features and enhancements. Please note that all fixes in the prior security/bugfix updates (NetBSD 6.0.1 and 6.0.2) are also in 6.1."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 21:06 UTC
"At the end of a week in which Electronic Arts confirmed it wasn't developing a thing for the Wii U, one of the software engineers in EA Sports' Canada studio, in a series of since-deleted tweets, disparaged the console as 'crap' and suggested Nintendo should give up on hardware altogether. 'The Wii U is crap. Less powerful than an Xbox 360. Poor online/store. Weird tablet', tweeted Bob Summerwill, listed as a senior software engineer at EA Canada, in a reply to a tweet posting a link about EA's no-Wii U news. 'Nintendo are walking dead at this point'." The Wii U is turning into the 21st century's Virtual Boy.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 7:37 UTC
"In NixOS, the entire operating system - the kernel, applications, system packages, configuration files, and so on - is built by the Nix package manager from a description in a purely functional build language. The fact that it's purely functional essentially means that building a new configuration cannot overwrite previous configurations. Most of the other features follow from this." Interesting approach. A Linux distribution, sure, but with some very refreshing ideas about system configuration.
Linked by fran on 05/18/13 1:38 UTC
Appfour added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 23:35 UTC, submitted by kragil
Ars nails it: "The answer is that Google did announce what amounts to a fairly substantial Android update yesterday. They simply did it without adding to the update fragmentation problems that continue to plague the platform. By focusing on these changes and not the apparently-waiting-in-the-wings update to the core software, Google is showing us one of the ways in which it's trying to fix the update problem."
Linked by MOS6510 on 05/17/13 22:22 UTC
"It is good for programmers to understand what goes on inside a processor. The CPU is at the heart of our career. What goes on inside the CPU? How long does it take for one instruction to run? What does it mean when a new CPU has a 12-stage pipeline, or 18-stage pipeline, or even a 'deep' 31-stage pipeline? Programs generally treat the CPU as a black box. Instructions go into the box in order, instructions come out of the box in order, and some processing magic happens inside. As a programmer, it is useful to learn what happens inside the box. This is especially true if you will be working on tasks like program optimization. If you don't know what is going on inside the CPU, how can you optimize for it? This article is about what goes on inside the x86 processor's deep pipeline."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 22:15 UTC, submitted by Tom
"It was the only moment I heard regret slip into Otellini's voice during the several hours of conversations I had with him. 'The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut,' he said. 'My gut told me to say yes.'" The world would've been a much different place - Apple would have been less dependant on Samsung for its chips, which probably would've meant less money for Samsung to develop its Galaxy business.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 21:41 UTC
Glass is getting some love at Google I/O as well. New applications have been released - Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Elle, Tumblr, and CNN. Perhaps more interesting: the newly announced Google Glass Developer Kit will allow offline applications and direct hardware access - great for hacking and expanding Glass' potential. This kit will really allow hackers to put Glass through its paces.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 17:04 UTC
"But Beck and Merrill decided that simply banning toxic players wasn't an acceptable solution for their game. Riot Games began experimenting with more constructive modes of player management through a formal player behavior initiative that actually conducts controlled experiments on its player base to see what helps reduce bad behavior. The results of that initiative have been shared at a lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and on panels at the Penny Arcade Expo East and the Game Developers Conference." Absolutely fascinating stuff. I'm a League of Legends player, and to be honest, the community isn't nearly as bad as some make it out to be. I'm happy Riot games has the guts to employ science to address the issue.More News »
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Seeing as the article is mostly crap, I thought I'd give my own 2 cents on what makes software "high quality".
1) Intuitiveness
The software needs to be intuitive to use. It must not do something that the user doesn't expect. It needs to adhere to the UI guidelines of the platform, since this would be most intuitive for users of said platform.
2) "Discoverability"
This follows on from intuitiveness. The software should be easy enough to use that you can pick it up from the get go without having to resort to a manual. It should be designed so that more advanced features can be "discovered" along the way. That way, the user isn't bogged down by the initial steep learning curve.
3) Documentation
This is the manual that the user can fall back on when points 1) and 2) don't hold true. Every feature needs to be documented, with more material focused on the more complex aspects of the software. For example with an image manipulation package, there's no real need to document most of the items under the standard File, Edit menus. However, it would be good to document the functionality of filters. It would be even better if you documented how to perform common tasks, e.g. red eye removal, sharpening and image, noise reduction, etc.
4) Stability
The application needs to be stable and not crash when the user performs some common operation. It is granted that bugs and thus crashes will happen. These can be minimized by being rigorous in the development phase, by testing frequently and thoroughly. Unit tests and automated testing tools help a lot here.
5) Support
Bug reports need to be addressed quickly. Even if a fix isn't released, an acknowledgment should at least be given so that the user knows that their feedback has been received. Developers should also keep users abreast of the latest developments, and plans for the project. Not all users are keen to know this, but there are many who do. These users tend to be the keen ones (i.e. enthusiasts), who are more likely to spread the news of your product by word of mouth. Keep them up to date, keep them happy and your product will do well.
6) Speed
Your software doesn't have to be a speed demon. It shouldn't be too sluggish either. What is important is "perceived speed". If a process is going to take longer than a second, provide a progress bar so that your users know that your program hasn't hanged. One example could be the an image editing program I use on the Mac. When you perform an operation, it doesn't show a progress bar! This may not be an issue when you're working with 2 MP images and operations take a second or two to complete. However, it is a big issue when you are dealing with 10 MP images. The application looks like it's completely hanged until the operation completes, some 20 seconds later. The GIMP actually performs slower than this particular app if you time the operations, but it doesn't feel slower since it shows a progress bar and you know that the the application hasn't hanged! Always always provide feedback to your user when performing long operations. Failure to do so will frequently result in your app being called "slow" even if it is faster!
Wow .... that's a long list -.-