Tag Archives: opinion

Let’s Unpack “Professional Victims”

The only thing more annoying than a phrase that’s overused to the point of cliché is when that overused phrase isn’t even remotely accurate — and in fact, borders on completely nonsensical. The one I’ve heard far too many times in the past year is the all-purpose favorite of Red Pillers, MRAs, GamerGaters, and other defenders […]

Skipping Regexes in ES6 is Nothing Compared to Skipping Boolean-Comparison Warts

Yesterday, Wes Bos tweeted about ES6’s startsWith(), endsWith(), and includes() methods. He said it was “[t]hree less JavaScript Regexes you’ll have to write”. Which is true, but I feel it misses the point. I mean, the regexes for initial match and final match are really not that hard, and the regex for plain inclusion is, well, […]

How Do We Stop the Spying?

I should really write something about the ongoing — and increasingly horrifying — revelations of NSA spying. The latest round of news basically boils down to: The NSA can now say, “I’m in ur crypto readin ur comms — all of them!” Every time I try to write about this, my heart pounds faster and I feel overwhelmed by sorrow, […]

Commandments For Handling Passwords

If you’re taking passwords from users, here are some commandments you need to follow: Don’t Impose a Maximum Length Limit This is one of the most critical. One of the best things anyone can do to make their password — or pass phrase — more secure is to make it longer. Increasing the number of characters means an […]

The Problem With “Objectify A Man In Tech Day”

Update: While putting the finishing touches on this post, I found out that its creator is cancelling Objectify Day, for a host of very good reasons. I think much of what I wrote here can still be useful, so I’m posting this piece anyway. I’m glad to see that the purpose I had in mind […]

Why Are We Abandoning Menus?

A while back, Ubuntu’s Mark Shuttleworth posted a blog article called “Introducing the HUD. Say hello to the future of the menu.” Shuttleworth mentions how a menu is “the M in WIMP and has been there, essentially unchanged, for 30 years.” The clear implication, of course, is that the time for a change has come — […]

“Fast” Is the Enemy of “Good” — And “Accurate”, and “Deep”, And…

Wanna see a perfect encapsulation of what’s wrong with journalism, and particularly online journalism, these days? Just take a look at this piece by TechCrunch’s Ryan Lawler. Pay particular attention to the parts where he says: I would be following someone else’s story half a day later, and no one wants to do that. I wrote […]

What to Do When the Tech Failboat Sails

The tech world is no stranger to occasional outbreaks of Sexism!Fail, but the past two weeks have seen a rare double instance of it. Naturally, I’ve got to speak up. By the way, for anyone who missed the events, here are a pair of quick recaps: Boston API Jam’s Marketing Problem Oh Hai Sexism And now, […]

Good Things About FizzBuzz

Over a year ago, I mentioned FizzBuzz as a basic competence screen during interviews. At the time, I said: “My only real quarrel with FizzBuzz is that, at this point, any developer worth their salt is familiar with it.” I seem to have been wrong, becuase I keep running into coders who definitely are competent, […]

Are We Always New At Everything?

The trend in Microsoft’s products for the past 15 years or more has been toward making things easy for the people who have never used the software before. Of course, as time goes on, there are fewer and fewer of those people. The Ribbon is introduced in the Help file thus: And if you’ve used previous versions […]