The Software Alchemist

I've read Hello HTML5 (or as much of it as is finished), and Mark Pilgrim's excellent Dive Into HTML5. Time to give this a go... Read more

“We have come to value ... Customer collaboration over contract negotiation”

- The Agile Manifesto

Much has been written about Agile, Domain Driven Design and other modern software development methodologies. You can't read very much of this without coming across a foundational common thread... user and customer involvement. Read more

Like most web developers, I've recently been playing with HTML5 and CSS3. There's an absolute ton of stuff to discover, but right now I'll focus on the Offline Web Application aspect. Read more

In December, I had the opportunity to attend a presentation by Albert Shum, the director of the Windows Mobile design team. He revealed the thought process behind the new Metro UI, used in Windows Phone and Zune, and why it's such a radical departure from previous versions of Microsoft's UIs. Read more

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While writing the about the book Secrets of the JavaScript Ninja, I came to a realization. OOP languages help in understanding JavaScript initially, but are damaging in the long term.

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I'm reading Secrets of the Javascript Ninja by John Resig. I'd strongly recommend to most developers who do anything with the web that they should read this book.

To be more precise...
Developers who need to read this book:

• Anyone who has written basic JavaScript, but feels a little uncertainty about the phrases 'closure' or 'prototype'
• Anyone who writes JavaScript, but relies on a third party library such as jQuery or MooTools

Developers who don't need to read this book:

• Anyone who hasn't developed a web / JS app (read something more introductory, then this book)
• Valerio Proietti

I've only covered about a third of what has so far been written (covering unit testing, functions, closures and prototypes). But... these fundamentals are of inestimable importance to a developer who has made do with applying knowledge from OO languages to JavaScript. Read more

Went to the Building Awesome Apps for Windows 7 'community tour' yesterday evening, hosted by Richard Campbell (of .NET Rocks! fame). Read more