Big trouble lies ahead if planning is neglected before a project begins. This statement extends beyond the field of software development and reflects on situations in many aspects of work.

Spolsky who authors Joel on Software phrased this rather nicely:

Software engineers who dive into code without writing a spec tend to think they’re cool gunslingers, shooting from the hip. They’re not. They are terribly unproductive. They write bad code and produce shoddy software, and they threaten their projects by taking giant risks which are completely uncalled for.

According to Mishoo, Internet Explorer leaks memory.

The problem I’m discussing here is that Internet Explorer leaks memory on certain occasions. If your script complies to this behavior, you will usually notice an abnormal slowness when IE executes it, usually after 40-50 requests made within the same browsing session…

This comes as a surprise to some and nonetheless it gives another reason to upgrade to Firefox.

Open-source advocates must have come across odd GUI‘s where formality is neglected. An example is presented below (from GIMP 1.2.3, edited using the GIMP):

Firstly, have a look at the window title. Is the exclamation mark necessary? Secondly, look at the poor layout of the buttons. Thirdly, is the message at the bottom helpful? It does not make the application look professional. Is it inexcusable that open-source programmers cannot deploy their products in the commercial world?

Do you happen to view your bank statements on-line? Long process, is it not? It can be automated with this huge library of Perl scripts for many different banks around the world. A click or two can reveal your balance, transactions, etc.

Certain design bugs are so common that we have become too blind to spot them. An essay titled Ten Most Persistent Design Bugs makes some excellent observations.

• If the computer loses power for more than a few thousandths of a second, it throws everything away.
• Designers offer no way for users to discover why a given menu or option has been dimmed (grayed out), nor how to turn it back on.
• 15 Dec 2008 sorts as being before 2 Jan 1900

MATLAB Central had me ranked 4th (world-wide) for my code contributions this month with over 1,600 downloads. This nearly tops July 2004 when I was ranked 2nd with almost 2,000 downloads. I was then only surpassed by the product manager, Stuart McGarrity.

This morning I wrote my first piece of PHP. I can now see why it has been awarded ‘Programming Language of 2004′. Truly deserved. For the curious, the code rotates banners in my front page depending on the time of the day. Below lies an example.

Picture at 10AM GMT