How to write unmaintenable code
And old link, that I lost, and that I found again yesterday. I love the opening quote: " Never ascribe to malice, that which can be explained by incompetence"
A funny read: how to write unmaintenable code
November 26, 2005
November 03, 2005
Tomorrow in the papers
design-nation is in the papers. In the October's issue of MacWorld Spain, there is an articles written by me, the First Contact with Macromedia Studio 8.
Even with that article, the magazine is full of interesting contents, like a report about the .Mac services, an in-depth article about iMovieHD or a comparison between all the Macs.
If you can read Spanish, you should buy it...
September 27, 2005
An interesting post about floats
Ridiculous_fish has published a very interesting post about floating point numbers. Although it is oriented to explain how things work in the Cocoa world, it brings a lot of useful information about floats.
I think it is really worth to check it out.
September 07, 2005
Nokia Mobility Conference 2005
Nokia Mobility Conference 2005 will take place November 2-3 in Barcelona.
Some of the topics to be covered are convergence, mobile music, OTA device management, and there's a season on November 3rd called "develop faster with flash".
See you in Barcelona!.
September 01, 2005
This is coupling
Do you want to see an example of what coupling is?. Take a look at this post at The Daily WTF.
This is something we all have done at least once, and if we haven't done it, it is something we will do in the future. There are many situations when these solutions are the faster and easier, but what happens with the developer that will have to maintain ( and maybe improve ) that code?
That is what design pattern and best practices are for.
May 23, 2005
Interesting article: Wireless application development for a changing world
When looking for inspiration to solve another problem, I found an interesting article at IBM's developerWorks. It's a bit old ( July 2003 ), but contains some interesting points.
The title is "Wireless application development for a changing world", but it can be applied to the development of any application.
The idea behind this article is that we must develop our applications in a way that they can be easily changed, gives some tricks and ideas about how to achieve it, and the basics of designing prevasive application architectures.
Here's the link: "Wireless application development for a changing world"
May 19, 2005
An interesting article on Writing comments
Mike Clark has written an interesting article at Sticky Minds titled "Write Sweet-Smelling Comments", that raises a topic that I've always liked to discuss about.
I don't like to see many comments in my code, because I tend to find them disturbing. I prefer to use good naming schemes for properties and methods, to write code that speaks by itself more than writing a lot of comments.
I don't remember where I heard it first, maybe it was a manager in a previous job, but I believe that if your code needs to be commented, you should refactor it.
Of course, if you want to generate a javadoc-style documentation from your code, that's different, but, anyway, that's something I've never done.
Here's the link to the article again ( found via The Server Side )
April 03, 2005
[OT] The new member of the design-nation family
Yes, it is a Newton ( a MessagePad 120 ) . And as you can see in the picture, it still works.
It's amazing to see how advanced was this device. It can work in portrait mode, it can be synchronized with a Mac or a PC, it supports PCMCIA cards...
And it's also amazing to see how devoted is the Newton's users community. There are a lot of active forums, e-mail lists, and websites devoted to this device.
Here are the hardware specs:
• Ram: 2mb
• Rom: 8mb(upgrade)
• Processor: ARM 610 20MHz
• Newton OS: 1.3, 2.0
• Screen: 320x240, no backlight
• Release: 11/95
• Extra Notes: NOS 2.0 would only run if the unit had a rom upgrade.
It's time to play with it a bit. Enjoy the sunday!
March 06, 2005
[OT] Mac mini "mini review"
I finally received my mac mini two days ago. Here are my first impressions after this weekend: I love it.
February 24, 2005
[OT] Shuffle art
Left: Designed by Jack Williamson Sanz ( age: 6 ).
Right: Designed bt Leah Williamson Sanz ( age: 3 ).
February 17, 2005
[OT] iPod Shuffle
Someone who loves me a lot, or who doesn't know me enough, has sent me an iPod Shuffle.
I know you've seen thousands of pictures of it, but here are the mandatory "I'm opening the box" stills.
December 13, 2004
[OT] Laptop archeology
A few weeks ago I went to visit my parents, and my father told me that, when moving some old things, he had found the first laptop we had at home.
The laptop is a Toshiba T1850. It has a 386SX processor, 4MB of RAM, and a 120MB HDD.
I tried to switch it on, just to see what happens, and it worked!. It runs Windows 3.11 smoothly enough. I even typed a short article in Word!.
It was a nice surprise.
November 16, 2004
OT: Tindersticks
Saturday, November the 20th, at Divino Aqualung ( Madrid )
September 22, 2004
Thanks for the goodies!
Both my brother Javier and myself will like to thank Mike Chambers and Christian Cantrell for the goodies I've received today, and for the letter about Central that I received yesterday. We really feel that we've received some kind of pat in the back.
Once again, Macromedia has showed us that it really cares for its customers and that it really cares for the community.
We'd also like to thank everybody else that has been involved in this decision.
We know you've seen a lot of pictures of these goodies yet, but, we don't care. Here are our pictures:
That was a really nice picture of the box. The mouse helps to see the size ( yes, it is a big box! ).
And there you can see the guy who writes these posts, completely shocked after opening the box
August 14, 2004
design-nation. mobile
Well, we don't want to be the last blog to implement a mobile version, so here it is, and you can even create an avantgo channel!!.
Sadly, we are using a beautifier to format the actionscript code, and we have not implementd it yet in the mobile version, but we are planning to do it in a nearly future.
August 13, 2004
OT: How is the job market in Germany?
I'm seriously thinking about moving to Germany ( first, for personal reasons, second, because it's a country I really like ), but I don't know were to start looking for a job.
So, please, if you can give me some advice about how can I approach the job search, or you know someone that I could send my CV to, or if you even want to take a look at my CV, please drop me a line at blog@design-nation.net, or leave a comment here.
Thanks in advance.
August 10, 2004
OT: Updated to MT3.01
In the last few days we've had to remove almost 300 comments between both this blog and its spanish version.
So, we've finally moved to MT3.01, although it was not, by far, our first choice. We'd like to move to WordPress or b2Evolution, but when we started this blog we made a huge mistake, and used the default naming system for our posts ( based on a number ) instead of using the post title. So now, as we can't modify the server .htaccess file, we cannot change to another CMS without changing the existing posts' urls.
That's why we have updated our MT installation, and configured it to "Enable Unregistered Comment Moderation".
We don't like this solution, because it sounds quite similar to "we are going to censor your comments", but right now, it's the best we can do. We are looking at the registration system and typeKey, so I hope we could find a better solution.
August 08, 2004
The summer break is over :(
A two weeks break is too short. Extremely short. Anyway, here are some pictures.
Vitoria - Gasteiz, Virgen Blanca Square: Here we are, Cesar and Javier. By the way, Vitoria is one of the most beautiful places I've seen. It reminds me a lot of Hamburg ( Germany ) which is the most beautiful city I've seen so far.
Still at Vitoria. An "aizkolaris" exhibition.
Luanco ( Asturias ). A little hotel, that surprised me because of its decoration ( everything was bought at Ikea ).
Cabo de Peñas ( Asturias ). The Cantabric Sea.
And back to Madrid, some people wearing the traditional suits.
It's hard to be at home again...
June 14, 2004
AS1 and AS2 at Madrid Underground ( or Metro, or subway )
These are two pictures I've taken this morning, at the Gran Vía Metro station. I found it quite funny.
If you want the high resolution images, drop me a line.
May 09, 2004
OT- My gadgets collection grows.
I finally did it! Last friday I finally purchased a PocketPC ( HP iPaq2210 ). Here are the two youngest members of the design-nation family: ( from left to right ) PACO and PAVA.
Except two hang-ups ( the mix of Windows and me is, to say the least, dangerous ), it's working like a charm. The initial set up was easy and quick, including an update of the device ROM.
I've had a few ideas about some applications, I hope to find the time to develop them too.
By the way, I'd appreciate any link, comments about applications, whatever...
May 01, 2004
Atom feed added
Here's the url: http://www.design-nation.net/en/atom.xml
If this is the syndication format of the future, well, we are ready now!
April 30, 2004
[OT] we are 25, UE is growing
This is a special weekend for a large number of european citycens. Since tomorrow, the European Union will have 25 countries members. 10 new members.
I still remember when Spain ( and Portugal ) came to the UE ( at this moment, it was the European Economic Communitty, and the Euro was the ECU ). I was 9 years old, but i remember the month before, everyone spoke about that.
After that, the UE has bring to us, good things and bad things. In fact, much of us are really really disappointed with a large number of issues with the UE, but, we feel europeans after all.
So, if you are from any of this new countrys,...WELLCOME!
April 19, 2004
Net Art. I need your help
Next saturday morning, i must give a conference ( representing my enterprise ) to a group of artists on Vitoria-Gasteiz. The topic of the conference is "art and internet". These artists are very differents, some of them make art with computers, some of then have never used a computes. The conference is 6 hours long ( yes 6 hours ). So i ask you for links of sites related to art. It may be something like web-side or something simple. In fact, i want to show him that there is no need of an superweb to show his/her work ( i.e. my favourite photographer Sebastiao Salgado, has some of the best photos i ever seen but his web site is really simple . So, if you can tell me web-sites of artist ( no matter what kind of artist ) or theory about art or..... Tahnks,
April 11, 2004
My first two months
I started in my current work two months ago ( in fact my first day was on februray the second ). Since then i have no post anything. Why? because, i have no time at work and because i have no internet at home ( new work, new city ).
Well, the city: Vitoria-Gasteiz. I like it. little but wonderfull city. Plenty of all kind of resources, including one of the best europeans basket teams. ( TAU-Vitoria )
Work: Fine. I am in some projects involving PHP, ASP, ActionScript, XML and Flash Communication Server. Some of this projects including make flash games ( some of then multiplayer via the internet ) so it's funny and interesting.
At same time, i have to work closely with this guys who make animations ( in spanish animadores, in english i don`t know ), and it's very funny.
And if we speak about web sites, the current idea of the enterprise is to do all websites with CSS layouts and XHTML, according to standars, and accesible by any kind of people or devices ( mobile devices, braille printers, aural browsers....) so it´s quite interesting. I'm learning a lot.
Agur!
March 30, 2004
OT ( and rant ): Switching from Thunderbird to Outlook
After almost a year of being a happy Thunderbird user, I've been forced to switch back to Outlook. And it's been a real pain.
When I switched to Thunderbird, it took me five minutes to import my e-mails, addresses and rules from Outlook into Thunderbird. It was just a question of a few clicks.
But yesterday, everything was different. First, I couldn't find the "Export button" in Thunderbird. So, after reading the faq's, I discovered that the format of the mail folders is the standard Unix mail format ( "MBox" ), so that I could import my email from Outlook, using the "import from Eudora" assistant. Obviously, it didn't work. I constantly received error messages, telling me that the mail folders were in use ( when they weren't, I had all permissions for those folders, every Mozilla program was closed, ..)
So, back to google, I found an utility called MBox2eml, that allows to export mailboxes from the MBox format to eml ( the Outlook Express format ). This utility worked well, except for the fact that it failed when trying to transform a high number of items. So I was exporting my emails, 100 at a time.
Then, I exported my emails from Outlook Express to Outlook. Everything seemed to work right ( I have not checked the attachments yet ), but the whole process took me about three hours!!. Three hours to complete a process that should have been finished in only five minutes.
I'm not going to blame only Microsoft, but also Mozilla. I think it's obvious that switching to Outlook from Thunderbird should be as easy as the opposite. But, at least for me, it wasn't easy at all.
March 11, 2004
Terrorist attack in Madrid
Sorry, but I'm too nervous. There have been at least three explosions in Madrid, I've heard two of them from my house.
I'm going out to try to help, if it's possible. This is quite sad, and extremely unfair. We don't deserve this.
Sorry for the noise.
January 31, 2004
I need some advice about a PocketPC
During the last months I've been thinking about buying myself a PocketPC.
The fact is that I'm not really sure if it's really worth the money. I mean, what can I do with it exactly?. I know I can use it to read some e-books while I'm on the train to work, that I can use it to maintain my task list, and so on, but I'm not sure if it's really worth the 500€ it costs.
If any of you can think of a cool use of a PocketPC, please let me now!
So, how was my first week?
The four of you that follow this blog, will remember that last monday I started working for a new employer.
Well, a week has passed, and it's time to see what has happened in these days.
I've entered a new and unknown world. The world of "software engineering". Design patterns (state, singleton), interfaces, complex data structures (hash maps, linked lists), all of them written in "that scripting language" that works with that "animation tool".
I don't know if I'll be able to learn all the things I have to learn in the following weeks, but I'm sure it'll be worth the effort.
January 26, 2004
I have a new job too
Well, as my brother César, I have a new job too. I start my new job next monday. I´m very excited, about this. New city ( Vitoria, north of Spain ), new job making flash communication server and making flash educational games, and making cartoon movies. I think i'll learn a lot and i'll enjoy it. :D
January 25, 2004
My first day!
Tomorrow it's my first day at my new job. I've been working for an e-learning company for the last two years and a half, building a flash CMS, and many educational games.
Now I'm entering the game development world. Of course, I'm really excited, and a bit frightened. But I'm sure that I'm facing the opportunity to learn a lot from a lot of different people with different backgrounds (Java, C and .Net developers).
So tonight it will not be easy to sleep. But I hope tomorrow will be a great day.
January 20, 2004
We are not spammers!
To all the community: We are not spammers!
I've seen our domain name listed in some of the MT-Blacklist configuration files of some members of the community.
Well, maybe our blog is not the best one in the world, but, please, check it, and please, remove us from your blacklists.
Thanks in advance!
January 05, 2004
Did you know??->Director MX 2004
Yes, macromedia presents, macromedia Director MX 2004 today, but, this is an old news, as you can see, others have posted that before
January 03, 2004
We are proud to be Actionscript Super Heroes!
We've been selected to join the Hall of Justhese, the aggregator hosted and maintained by aSH.
We are extremely proud!.
It's nice to be a hero...
Hello, fullasagoog!
Today I've received a kind e-mail from Geoff Bowers, telling me that he was going to add this blog to fullasagoog, and, well, I must say I'm really happy!.
We just pretend to share our daily experience working with the Macromedia tools (mostly Flash and FlashComm). We hope you find this blog useful. And we wait for your corrections and comments.
So, here we come!
December 27, 2003
And now I also have a Mac!!
:D
At last!. Here you can see my working place (it's friday, luch time, so that'a why there's so much activity).
But there it is. My new G4 with it's 21" monitor. The picture was taken with my girlfriend's mobile phone.
November 20, 2003
Attribute Changer
Attribute Changer is a useful freeware tool that allows you to change propertys on your files and folders, what can be very useful. You can download here
November 17, 2003
Macromedia Flex
Macromedia has released Macromedia Flex ( currently in Beta ).
It comes with his own devnet and of course, with a blog.
Macromedia says:
Flex consists of a presentation server installed on top of a J2EE application server or servlet container, a rich library of user interface components, an XML-based markup language used to declaratively lay out these components, and an object-oriented programming language to handle the user interactions with the application. The end result is a Rich Internet Application (RIA) rendered using Flash Player and developed using industry standards and a development paradigm familiar to developers.
October 26, 2003
Taking off!
Welcome...