2009 September 25 - un|we|sen

Archive for September 25th, 2009

2009-09-25

Mediocrity Is Not A Virtue

Some ex-colleagues just discussed one of Joel’s latest on Software:

One principle duct tape programmers understand well is that any kind of coding technique that’s even slightly complicated is going to doom your project. Duct tape programmers tend to avoid C++, templates, multiple inheritance, multithreading, COM, CORBA, and a host of other technologies that are all totally reasonable, when you think long and hard about them, but are, honestly, just a little bit too hard for the human brain.
– The Duct Tape Programmer

Articles like that make me fucking angry, even more so when they get readership. I can’t for the life of me understand why in the software industry, for some reason, shoddy workmanship is praised.

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16:41 | Filed under: programming, wtf | 2 Comments »

2009-09-25

ADC 2 Judging Has Begun!

I am happy to announce that Android Developer Challenge 2′s first round of judging has begun!
– ADC 2 Judging Has Begun!

Yay! That means PackRat is now available for your reviewing pleasure¹.

On a sadder note, I just came across “North American Conquest” by Noble Master Games as one of the ADC2 submissions. It’s an exact copy of Aevum Obscurum (it even shares some of the title), except with a different map. I posted a short review about the game here on this blog — it’s not bad, I quite enjoyed it!

What makes me sad is that the rules for ADC2 contain this here:

The ADC 2 contest is open only to applications that have not been made publicly available through the Android Market prior to August 1, 2009.

Surely posting the exact same game with a different map is a breach of that rule! If nothing else, it’s tantamount to cheating — they’ve had months of opportunity polishing the app according to user feedback, and now the tweak one fairly insignificant part and present it as new?

Like I said, I enjoyed the original, and bought the full version (twice, I should say, on different accounts) — but for that behaviour, I sure wish they’ll get disqualified.