I came upon an interesting article that tries to bring organization to css. Sure, using Sass¹ helps a bit, and you all know I’m an advocate of Haml/Sass but this isn’t what the article is about. It actually has an interesting strategy for organizing your CSS in a butchered “RESTful” label.

In short, the article proposes having stylesheets for every action; index.css, show.css, edit.css, new.css, show.css, and of course your main.css file.

This sounds like an interesting strategy, and I’m eager to try it out on a project. I have done something similar in the past, and I ran into the hassle of having to look through multiple files to find what I’m really trying to pinpoint in the CSS. However, that was before the days of Firebug, so this seems like a really plasuable solution.

How do you feel about this strategy? Have you done something like it? Do you put all your styles in one file or do you separate it out?

I’d really love to hear your thoughts.

1. http://haml.hamptoncatlin.com/

The past couple months have been an interesting one for me personally, but I’ve noticed a change within the Rails community – for better or worse, it’s not the same or as personal as it used to be.

If you take a look at a couple of the big named blogs from the past three years, they are no longer active. Why is this?

Not to call my own blog a “big named blog”, but I also stopped blogging about Rails myself. My reasons have been lack of inspiration to write, and a lot of personal changes in my life. However, I doubt that that’s the same reasoning the other guys in the Rails sphere have avoided the “post” button as well.

I’d love to hear other people’s opinions on Rails and Ruby. Do you think the Rails community has lost it’s “close personal touch” of people? Is Rails a bloated community of noobs now and the uber have just moved on into their own agenda’s?

Anyway, food for thought. I figured I’d post something, it’s been a while.

If any of you are interested in what’s going on with my life, there have been quite a bit of changes in the past two months. For one, I am no longer working with CitrusByte. It was a great experience and they taught me a lot of things, and for that I’m extremely grateful to the team over there.

So, what am I doing for work now? I’ve started my own firm, and things have been flowing through really well. One thing I’ve focused on is UI/Usability/Design with the knowledge to be able to directly work in the Ruby programming world. So far it’s worked out as an amazing niche for me and I couldn’t be happier. I guess I simply like designing/ui and front-end better than the back-end. Oh, who can come up with a dirty pun for that one? ;)

p.s You all should see “Zack and Miri Make a Porno”. It was incredibly hilarious.

p.s.s Sorry for not being around lately. I know you guys were dying without me around. Maybe I’ll post a little more often again. The dust is starting to settle.

Practicality Aside

Honest question here folks, Intel came out¹ with a presentation today where they showcased a light-bulb being powered 2 feet away @ 60 watts and at 75% efficiency. That sounds cool, and I really can’t wait to get rid of all the damn cords in the world, but didn’t Tesla create this technology in the early 1900’s?

Intel vs. Tesla

Can anyone help explain the difference between what’s going on here, or why Tesla’s wireless invention isn’t practical yet Intel’s is? Am I imagining that Tesla made some generator and powered hundreds of bulbs? I could be… I’m recovering from a flu right now and things aren’t right. Either way, call me insane or educate me, I’d like to know!

Thanks!

1. http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080821/ts_afp/usitinternetenergychipcompanyintel

Expectations

To set the frame of mind initially, this is meant for those who are full-time programmers.

a/s/l ?

After being around a lot of job offers, resumes, etc, of the programming world, I’ve realized that there is quite an array (array, lol) of programmers. Most would think it’s your typical unhealthy geek, slamming away at the keyboard while green text whizzes by like The Matrix. What I’ve come to realize, is that Programmers really come in all shapes and sizes, and that’s good, but it’s let me to one big question: “Why are you a programmer?”. To get into this industry, you’ve had to love it at one point, but when you’re working day to day, full-time, do you still love programming because it’s full of geekiness, or do you do it for the money?

There’s always more to it…

Now of course, it’s not that black and white. There’s definitely exceptions, there’s the feeling where you may not enjoy a particular project you’re working on, but you still like crunching away logically to solve it, and that immense amount of logic crunching in your brain practically gives you a hard on. Oh wait, did I just say that out loud? That’s actually the reason I program, logic-crunching-hard-ons, but, let’s continue: What about the scenario where you feel like a code monkey? We’ve all felt it, it’s the feeling that occurs when all of the sudden you realize you’re getting paid x amount of dollars for a product that will deliver (if successful) xxxxxxxxx and then some amount of dollars to it’s owner’s. How does that make you feel?

We’ve all felt it… right?

I’d lie to say I never felt like a code monkey in my programming career though, and those are the days I hate most, because not only do I feel like I’m wasting my time, but I also feel like I deserve more than what’s going on. This question also comes down to, what’s coming out of your time? Is it just your paycheck, and the paycheck of the owner of this product? What good is this work that is being produced?

Don’t let the door hit you on the way out buddy!

Also, one more question, can you see yourself programming your entire life until retirement?

This isn’t a rant by any means, it’s just food for thought. After all, I admitted programming pleases me sexually. :)

Oh The Fail

I’m sorry, but I’ve never seen a bigger hype fail than Cuil, and that’s saying a lot from the things I’ve seen.

All Aboard The Hate-Train

I may be late on the hate-train, but I came to a realization today: Cuil is nothing more than $30 million dollars in wasted funding on an “incredibly accurate” search-engine that revolutionizes *drum roll*, images next to search results.

Wait, what? Yeah, you heard me, there’s nothing unique about Cuil other than the fact of how they present images next to everything you search for.

“But, Daniel” you say… and I cut you off with “No, the search results algorithm is lame. Compare it to Google or Yahoo and you’ll see it is actually worse.”

“Fine, Daniel, you’re right”. Thank you.

It seems like $30 mil was spent on a interesting, but not relevant design, and a “super algorithm” that doesn’t supersede Google or Yahoo by any means. Of course, this is from my opinion, but hey, I am the end-user after all, aren’t I?

Time to Place Bets

I’ll give Cuil one year before heading off to the scrapper, and that’s being generous in yet again, my opinion.

Those ex-Google engineers should have stayed at Google.

p.s My site seems broken in Safari now all of the sudden, is this the same for everyone else? I have not touched my templates in forever… argh…