Earnest Engineer

A quick summary of the following article -  http://www.neowin.net/news/from-my-cold-dead-hands-living-without-updates  - would be: Updates are bad, don't do updates. That unhelpful advice isn't from me and is not recommended by me, nor endorsed by me. You should run from the advice this author posits. It is is really unhelpful and a disservice to many. As such I was compelled to comment.  To wit: I'm sorry, but I think this article and the point of view it puts forward are irresponsible. As a software engineer, I know (and hate to admit) there are bugs in every released piece of software. Updates to patch these problems (whether or not they are problems visible to users or IT) need to take place. An un-patched bug translates to a vulnerability. Why would you promote vulnerable systems? For instance, would you recommend leaving an Android system un-patched that is vulnerable to the  StageFright  security hole? I have used known vulnerabilities in Windows XP (

Files as UI vs API  -  compares attributes of iCloud vs Dropbox. It starts on an interesting note - the model of a file system in the UI is dying, and should be let go. Beyond that it looks at mappings of each system to a file system from an API point of view and compares the successes of each. I find the initial thread the most interesting. Drop the mental model of a file system - which maps virtual concepts of files and directories to a physical model of papers, folders and file cabinets - and replace it with...what? This is a paradigm shift for me. I have to admit, I loath, hate, nay, despise looking for things. If I can't find something easily, it's only about a minute before I start growling and muttering things my mother would disapprove of. On this basis, I like the idea that I can save myself from thinking about where to put things or, where I have already put them. But how do we do this? It's non-trivial, since humans think of "things" and once they

This post by Michael Feathers intrigued me  Unconditional Programming . I like the different look at how to refactor - that's not a question I usually ask "How can I get rid of this conditional?"