Minimal IT newsletters 2011
Basic web technologies do not fully meet the demands of modern websites.
JavaScript overcomes the limitations of plain HTML and CSS websites, but is difficult to do well.
jQuery is an important technology for anyone involved in writing websites or developing business systems that run on the web.
To really explain who you are, you have to explain who you are not.
Architecture and technology decisions need to be driven by IT management requirements more than by functional business requirements.
It is better to spend time on system structure, documentation and testing than on adding features that you do not currently need.
Will the IT profession die out like the typing pool?
What do you do when there are thoughts that keep floating around in your head, and you can not make sense of them or make them go away?
Tools and services for creating websites are so much more complicated than the underlying technology that it is almost impossible to explain how to set up a simple website.
Breaking data down into a simpler form can overcome constraints on how data is accessed, stored and structured.
AntiSamy is a very effective open-source library for making web sites more secure.
We may think that IT is often mis-sold, but the real problem is that IT is often mis-bought.
Testing is not something that we do because we are strong at development. It is something we do because we know that we are weak.
Google Docs' collaboration features are particularly good for occasional users because they do not require any software setup on your PC.
Programming languages will continue to evolve, challenging projects and providing interesting opportunities for software developers.
General-purpose applications such as Excel are often the only choice for IT solutions.
Although Excel is the most widely-used general-purpose application, there are many requirements it does not meet.
Our search for a truly general-purpose application is frustrated by inherent problems with metadata.
Truly general-purpose applications do not need complicated metadata. They need a simple model that allows metadata to be created dynamically.
Sometimes you need to make big decisions to take a product forward.
If you are a small company, creating a new product is exhausting, lonely and expensive.
What would you do if you found yourself in charge of an exciting new product?
A lot of user interface styling has nothing to do with art.
Even the most deeply technical parts of IT can be as creative as the work of artists and musicians.
Designing systems to be secure is never easy, but it is much easier than adding security to a system after it has been designed.
We should consider documentation and program code as assets, not transactions.
The Rhino JavaScript engine lets you add the flexibility of JavaScript to your Java application.
Finishing a project is an emotional experience.
Our IT is not as sophisticated as we think it is.
IT's project culture is a major barrier to reliable and long-lived IT.
We need to change how we view IT so that we can run projects without undermining long-term management.
Services like Facebook can be a useful medium for public contact, but using them exclusively is a dereliction of commercial sense or moral duty to communicate freely with the public.
The purpose of IT is to impose structure, not just to make computers easy to use.
What happens when you write software in itself?
Have we created more tools and techniques than we really need?
Truly flexible software should be able to sell itself.
With a little foresight and discipline it is possible to create database-independent applications.
Without complete user documentation there are almost certain to be holes in your system.
To make systems perform well, you have to focus on system design more than on high-performance coding.
How can we create the perfect information processing tool?
What can we learn from our love-hate relationship with Excel?
There is a vast body of unused IT work which could be a rich source for future innovation.
Have advanced tools and agile methods made us more accepting of mediocre performance?
When is complexity a good thing?
The universal business computer is a quest for a better way to do IT.
Systems benefit from a simple external architecture and a consistent internal architecture.
You don't have to use tables to represent information.
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