Published
Weekend Reading — As a user …
Please and thank you.
Design Objective
Run The Joules The importance of diversity in tech:
I almost got fired from my last job due to a similar technical issue. It's important to consider life experiences that differ from yours
“As a user” needs to stop. Argues against cargo cult user stories:
The purpose of user stories is to create empathy. As a result, tiny implementation details do not need to be written in the form of user stories. The design and engineering teams can figure that out; that’s their job.
When user stories really shine, they tell a story about the person using your product. The person becomes the hero. You’re just there to create the conditions for her to achieve her real-life goals.
DesignBetter.Co InVision's site for designers, with in-depth books, podcasts, and more.
Tools of the Trade
Sarah Mei Thread:
The more I do software, & read the old papers & new blogs, the more I realize that our history is this series, repeated ad infinitum:
GoogleChrome/puppeteer Google's own API for using headless Chrome from Node (testing, automating, scraping, etc).
const browser = await puppeteer.launch();
const page = await browser.newPage();
await page.goto('https://example.com');
await page.screenshot({path: 'example.png'});
Crafties "Best practices" without context are just "practices".
Return well-formed error responses from your REST APIs Simple proposal for reporting errors with input fields.
[{
"errorCode": "BAD_FORMAT",
"field": "email",
"originalValue": "suhas.chatekar",
"mesage": "{email} is not in correct format",
"helpUrl": "/help/BAD_FORMAT#email"
}]
The world in which IPv6 was a good design Or, why is IPv6 such a mess, and how did we get here?
At that point, all we'd have to do is eliminate all remaining UDP and TCP from the Internet, and then we would definitely not need layer 2 bridging anymore, for real this time, and then we could get rid of broadcasts and MAC addresses and SDN and DHCP and all that stuff.
And then the Internet would be elegant again.
{jqi} A simple graphical UI for jq.
Architectural
GonzoHacker 😭 "denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance and mini-monolith"
Peopleware
Tech’s Damaging Myth of the Loner Genius Nerd Even the New York Times gets it:
There’s a joke in computer science that one of the hardest tasks is naming things in code. It’s funny because it’s a nontechnical task. But it involves something that can be even harder than technical work: communicating with other people and intuiting what they might need and understand.
Locked Doors
Kia For when you need to quickly disable Touch ID:
iOS 11 is a game-changer for Touch ID. Press power button rapidly 5 times and it opens the 2nd screen, but it also forces passphrase entry!
NIST Update: Passphrases In, Complex Passwords Out Finally, NIST advocating sane password policies, and walking away from harmful past practices (security questions, special characters, password change every X days, etc.)
Replacing 'whitelist/blacklist' with 'safelist/blocklist' now on. Let's recognize and replace racism/sexism in everyday tech vocab! ❤️
None of the Above
Quincy Larson "Trying to code when chat's open"
Texting on the move turns your walk into an ungainly lollop Explains why it's difficult to pass people that are texting and walking:
The problem of text-walkers has become such a problem that cities such as Antwerp in Belgium, has introduced ‘text-walking lanes’ so that they do not irritate or endanger other pedestrians.
Why we fell for clean eating Post-truth diets:
Once we enter the territory where all authority and expertise are automatically suspect, you can start to claim almost anything – and many #eatclean authorities do.
yan "8 rabbits, aka 1 rabbyte"
What Brands Are Actually Behind Trader Joe’s Snacks? Spoiler alert.
Cutest Animals Ever "This dog...caught a fish...using croutons. Then walked off like Mufasa"