Keith's Blog » Links

More Clever GMail Ads for Programmers

Keith — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 15:30:16 +0000

Just like the folks from Jane Street Capital, Swivel really knows how to write good, eye-catching ad copy (for some crazy subset of the population):

APP Interop Pictures

Keith — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 03:55:03 +0000

I took a couple of quick shots of the group:

and the grid:

More details on my xml.com blog post.

Tim Bray has better photos here.

“Literate” Programming, Technical Writing

Keith — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 19:58:09 +0000

There’s been some recent discussion on ruby-talk about “literate” programming after the new O’Reilly title Beautiful Code was announced (Matz has written an essay for it). Matz’s response made me listen to all-things-Knuth, so I was pleased to read Philip Wadler’s post today on Three ways to improve your writing, which includes a PDF link to Knuth (and others) lecturing on writing and “literate” programming. I’ve just started reading it, but have already found two laugh-worthy gems:

13. Many readers will skim over formulas on their first reading of your exposition. Therefore, your sentences should flow smoothly when all but the simplest formulas are replaced by â€œblahâ€ or some other grunting noise.

20. Some handy maxims:
Watch out for prepositions that sentences end with.
When dangling, consider your participles.
About them sentence fragments.
Make each pronoun agree with their antecedent.
Donâ€™t use commas, which arenâ€™t necessary.
Try to never split infinitives.

I know the first is certainly true for me as I’ve been trying to wade through Haskell (a language into “literate programming”) introductions recently, which are very math-heavy.

GMail Getting Nicer

Keith — Thu, 23 Nov 2006 16:07:14 +0000

I’m starting to feel the benefits of Google’s decision this summer to focus more attention on existing products rather than release new ones. Google Calendar has been getting some critical enhancements, but here’s a nugget that made me smile (Tracking has been there for a while, delivery date hasn’t, as far as I know).