Antiusability at its best: Language Documentation

Whether you’re an active developer busy doing some Java, Ruby, Perl or ( fill in your language here ) based projects, you’ll most likely have some kind of browser windows opened sometimes providing you with the necessary documentation for libraries or ( but hopefully not ) language basics. 

Because I’m not in love with one language and used to switching back and forth between several of them, I tend to forget some details about built-in classes etc.. It’s certainly o.k. to have the documentation for such features available somewhere on the web, but I’d love to be able to simply download bundles for a language in a “documentation reader”. Open format ( there are lots of them that would suit this application ), simple to transform anything to it via xsl or something comparable, and it would just work ( even offline ). 

I won’t claim to start a new project here as I’m already quite busy doing the rest, and celebrating new years eve, but if somebody is looking for a challenge, here it is. 

This subject shows another important aspect of usability. Usability shouldn’t stop at the Users place. Developers are users, too. And happy users tend to be more loyal and happy, a goal certainly worth achieving.

Edit: Now the night has finally arrived, and I think the following tasks should be completed before any such project can be forged. 

  1. Define an open format for efficiently saving Language Documentation. Keep in mind that language documentation differs in structure depending on what kind of language is documented. Object oriented languages need other formats or present other structures than procedural or functional ones. 
  2. Create scripts that convert existing documentation into that new format. XSL is a powerful friend here. No one will ever take care about a cool project without a funky demo.
  3. Build clients that are eaasssyy to use for all major platforms. I’m talking about smooth integration ( e.g. a spotlight plugin for OS X ), not some dirty hack.
  4. Tell all your programmer friends.

Thats it. But I’m still not ( yet ) interested in doing it by myself, but if anybody wants to do it, don’t bother contacting me. Sleep well.

Edit: found this link, like it.

Microsoft selling Antivirus-Package for XP

this is so wrong. Really. Imagine that: you go buy a car, and a few month later the manufacturer calls you and offers you in fact working brakes. Indeed working, no need to bother about stopping your vehicle, finally a safe ride. 

And it’s just no different selling an anti-virus package for your own Operating System. It’s naughty to offer it as a seperate product, as it simply provides a functionality that everybody expects from an operating system. An operating system is simply a means to run you programs, solve problems etc., but the users shouldn’t have to care about viruses or anything alike. And because it seems to me that Microsoft messed with users habits long enough now, many people finally accept that Windows needs a Virus Scanner, because it’s vulnerable by design and incapable of handling threats reliably on its own. Sad but true, the majority of users is still unaware of better-working alternate operating systems. Ubuntu runs just fine on my mothers notebook. Mac OS everywhere else here. And everybody is happy. And we are not buying Anti-Virus Packages. Score.

The dying MacBook: Early adopters fate.

So it is. I have a MacBook, the beautiful ( at least it used to be ) white, 13″ screen, first model. But as with any living being, death is certain and signs for its arrival are mostly undeniable. Would my MacBook be a human patient, he would be approaching multi-organ failure. But let’s step over to the comprehensive list of failures.

Bluetooth seems to work only when Moon and some other planets are in a constellation allowing certain, yet to be discovered, microwaves to be sent to the outer world, thus enabling bluetooth. I can assure you that this planetary constellation is indeed very, very rare and so is my bluetooth.

I wouldn’t bother just because of a broken bluetooth device, but fun is that one of the two USB-Ports seems to have been infected by the same disease little Bluetooth already has. Random failures. Just random.

There are days when I just don’t care about these little details. Its the days when the display starts to flicker. I’m not the only one ( the above reported issues are also well-known ), as you can see here. I’m glad to have a external display allowing me to take back control – and actually see it!

That’s it? Nope. Battery life is over, okay, no comment here, just normal. But case life too? Actually its broken in two places, and it appears to me to be just lousy. really. I’m quite confident though that it won’t happen with a new Alu MacBook, which I’m going to buy as soon as I find out about my fathers credit card number. Any hints welcome.

Good night.

Update: After I posted this here, my ComboDrive began making strange noises. And hasn’t stopped doing that since. Hmlz.

Blogger.com won’t let me undo “Delete Blog”

Well, essentially thats it. I clicked that button, and normally there would be some kind of confirmation. Guess what. Nothing. Just vanished. That sucks, I really wanted to import it here. Really. Sucks. Argh. Anyway, if you are a blogger.com user, keep that always in mind. There is nothing between online and fully available and gone away forever. I’d be happy if someone could provide me with a dump of his rss-reader featuring the contents of my old blog. And no, I don’t have any backups, and I hate myself for that. 

With a new blog, and fairly excited because he’s going to get a visitor tonight: Momo