Switch. Cocoa & Objective-C: the good, the bad, and the extremely ugly. Or, what it feels like switching from Java to Objective-C. Not a big surprise if you know anything about the history behind OS X. Like any other language made to make your life simpler, the dynamic aspects can be surprising at first, but end up making all the difference:
What really blows me away is that some of the things the Frameworks provide are way, way beyond anything Java can give you, with or without additional libraries – Java is so verbose in this aspect compared to Objective-C.
The algorithm. Cue ominous sound track and flickering lights. Ok, not that scary. Some algorithms are smarter than us, even when they don’t use the insight we think will make all the difference:
My explanation is a bit simplistic, but honestly, to anyone out there that still has any doubts that extra movie data may be useful to predict user ratings, I say that you have to have faith in the machine. It’s just smarter than we are.
Lost control. If you don’t already know, Firefox 3.1 is going to introduce a new feature for switching between tabs. You can download it as the Ctrl-Tab plugin for 3.0. I tried it for a week. More precisely, I tried to like it for a week. I used it for a few hours, disabled it in frustration, then thought ”maybe I’m too set in my ways, give it another chance”, enabled, rinse repeat for most of the week. I can now say with clear conscious: Foxtrot Alpha India Lima.
Atul takes a more UXP approach to analyzing why Ctrl-Tab makes you lose control over your tabbing. If anyone at Mozilla reading this: please, no.
Damn. Am I getting old fast or what? “Let’s admit it, most elderly people can’t handle today’s “new fangled” television remotes.” Neither can I. These things scare me. They were obviously created for someone smarter than my channel-surfing volume-modulating self.
I better stop reading about how elderly people and other mainstream users approach technology, it just feels so depressing. Give me less buttons, I’ll return my geek card when I’m done. (Via Sterling)
Want! First-person R/C car. How can you not want to drive one?