In my head

Chrome extension with CoffeeScript

Tue, 05 Jul 2011 11:47:57 +0300

In this post I will describe how I worked with coffeescript for developing the chrome extension of appsflyer.

First of all, coffee-watcher is a must IMO. What it does is to watch .coffee files in a folder and compile them to javascript files as they are saved. At first I thought, what’s the point? One of the nice features of dynamic languages is the no need for compilation. With coffeescript however it felt more like validation and less like compilation. It actually made me feel confident about the code I write, something that is lacking in javascript.

Since I created a chrome extension and in order to publish chrome extensions you generally zip compress a folder and upload it, by default the .coffee files will be packed as well. This can be easily handled by a script however I was lazy and just hardlinked (using the ln command, on windows you can use junction) the output javascript file from coffee-watcher to the extensions folder.

If you know something about chrome extensions, then you probably know that content scripts which are the components used to interact and manipulate the DOM of the webpage itself, are just javascript files. This means that adding html to the page can be a pain, unless you consider messing around with javascript string concatenation fun. With the help of coffeescript’s heredocs to hold html markup and Mustache when you need templating, this problem is easily solved.

After creating a chrome extension with the help of html5, I am convinced that the browser is a viable runtime environment for rich application. For the next projects I plan to use backbone.js or something similar.

iCard - Product suggestion for Apple

Sun, 12 Jun 2011 12:50:52 +0300

The introduction of the iCloud made me re-think a product idea I had before.

I once thought that it would be cool to have a product like the eye-fi that will send a photo from your high-quality camera to the iPhone, iPad or Android device for quick editing (instagram style) before sharing. Eye-fi has an mobile app that can do something like that however I don’t own a card so I never tested it.

Now, with the iCloud, if you had a (lets call it) iCard, you could turn every digital camera to an iCloud enabled device with seamless iOS devices (and OSX) integration.

iOS5 - The back button is all that's missing now (and a decent home screen)

Fri, 10 Jun 2011 15:29:44 +0300

I am an Android user.

I started with the Samsung Galaxy, moved to the Nexus One and moved on to the Samsung Galaxy S.

In between, I had an iPhone 3GS for a short while, hated every minute, and just wanted to go back to Android. It had nothing to do with multitasking and technical stuff like that. It was all about the basic stuff like user experience in the broader meaning.

The iPhone’s contacts management is terrible. I manage my contacts in Gmail. Synching to Android is transparent (obviously) but synching to iPhone was a nightmare. Setting it up was confusing, it messed up my contacts in Gmail, a cable was required (is it the 90’s?) and updating in one place (Gmail or iPhone) required another synching. Having it as master(pc)-slave(iOS) is just stupid.

It appeared to me that Apple are on a crusade to make iTunes the center of the world and that nothing could change that.

Apparently I was wrong…

But wait, one more thing I couldn’t stand about the iPhone lame notification system - an annoying and ugly popup. The Android’s notification drawer is so much better (as Apple indirectly admit with their new notifications system). Was a javascript’s alert the best apple could come up with? Even now with the new notifications it amazes me that a company like Apple released such a none user friendly feature.

Here I want to take the opportunity and close some open bills with iPhone groupies I know. They are so into following apple blind-folded, they actually tried to convince me that the popup notification the best notification system! Well apparently you were wrong…

One more thing that the iPhone misses is a back button. A real back button that can get you back from a browser window to the app that opened it. The crippled soft back button can’t do that and I use it a lot. I don’t consider closing the browser and then looking for the application again a good user experience. Please don’t argue on that groupies.

The home screen of the iPhone is a issue in itself. Dropping all the installed apps over there (and the folders don’t really help) make it looks like a feature phone on steroids. Cleaning it up and adding widgets could really help.

As I stated before I am an android user and a happy one. However, the iCloud is amazing, it is actually something that can make me move to the other camp. It took the good things that android had and did it even better. When I take a picture with my Android phone, I have to “explicitly” upload it to picasa. With iCloud it will just be there (if I got it correctly) as it should be.

I just hope that the iPhone 5 will have a back button.

Developing working habits with Python

Tue, 31 May 2011 13:11:00 +0300

I recently left my job to try to bootstrap something on my own (http://appsflyer.com).

Originally I am a .net developer with extensive experience with server-side technologies but I decided to make a transition and move to Python since I felt that the innovation happens on the Python/Ruby side. Besides, I always want to remove the shackles of static languages and I felt the the .net community follows the java community and embraces over-engineering.

It takes time to develop working habits, but for now here is how I work:

I usually use ipython first of all for prototyping. It is awesome to have something like that for a C# developer who used only to a compiler and a debugger.

After I got my results, I use the %hist -n command to get the command history, copy it and paste it to the text editor (PyCharm) for proper formatting.

Since Python does not require the boilerplate of C# to create an entry point, it makes sense to start with a script and then refactor it to classes and methods.

One of my favorite features of ipython is the embedding feature of ipython that lets you run a script and then work on the results in the interactive shell. Same goes for the %run command.

Improving my working habits and being more effective is a subject that really interests me and I would be happy to hear about more techniques for self improvement.

Stardust - Movie bookmarking app

Mon, 21 Feb 2011 20:00:07 +0200

I want to share the idea of a pet project I currently work on.

As the title suggests, it is a site for bookmarking movies. Currently I code-named it Stardust.

Why?

Wandering through the internet (imdb for example), I encounter a lot of movies I know I would like to watch, however, when I want to watch a movie, all these movies just pop out of my head and I can’t seem to remember none!

I usually end up just selecting a film that plays in a close by theater. It’s the same when watching a movie at home.

I am starting with with a basic and simple web application, but hope to continue with a mobile app and with features such as map display of theaters showing your bookmarked films.

I would love to get feedback - for both motivation and more ideas. You can leave a comment hear or ping on Twitter (@reshefm).

"Senior management is all about the innovation these days, but that’s only because..."

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 14:47:00 +0200

“Senior management is all about the innovation these days, but that’s only because they’re getting their butts kicked by competitors who have innovated beyond them. Companies form around a product idea, which becomes their raison detre — so most companies have that one moment of innovation, at their inception. The corporate structure is designed to optimize repeatability, which is completely at odds with innovation — the structure is set up to crush differences and make everything the same.”

The future of online messaging

Thu, 10 Feb 2011 11:58:06 +0200

“If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail”

Well apparently, email is the hammer of online messaging.

It is used for conversations, getting documents (from banks for example), file sharing, notifications and even advertising.

I recently expanded my toolbox to include tools such as Evernote and Dropbox. This made me reflect about the (ab)use of emails.

Evernote does much better job at storing documents and retrieving them later. Dropbox is so much better for file sharing. For casual conversations Twitter or IM are much better.

I would love if my bank sent me reports directly to the right place in my Evernote account.

Sniptwit's source on bitbucket

Mon, 24 Jan 2011 21:49:09 +0200

About a year ago I created sniptwit, an educational pet project I that lets you share code snippets on twitter. I created it to learn google app engine and python.

I now open sourced its code and placed it on bitbucket.

Take a look here.

The usability of the command line

Fri, 21 Jan 2011 01:13:36 +0200

There is no doubt that the graphic user experience is more usable and fun to work with than a terminal or a command line, however, as a developer I find the command line features of frameworks such as Django and Grails much more usable and simple than the graphical features of modern IDE’s.

"… all software is designed by the arcane demands of programming languages and databases"

Mon, 11 Oct 2010 23:32:53 +0200

“… all software is designed by the arcane demands of programming languages and databases”

- The Inmates Are Running The Asylum

Working with Waterfall

Mon, 11 Oct 2010 17:18:53 +0200

I am working on a Waterfall project again and being reminded of what’s wrong with it (a lot).

The gantt gave me 4 days to work on a feature however I am a little behind. Since the gantt said it will take 4 days (and it can’t be extended since it will impact other assignments) and I know that I have the testing phase of the QA ahead, I am not going to complete this feature and let the QA open bugs on that when the time comes. I am buffering to the testing phase.

Now I will finish the task in 4 days and everybody will be happy.

Ridiculous, isn’t it?

I love micro web frameworks

Tue, 05 Oct 2010 21:08:57 +0200

I just love micro web frameworks. I am using bottle right now. In seconds you have an http server running and serving pages.

Setting up an ASP.NET site would take half a day and it can really kill motivation when starting to play with an idea.

How to find a SaaS idea

Tue, 25 May 2010 11:21:00 +0300

Just figured it out. Excel is massively violated.

Just find any usage of Excel that it was not intended for (not generating graphs or statistics calculation) and you got a good candidate for SaaS application.

Just a simple example from the top of my mind - expense reports.

The Kayak Framework: An easy way to speak HTTP with .NET

Thu, 29 Apr 2010 17:04:15 +0300

The Kayak Framework: An easy way to speak HTTP with .NET

YAGNINM

Wed, 28 Apr 2010 09:59:39 +0300

The ‘NM’ that complement YAGNI stands for No More.

Adding to the YAGNI principle which stands for You ain’t gonna need it, YAGNINM stands for cases when you only keep an existing feature for backward compatibility sake when it is clear that this feature is not required anymore.

You just fall in love with the fact that you have this feature and have hard time getting rid of it, although having it complicates your design and has no or little value at the present.

Books' forwards

Tue, 27 Apr 2010 17:43:00 +0300

Don’t really understand why books (usually computer books) have a forward written by a reviewer.

The reviewer is a friend of the author who always praises the author’s skills and the remarkable book he wrote.

Other than that you got an introduction, preafce, etc.

Just put all this stuff on the back cover.

When I open the book I want to get straight to business!

I have to mention the book REWORK that differ from other books. Actually, this book made me aware to this.

IT Commando teams and Internal start-ups

Thu, 22 Apr 2010 10:51:46 +0300

Beware of a team that describes itself as a “Commando team” or “Internal startup” inside a corporate.

Chances are that they expect you to work start-up crazy but you will have to fight corporate bureaucracy and procedures.

Not a good combination in my experience…

Feel confident: Always have a plan B

Sun, 28 Mar 2010 15:45:57 +0300

I think this is the way to feel confident in your job. By having a plan B, you loose the fear of job insecurity.

For example, by having an idea for a business to start (such as a web initiative), you place yourself in a better position for a raise conversation in case you are not pleased with the results.

Excellent copywriting by 4square. Makes me want a revenge…

Thu, 25 Mar 2010 17:25:00 +0200

Excellent copywriting by 4square. Makes me want a revenge…

Rework advice - Avoid long term contarcts

Sun, 21 Mar 2010 14:56:00 +0200

I am reading the book Rework by 37 signals. One of the advices over there is to avoid long term contracts in order to reduce mass. I can uderstand the rational behind that but there is something that is not clear to me - there is no argue that you want to keep your customers happy, so shouldn’t you consider the first customer you have has a long term contract? You probably won’t tie yourself legally to these customers in a long term contract but still, you have the responsibility for them, don’t you?