Whats good about spreadsheets? Spreadsheet applications offers a lot of usability. The concept of using a grid of variables that are easy to reference is a surprisingly powerful  concept. Many applications can be prototyped in spread sheet applications. I use google drive in order to have a powerful and flexible time reporting solution. I quickly realized that in order to have a software that exceeds these benefits, I would have to spend a lot of time writing it. What can be improved? A few days ago I [...]

Whats good about spreadsheets? Spreadsheet applications offers a lot of usability. The concept of using a grid of variables that are easy to reference is a surprisingly powerful  concept. Many applications can be prototyped in spread sheet applications. I use google drive in order to have a powerful and flexible time reporting solution. I quickly realized that in order to have a software that exceeds these benefits, I would have to spend a lot of time writing it. What can be improved? A few days ago I [...]

We have written a lot of ruby code in the project I’m currently working in. There is a lot of code to help manage, build and schedule the program. We started out simple enough. Just one folder with helper scripts. After 2 years we have built up support for a wide variety of tasks.<h3> Command line tools</h3> We have used and abused<blockquote class="tr_bq"> $:.unshift File.dirname(FILE) </blockquote>  and similar constructs far to much. This makes it hard to get a good overview of dependencies between file[...]

We have written a lot of ruby code in the project I’m currently working in. There is a lot of code to help manage, build and schedule the program. We started out simple enough. Just one folder with helper scripts. After 2 years we have built up support for a wide variety of tasks. Command line tools We have used and abused $:.unshift File.dirname(__FILE__) and similar constructs far to much. This makes it hard to get a good overview of dependencies between files. In order to get islands of related code [...]

We first heard of the Australian government gettings fallout from the US because of voiced concerns about using offshore cloud providers. Some technologists I have talked with thought it obvious that the US government would use available means to get accurate information given the obsolesce of  certain infrastructure. This might spell an increased demand for local alternatives for business software.  Another way is to start deploying software in a more security conscious manner. For instance encrypting the[...]