Idle/Random/whatever Thoughts of a Demented/Idle/Whatever Mind

 1. Booleans are a trap : Booleans, while seemingly simple, can introduce complexity and limitations into domain modeling. When used to represent complex states, booleans can lead to unclear code and potential errors. To avoid these pitfalls, consider using enums or enum sets. These approaches provide a more expressive and maintainable way to model complex states in your applications. My Take : I wish I had learned this earlier in life. When working with Google Docs, I realized the limitations of booleans. Expanding boolean-based behaviors often led to adding more fields, making the system complex. Enums would have provided a simpler solution. The problem wasn't just the booleans themselves, but also the need to pass them through multiple layers of the stack, often requiring additional parameters. Another important aspect of enums is the inclusion of an " enum not specified " state. This state explicitly indicates that an enum value hasn't been set, which can be usef...

Contd from here (I am sorry but I am really drowning in work right now ) Ok after lunch it was time for another round of sessions. This time there were supposed to be some parallel session. This meant you win some, you loose some. But its fine with barcamps. To make sure people are awake, alive and kicking, Anil, COO, Aditi Technologies, dumped his usual upper level management fundas and let loose a volley of Shayaris, with a twist. I sorry I dont recall any(Ya its been a long time too ) Next in line was Aashish Solanki a.k.a. Net Bramha with an interesting topic, Art and Science of Web Design. It was more of discussion. Some interesting points were Differentiate between structure and skin. Something which is good for you might not be good for others. Getting their requirements is important. An interesting comment from Aashish was "IE is the Labour Pain of Web Development". Why well, most of you time goes in checking if the page is render...

Well there has been a lot hoola hoo over the recent releases of Firefox and Opera. But here are certain things that still suck and would like them to be removed. 1. Better plugins and make them such that they dont hang that tab or window. 2. Download accelerator be integrated in the download manager of the browser itself. Hardly makes sense keeping them dumb. 3. Super fast start is not possible for various technical reasons but a preloader program would definitely be kind of must have. 4. Get more screen real estate to the page and make rest of the things like toolbar, menubar and optionally even status bar visible on a need basis like the playbar in video players in full screen mode. 5. Subscribing to an RSS feed to Google Reader or iGoogle is  a dumb two step process now. Google Reader or iGoogle be made two different options. 6. Tabs must have a 3D effect or something really cool. Switching like pages is so yesterday. 7. Make download dialog unobtrusive. Make it so...

5th November(instead of 8th because of Diwali) was celebrated as World Usability Day. Bangalore was not untouched by the phenomenon, though it would rather had been a major thing. But clearly with over 120(My guess) it was not ignorable event. Long time since the usability aspects have been ignored by the technologists. iPhone and iPod have clearly shown the way. They were nothing radical in concept but they infact radically changed the usability part of the respective equipments. I must add here that I was late for the event. But none the less I did have the opportunity to hear Mr MP Ranjan on Designing. His take on the Design for the user and design in various fields. Pretty much the whole talk is online at his blog http://design-for-india.blogspot.com/ . But it was real experience to hear it from the horse's mouth. Next Sarit from HFI presented the findings of usability test of Indian Railways Online reservation site at http://www.irctc.co.in/ . Ironically it was the awarde...