By Michael Ryan February 4th, 2010, under Javascript
I’ve been charged with rewriting a huge chunk of Javascript on my employers eCommerce site.
This Javascript represents years of arcane and contradicting business logic, interface decisions made by boisterous merchandisers with little to no perspective on user interaction, and a data model that is scarcely translated in whole to the front-end.
I have often been accused in my career for building things from scratch even with there is functioning but imperfect code laying around. One of my first nicknames here was “The Chef”.
I am certain nobody will ridicule me for choosing to take this one from the ground up though. Santa Maria!
Every line is crafted with perfection, this API will be a symphony. They always knew the words, I will teach them the music.
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By Michael Ryan January 29th, 2010, under iPhone
But that’s ok, because your cell phone does. Your laptop does too. As does your desktop PC these days if you are buying retail. Here’s the shocker though, even your camera has a camera these days. They think of everything, don’t they?
The lack of camera on the iPad may be a sign of prescience on Apple. They realize that there’s a saturation of random shit that takes grainy pictures of funny signs and babies, and decided to put one less breakable part into their product. The fact that they still sell classic iPods should be a signal that Apple’s goal isn’t to give you a one size fits all product, (though most devices certainly are, some are not, Apple TV anyone?). They build lean and potent machines designed for a moderate subset of tasks.
But that’s just the beginning of the complaints. It doesn’t do Flash, it doesn’t multitask, the storage is limited, doesn’t run OS X apps, and on and on and on.
They already made something that does ALL of that, it’s called the Macbook Air, and nobody bought it.
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By Michael Ryan January 26th, 2010, under Generic Rambling
I think that in the grand spectrum of things, it is better for a designer, or even a particular kind of developer, to have things in his body of work that he’d rather not associate himself anymore. It shows people that you’ve grown and improved over time, and moreover, that you’ve done enough in your life to have the luxury of picking and choosing what work you want to represent your name.
I frequently look back, perhaps more often than not, on things I’ve done in the past with a certain disbelief that I could have created it, knowing that if I did it today I’d be so much better at it. In my brief career I’ve probably made over 60 sites from start to finish, and perhaps only 4 to 8 of them are really trophies. The rest are muddled in compromise and budget restrictions. This has caused me anxiety when trying to build any type of portfolio, but it’s only then do I realize that 8 strong pieces are better than 50 questionable ones.
I’m trying my hand at web design today. I’ve only personally designed one website ever that I’ve been truly satisfied with, and that dates back to even high school. I’ve got the tools, I’ve had them. I just need to figure out how to articulate my will into results.
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By Michael Ryan January 25th, 2010, under Generic Rambling
My first employer finally took down my good looking Flash promo site for their company. Probably more to do with the fact that they can’t keep anyone employed who can actually maintain it, than the fact that it was outdated.
I found the source files for the site and I need to do a little voodoo so I can get them up here. It’s worth looking at. It was really my first big Flash project, and even though, by my own standards these days, it was poorly coded, it’s still damn cool.
One time a guy from Isreal reverse engineered the SWF’s and redid it in Hebrew and sent us a poorly translated e-mail to the effect of “I hope you don’t mind”. Well, he put a white tiger instead of an alligator, so no, no I do not mind… if you can explain what white tigers have to do with Isreal.
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By Michael Ryan January 21st, 2010, under Generic Rambling
Please understand when discovering the word “Twilight” in speech, double check for the word “hate” preceding it.
That is all.
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