Tag Better
Yesterday and today, I worked with Alex Bischoff and Chris Griego on a Rails Rumble project. In less than forty-eight hours, we set out to build a web application, using Ruby, from the ground up. While we didn’t boil the ocean, we did come up with something interesting.
Tag Better is the groundwork for an app that enhances one of our favorite, but often neglected, sites: del.icio.us. Personally, I’ve tried other bookmarking tools such as a plain text file, EagleFiler and pinboard.in (which I think has an excellent chance of eclipsing Delicious). However, I’ve found myself back on Delicious, even after a hiatus.
Given Yahoo’s unsteady stewardship of the site, we figured it’s time to take matters in our own hands. Using their API, it’s entirely possible for us to build enhancements on top of Delicious. We decided to do just that.
h2. Triage and tidying
We started out from a gem of an idea that Chris had. When you’re trying to better organize your tags and bundles in Delicious, there are two modes you might want to operate under. The first couple times, you need to do triage. Get stuff roughly into order, and start creating a filing system. Once you’ve got everything under control, you switch to tidying. Now you just need to keep things clean or maybe switch things around that aren’t working well.
We tackled triage first. In specific, we wanted a way to filter down our list of tags, select a bundle, and add some of the filtered tags to that bundle.
h2. Try it out
To get started with Tag Better, you’ll first need to log in with your Delicious username and password (more on that in a moment.)
Once you’re logged in, you’ll see your tag bundles on the left and all your tags on the right. If you click a bundle, the tags that are included in that bundle are highlighted. Clicking a tag toggles its inclusion in the bundle. Changes in Tag Better are immediately reflected in Delicious.
That’s the core interaction. You can also logout, of course. And, if you feel the need, we offer a way to remove your bundle and tag data from our system’s caches.
We were just four short characters away from getting live filtering of your tags via the search box on the top right. Alex and I even got it working, but keyboard cat had already played us out at that point. I promise we’ll add it as soon as judging is over!
A couple other caveats: you might want to create a test bundle (in the Delicious UI) to play with, rather than one you’ve already organized. I don’t think there are problems in the code, but it never hurt to show caution. Also, IE support is probably “interesting”, at this point.
h2. Trust
Even though we need your Delicious username and password to edit bundles on your behalf, we have made sure to never store authentication information on our side. Your authentication data is stored in a cookie on your machine; if you don’t like that, you should probably skip out on using Tag Better as a hosted app. If you delete that cookie, we won’t operate on your data. Further, we’ve added the ability for you to remove your bundle and tag data from our system. That’s the only data that we save on our disks.
I mentioned trust and your authentication data earlier. It’s an important part of an application like this. We don’t want to screw your bookmarks up, and you don’t want us to do skeezy things with your bookmarks. Unfortunately, Delicious does not yet offer a delegated authentication API like Flickr and Twitter do. So, we’ve got two options.
On the one hand, you could trust us. This is up to you. I’d like to think that if you’ve met Alex, Chris or I, then you’re happy to use the application knowing we’ve got more amusing things to do than soil your bookmarks. Further, when the competition is over, we’ll open the source repository up to the public. If you’re a code-review sort of person, go nuts.
On the other hand, you could run it yourself. Again, once the competition is over, we’re going to release the code. Look over the readme, install the dependencies, and run it on your own hardware. Sleep safely at night knowing your password is safely ensconced on your personal machine.
Tomorrow I’ll talk a bit about the technology we used to make Tag Better. Until then, I hope you’ll give it a try. If you have ideas for feedback, leave a comment here!
Fun
Cannonball Adderley:
It's called "Fun". F-U-N, fun. That's something you can do, when everything is mellow.
Here’s to mellow times. Seemed appropriate for a Friday.
The mystery of good art
The trick about good art is that it has some mystery, an unknown. The problem is that if you get too close to the art, you risk unraveling the mystery. If you deconstruct it, engage it, or study it, the unknown becomes known. Thus, if I really enjoy a song (in particular), movie, etc. I stay away from taking it apart to see how it works. I’d rather enjoy it for a long time.
I have this problem where I over-listen to an album. It started in my teenage years. I learned all the bass-lines for Pearl Jam’s Ten. After that, I couldn’t listen to the album for ten years; I knew all the secrets, all the interesting bits. Rewind a year ago, and The Who’s Live At Leeds was my jam. Now, I can’t listen to it.
But I’ve been very rigorous about listening to Bruce Springteen’s Born To Run. It is such a perfect piece that I only allow myself to listen to it once a month[1]. No more. Similarly, I won’t let myself learn to play any of the songs on the guitar. I want to maintain that mystery.
I wonder if there is other art like this. Could you get overexposed to a Mondrian painting or a Hemingway book? Even with works that are more popular in their sensibilities, is it possible? Is there such a thing as too much Starry Night or Ghostbusters?[2]
The bottom line: enjoy good art, but take care not to over-enjoy it.
fn1. I even feel like I’m cheating if I listen to Born To Run in anything but album-form. To hear “Thunder Road” or “Jungleland” by itself feels incomplete, like I’m missing something.
fn2. Yes, I just put these on the same level, even though I’m not much of a van Gogh aficionado.
Testify
Two unrelated and great songs, one title.
“Testify” by Parliament
“Testify” by Stevie Ray Vaughn
Enjoy!
Gird your greyscales
Logan Hicks has some really great subterranean photography going on. (Via Infrastructurist)
And if you like that, you’d probably also like some Russian submarines, their interiors, and their underground bases.
While we’re dwelling on intriguing/depressing concrete structures: one dude’s home built into a former missile silo and the Oak Ridge plant where the materials for the Manhattan Project were refined.
Getting to know your bookshelf
The Book Stalker - Rands figures you out by your bookshelf:
Where’s your bookshelf? It’s this awkward moment whenever I first walk into your home. Where is it? Everyone has one. It might not be huge. It might be hidden in a closet, but in decades of meeting new people, I’ve never failed in finding one and when I do I consume it.
Here’s mine from almost two years ago (plus more):
I’ve since expanded to two shelves and look forward to the day when I can devote a whole wall to just reading. As I often tell myself as I sit down to start, “reading is the best”.
Free Parking Is Not Free
Free Parking Isn’t Free. Turns out those parking lots, while sometimes handy, are actually pretty gnarly, if your goal is to build a nice place to live:
Throughout the 1940s and 50s, as automobile use became prolific in the United States, parking became a problem, congesting streets and overflowing into neighbors' lots. In response, most municipalities instituted off-street parking minimums requiring developers to provide all the parking that the residences or shops would need on-site. This seemingly sensible notion has created a cascade of problems. It encourages sprawl by spreading buildings apart to make room for more parking (requirements usually demand more area for parking than the building it supports). It also weakens urban design, as urban buildings are torn down to make room for desolate surface lots, and hulking parking garages sprouted in downtown areas. It discourages revitalization of existing historic buildings, since developers have trouble meeting modern parking requirements in neighborhoods that were built before auto dominance. And the requirements drive up the cost of development: parking spaces can cost between $10,000 and $50,000 – typically more than the cost of the car that occupies it. High parking requirements can raise the price of homes and apartments by $50,000 to $100,000, a serious challenge to affordability.
When I have more money that I know what to do with, I’m going to start buying up parking lots and turning them into parks. It’ll be my little way of sticking it to people who drive over-large cars.
Kill your menubar darlings
The Menubar Challenge - everybody, clear out your menubars! It’s one of my secret productivity weapons, I highly recommend it. Also, read everything on Minimal Mac; it’s the best.
Here’s my current attempt to use as little as possible in my menubar:
LittleSnapper normally isn’t running, so that doesn’t count. If I could, I would run DropBox and FastScripts without menubar icons. I’m still not sure I like having a clock visible at all times, but at least analog clocks are classy-lookin'. I’d love to remove the battery icon, but it appears doing so disables the “your battery is tapped” warnings, leading to spontaneous laptop sleeping.
My setup
Shawn Blanc has been cataloging sweet Mac setups. Last week, he published a description of my own creative den. If you find this sort of thing as intriguing as I do, also check out The Setup.
Balmer =~ Tarkin
Steve Ballmer:
Evacuate? In our moment of triumph? I think you overestimate their chances.
OK, maybe that’s Grand Moff Tarkin. Either way, I’m considering this my birthday present from John Gruber.
Code re-use as technical debt
I have extremely mixed feelings about code re-use. I think it’s largely a red herring, never working out as well as developers would hope. After all, developers are like golfers; always optimistic about how well an approach will work or how far down the fairway their ball landed.
But here’s a real stab in the side of code re-use: in many cases, it’s tantamount to technical debt. Embrace technical debt:
For example, early on at IMVU, we incorporated in tons of open source projects. This was a huge win (and we were delighted to give credit where it was due), because it allowed our initial products to get to market much faster. The downside was that we had to combine dozens of projects whose internal architectures, coding styles, and general quality varied widely. It took us a long time to pay off all the debt that incurred – but it was worth it.
Using someone else’s code will help you keep moving now, but you stand a good chance of needing to rewrite it later.
That’s not to say it’s all bad. By the time you know you need to replace someone else’s code, you’ll have learned about the domain it covers and how you need to solve that problem in your domain.
Keep it in mind: just because you can drop someone else’s code into your app and use it, doesn’t mean it’s all roses and butterscotch.
rufus-tokyo goes 1.0.0
rufus-tokyo 1.0.0 - I’ve been tinkering with Tokyo Cabinet and Tyrant lately. It’s great stuff. Grab this gem and start tinkering!
Differently hackish keyword arguments for Ruby
maca’s arguments - keyword arguments support for Ruby, now. Wickedly clever hack that does reflection on Ruby 1.9 and uses ParseTree for Ruby 1.8. Simpler than I thought it’d be, I wish I’d thought of that.
Caveat: I haven’t tried it yet. It might punch kittens. In fact, if you think parts of Ruby are “too magical”, this definitely punches kittens.
Interviewing to seek values
Adam Wiggins, per usual, is on to something. Values:
Sharing values is the most important part of effective collaboration. If you don’t have significant overlap on values between you and your teammates, you’re going to have a tough time getting anything accomplished.
I’m starting to think that figuring what the other person puts a premium on is the most important part of a technical interview. Is the other person passionate in the same way you are? Are the things they obsess over complimentary to what you would rather gloss over? If the answer to these questions is yes, you’ll probably make awesome things together.
Infinite Jest and fanatics
Infinite Jest on patriotism, fanatics, love, attachments, and temples:
‘Your U.S.A. word for fanatic, “fanatic,” do they teach you it comes from the Latin for “temple”? It is meaning, literally, “worshipper at the temple.”‘
I found this passage striking as well. On the one hand, Wallace writes great dialog. Even when most of the dialog is a monologue with ignored interjections by the other character. On the other hand, some great etymology and word-play here.
And then there’s the point: choose your core philosophies carefully. Is it really worthwhile to identify yourself as a Rails person, a libertarian, or a connoisseur of fart jokes?
Side note: I’m doing this whole Infinite Summer thing because, at my core, I enjoy the challenge of reading books that are just too long. This is very borderline hipster, so I promise never to refer to David Foster Wallace by his initials, because that’s just confusing when you live in Dallas.
Software development requires empathy
If You Want to Write Useful Software, You Have to Do Tech Support:
It seems so obvious: if you want to develop software that’s useful to people, you’ve got to talk with them. But too many developers take the anti-social approach and consider customer support to be beneath their status. Besides, talking with customers would distract them from important code-slinging.
I have to remind myself, almost every day, that one of the the most important qualities I can possess as a developer is empathy. Primarily for the user, their cognitive load, and what they’re trying to accomplish. But further, for the developer who comes to my code when I’m done, the guy who operates it, and everyone else down the line.
Instapaper is wonderful
I have loved Instapaper ever since I became aware of it. It fits perfectly into my workflow. There’s tons of stuff I want to read, but not just yet. Instapaper gives you a little bookmarklet to save these jewels for later when you’ve got more time to slow down and read a longer piece.
When the accompanying iPhone app came out, I fell in love again. Instapaper is perfect for filling your interstitial time, which is something I often find myself when I fish my iPhone out of my pocket. Also, you have to check out the tilt-scrolling feature; every reading app should implement it.
The love affair grew stronger recently. The newest version of the iPhone app came out boasting great improvements to the interaction design and new functionality that makes it an even better tool for occupying the time where you would otherwise find yourself day-dreaming[1].
Firstly: a sort of light-weight feed reading mechanism. It’s not for every site out there; there’s a curated list of sites you can consume in this way. I went with The Economist, but noticed things like Wikipedia Featured, Wired, The New Yorker, and popular stories posted to Instapaper. Great idea.
Next: folders. I’ve used it to organize my reading list into topics so that I can quickly go to whatever matches my mood or energy level. This functionality is present in the web app too, and Marco’s done a great job of making it really easy to set things up just the way you want.
Finally: shared favorites. Peek into what other people have marked as great reading. Maybe it’s a cliche “social feature”, but I’m excited to see curated reading lists from my wonderful friends.
In conclusion: Marco Ament is awesome, start using Instapaper and leave your username in the comments so I can read your stuff.
fn1. For example, wondering why butterscotch is so awesome.