A few selected sips from the Twitter stream.
What’s Hot
Top-Ten lists are passé—ours goes to 11. These are the top titles that folks are interested in currently, along with their rank from last month. This is based solely on direct sales from our online store.
| 1 | 1 | Agile Web Development with Rails |
| 2^ | NEW | The Agile Samurai |
| 3v | 2 | iPad Programming |
| 4^ | 9 | Hello, Android |
| 5^ | 7 | The RSpec Book |
| 6^ | NEW | Using JRuby |
| 7v | 4 | Seven Languages in Seven Weeks |
| 8v | 3 | Rails Test Prescriptions |
| 9^ | 10 | Agile Web Development with Rails, Third Edition |
| 10^ | NEW | Programming Ruby 1.9 |
| 11^ | NEW | Arduino |
Retweeted is the New Slashdotted
An Italian film company is flying to Oregon to interview me this month. A Brazilian magazine has sent me a list of interview questions via email. I’m sure I can’t be that interesting, or I’d be getting more retweets. Here are some comments we thought worthy of retweeting, for one reason or another. —Mike
Simplicity, Productivity, and Other Threats to Our Way of Life
RT @al3x: “The only weapons we have [in programming] are simplicity and convention.” http://bit.ly/98E6VR — @jhooks
Just when programming was threatening to become productive, along came browser incompatibility to save our profession. — @KentBeck
An approach I often take to testing web application performance is similar to how the US Army tested WW2 recruits for syphilis. — @QualityFrog
Man infects himself with computer virus. http://u.nu/6szsa — @GuyKawasaki
While You Were Sleeping
Rails 2.3.6 is out. Because I write tests, my upgrades are going flawlessly. How are yours going? — @bphogan
So apparently Ajax means “uses JavaScript” and HTML5 now means “doesn’t use Flash.” — @simonw
Stephen Fry to judge Guardian Hay festival’s Twitter competition. http://bit.ly/csHIyN — @guardiantech
Nevada bans chicken suits from polling places. — @anamariecox
In case you missed it: Google checks the rear view mirror, sees the competition spinning wheels. http://tnw.to/16DLy — @TheNextWeb
Guy across the street is proclaiming that he’s too much of a CD guy to move to mp3 because CDs “sound better.” There are CD purists? — @geoffreywiseman
Now @pragprog enters viking land – Pomodoro Technique Illustrated will be translated into Swedish. http://wp.me/paY4e-c2 — @staffannoteberg
I really should get around to watching LOST. I've heard it’s a good show. — @HuntHenning
Deep Thoughts
Now that this unnamed decade is almost over, it occurs to me that it should be called the pre-teens. It was about that confusing & awkward. — @noradio
RT @jasonjwwilliams: There are only two hard problems in Comp Sci: 1. Cache invalidation 2. Naming things 3. Off-by-one errors. — @mmazur
Do you have to parallel park a parallel universe? How many tries do I get? — @merlyn
It was satisfying to respond to the salesman's suggestion that I do an exchange with, “That’s not possible as I destroyed it in anger.” — @noradio
In Case You Were Wondering
No, your iPod doesn’t get heavier when you add songs, in case you were wondering: http://ow.ly/1OJ9c — @danfrakes
“Almost all (99.9%) nucleotide bases are exactly the same in all people.” Why can’t we be friends, why can’t we be friends... — @mandosally
“Genetics loads the gun and the environment pulls the trigger.” Good point to remember! Clinical Genomics CE #mla2010 — @mandosally
Pac-Man’s 30th birthday was marred by the sudden deportation of the Super Mario Bros. What were those fools doing in Arizona? — @ConanOBrien
The Venn diagram for elegant JavaScript code and cross-browser DOM scripting is two different circles. — @jeresig
I love ketchup. It’s the only reason I eat fries. — @ericjbruno
Why Not Why?
The “most faved Tweets” of @_why (also known as why the lucky stiff)
Yeah, we follow some odd tweeters, and you can follow us on twitter.

