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^ | 2 | Agile Web Development with Rails |
2^ | 3 | The RSpec Book |
3v | 1 | Crafting Rails Applications |
4^ | 6 | Hello, Android |
5 | 5 | Seven Languages in Seven Weeks |
6v | 4 | Programming Ruby 1.9 |
7^ | NEW | iPhone SDK Development |
8^ | NEW | The Definitive ANTLR Reference |
9^ | NEW | Cocoa Programming |
10v | 7 | HTML5 and CSS3 |
11^ | NEW | Learn to Program |
Inquiring Minds Couldn’t Care Less
Twitter is a great place to ask those questions that you just have to ask but that nobody’s going to answer.
Why the heck does it take Leopard so long to install? — @HuntHenning
Do you write Cucumber features in Romanian? — @aslak_hellesoy
Don’t you play music when you code? — @louielouie
Do you use zillow.com to see how property you used to own is doing? — @davewiner
Are you a Groovy guy, then, looking for some cool tips and finding none? — @SamirTalwar
Don’t all good projects start with a ‘G’? — @matthewmccull
Can you contribute to mine instead of maintaining your own? — @edavis10
Who will do for Prolog what Clojure has done for Lisp? — @puredanger
Anyone in the twitterverse have a recommendation for a hair-clogged drain? — @squarepegsys
Any recommendations for a good work-friendly coffee shop around Lincolnwood/Rogers Park? — @eng
What iPad applications are a must for me to try out? — @JEG2
Are we witnessing Agile Bread Development? — @dimsumthinking
Wait, what? When? — @rit
Damn, the word “acknowledgements” is so long. Can we call it A14S from now on? — @bphogan
Acknowledgements
You did it! You totally have the right to brag.
First review of Japanese Pomodoro Technique Illustrated comes from Gordon Pask awarded Kenji Hiranabe http://bit.ly/hjxP2C — @staffannoteberg
#GQuick has another 5-star review: "The best 200 pages of technical literature I have ever read." http://amzn.to/hDAZKi — @daveklein
Just blogged: Driving Technical Change book review—http://bit.ly/gGKn0O — @pragdave
First audio interview describing the genesis of the Agile Samurai is now available via Pragmatic Bookshelf—wp.me/pt5cX-oF — @jrasmusson
It’s official, I’ll be joining Microsoft as the GM for System Experience in the Interactive Entertainment Business: http://is.gd/jc9AO — @rahulsood
I earned the Radiohead(50) sticker on @GetGlue! http://bit.ly/fsz6tG — @chadfowler
New on Ihnatko.com: Why I’m better than the banking industry. http://bit.ly/i18niX — @Ihnatko
Yay, only 15 failures left in my test suite. Then on to all the prototype JS stuff that no longer works. #rails3upgrade — @bphogan
Tweets of Science
Scientists link size of amygdala to size, complexity of person’s social networks. http://bit.ly/f9Z8Bp — @hrheingold
Ray Kurzweil reckons he knows how to live forever. So how’s that working out for him so far? http://bit.ly/h8LXJv — @newscientist
Would a hamster & a dog survive if dropped from on high? The RI Christmas lectures—BBC 4: 28, 29, 30 Dec, 8 pm http://bit.ly/gLyyNr — @newscientist
The t-distribution in statistics was invented by the guy responsible for quality control in the Guinness Brewery. Another triumph for beer. — @marick
Mathematics is the only subject that many people BRAG about hating. — @janetbyronander
Solar panels for your pants. http://idek.net/3gGm — @GuyKawasaki
The Coding Life
A woman tells her programmer husband: “Get me a quart of milk? And if they have eggs, get a dozen.” He comes back with 12 quarts of milk. — @bphogan
I just found myself touching a word in a paper book, hoping to get a definition. — @pragdave
When working against deadlines involving computers, don’t get your eyes dilated by the optometrist. #lessonlearnetoolate #cantfocus — @adamgoucher
The easiest way to shut down WikiLeaks would be to have Yahoo acquire it. http://read.bi/eiyeZJ — @hblodget
One good way to learn your bug fix was correct: People complain that their “loophole” code stopped working because of the bugfix. — @rit
Opportunity lost: “Welcome to day one at your new job, here’s a memo about the dress code.” http://www.jdwalt.com/?p=67 — @theworkinggeek
Listening to the Tron soundtrack while I code makes me feel way, way cooler than I actually am. — @benrady
Tweets of Wisdom
There is no writing, only rewriting. There is no coding, only refactoring. There is no testing, only feedback. — @PragmaticAndy
Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution. — @cshirky
If people are not trying to hire your employees, you have the wrong employees. And if they leave, you have the wrong model. — @adamgoucher
Job boards no more “help” you find a job than a billboard “helps” you find a new pair of shoes. http://bit.ly/aRecvK — @theworkinggeek
Efficient is othogonal to Effective! — @staffannoteberg
It says a lot about humanity that the word “hypocrite” has no antonym. — @trevorburnham
I haven’t read the #pomodoro book yet, but just thinking about it makes me focus more. — @javaHelena
The senti-mentalist: “Think of a card. Maybe it was your favorite card from back-porch games of Whist with your grandfather….” — @undees
If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion. — @DalaiLama
Snow Tip: The other people out shoveling are called “neighbors.” They are like Facebook friends who live nearby. — @pourmecoffee
Life Is Frustrating, but then a Cool App Comes Along, and Everything’s Great
I’ve failed after 4 attempts to enter the right Capcha on this registration site—I am no longer human. — @venkat_s
“Nor can we currently ship Nexus S orders to Canadian addresses.” #foiled — @adamgoucher
Isle of Man is crazy. As part of the entry you have to assure them the cost of transporting your corpse is already covered. — @wolever
#amigos can call it a Crisp Meat Burrito all they want; they’ll never convince me that the name is more than 2/3 true. — @scottdavis99
Gave a demo of Word Lens to my wife. Thought she was going to pass out. — @eng
Gonna be a lot of angry frat boys when Word Lens starts translating Kanji tattoos. — @ryanirelan
London kids throwing snowballs at me in the street. Hit one back in the face. Fun! — @aslak_hellesoy
After much soul-searching, we decided to clean up the spelling and punctuation and so forth in the tweets we found. So the people credited actually said what we credited them with saying, but not necessarily precisely how we said they said it. This month those people included Dion Almaer, Janet Byron Anderson, Henry Blodget, Trevor Burnham, Eric Davis, Ian Dees, Luis de la Rosa, Brian Eng, Chad Fowler, Adam Goucher, James Edward Gray II, Aslak Hellesøy, Hobie Henning, Helena Hjertén, Brian Hogan, Mike Hostetler, Andy Hunt, Andy Ihnatko, Ryan Irelan, Guy Kawasaki, Dave Klein, Dalai Lama, Andy Lester, Brendan W. McAdams, Matthew J McCullough, Brian Marick, Alex Miller, New Scientist, Staffan Nöteberg, @pourmecoffee, Ben Rady, Jonathan Rasmusson, Howard Rheingold, Clay Shirky, Rahul Sood, Daniel Steinberg, Venkat Subramaniam, Samir Talwar, Dave Thomas, Dave Winer, and David Wolever. Fair is fair: you can follow us on twitter.
Twitter is now complete. @slightlylate has joined the party. Call it done! — @dalmaer