Brian Marick is taking over the Twittersphere.
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^ | 8 | Hello, Android |
3^ | 4 | The RSpec Book |
4^ | NEW | Rails Test Prescriptions |
5v | 2 | Crafting Rails Applications |
6v | 3 | HTML5 and CSS3 |
7v | 5 | Programming Ruby 1.9 |
8^ | 11 | The Agile Samurai |
9v | 7 | Seven Languages in Seven Weeks |
10v | 6 | Agile in a Flash |
11v | 10 | Using JRuby |
This month, as an experiment, we left out all tweets dealing with weather, travel, the Super Bowl, the Super Bowl halftime show, or what music people were listening to when they tweeted.
Life Is Good...
This morning I am thankful for Rooibos. A steaming mug, an almost-impossible technical task, and the whole day ahead of me. Happy sigh…. — @KentBeck
Heading for home after a week of fire hydrant brain transfer on the coolest project ever. Plus, suitcase is filled with hardware. Awesome! — @jimweirich
Hacking on Cocoa. Watching Boardwalk Empire. Happy. — @alancfrancis
First time skiing in a helmet. Built-in headphones make it all worth while. Sun is shining, #phish is in my head. — @scottdavis99
The secret society continues to treat me well. — @JEG2
“Thank you! Your first invoice will be billed on December 31, 1969.” Sweet! — @ryanirelan
…Until the Pain Sets In
Dry corporate indoctrination right after lunch. Brutal. — @undees
IM’ed to me during a boring conference call: “This reminds me a scene from Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.” — @squarepegsys
Paul’s and my tolerance for lameness is pretty high, but one hour of Lexx 2.0 left us twitching uncontrollably on the floor. — @marick
I’ve always heard that you shouldn’t read slides to your audience. It’s even worse when it’s the first time you’ve read them. — @daveklein
Sadly, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Supercharged Kama Sutra Illustrated does not have a “Look Inside!” at Amazon. — @marick
“If it wasn’t for disappointment I wouldn’t have any appointments.” — @noradio
Just when my sense of self worth couldn’t get worse, @pandora_radio pegs me as someone who would enjoy that cheesy Just Breathe techno song. — @noradio
Oh crap, I can’t go shopping at Apple. I’m wearing my Apple hoodie from the mothership. — @invalidname
Seriously... why does everything in New Jersey close at 9 pm? — @rit
On days like this I just think, why didn’t I become a doctor like my mom wanted me to? — @jeffcohen
There are times when Beethoven Symphony 9, last movement, just pisses me off. — @marick
Agility Enters Teen Years, Becomes Awkwardness
Agile process in the absence of agility is like wings on a penguin; you can flap but not fly. — @venkat_s
People are attracted to large companies because of their stability. One can see how such people are slow to adopt agility. — @tottinge
Feeling the tension between agile, emergent design and considered, consistent interface design. — @ronhitchens
“In the long run every program becomes rococo—then rubble.”—Alan Perlis (cs.yale.edu/quotes.html) via: @jakedonham — @noradio
Refactoring is a mighty river. Take one step in along the edge which leads you to another and pretty soon you’re swept out to sea. — @KentBeck
Great process is so easy. Just like losing weight or getting in shape. — @jaredrichardson
It’s not the right set of tools that help us succeed, it’s the right set of tools in the hands of the right set of people. — @venkat_s
“Leadership” is a term of art in Agile. We use it to reassure alpha primates that they’ll get to keep their status. — @marick
CSM’s are now walking out of a 2 day course and calling themselves Agile Coaches? AWESOME! — @davidjbland
They Shoot Movies, Don’t They?
“The Road”—Well, that was cheerful. Great sound design. — @marick
Tweets of Wisdom
“The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise & thinking that having problems is a problem.”—T. Rubin. — @estherderby
Beware certainty: “Doubt grows with knowledge.”—Goethe — @PragmaticAndy
“Reasoning will never make a man correct an ill opinion which by reasoning he never acquired."—Jonathan Swift — @marick
The more I understand about spacetime, the less I understand time. — @mtnygard
If your shirt buttons pucker, you need a bigger shirt. #observationfromlastweek — @adamgoucher
Victory belongs to those in the fight; you can’t win if you don’t play the game. — @bdudney
Just because an ideal can’t be met, is no reason to dismiss the ideal. — @jwgrenning
You’ll never be up to date, but you can be ahead. — @KentBeck
A gentleman is someone who can play the accordion but doesn’t. — @PragmaticAndy
Does Brian Need an Intervention?
Why are there never zombie dogs? Zombie dogs would be cool. — @marick
@marick “Last Man on Earth” with Vincent Price had one. — @tottinge
Apparently the fictional universe is awash with zombie dogs. — @marick
“Zombie stories are inherently Hobbesian.”—the social theories behind “The Walking Dead.” http://bit.ly/hpInzP — @marick
“The legal status of a zombie is an interesting question.” Ain’t the internets grand? http://bit.ly/enloYF — @marick
While I liked “The Walking Dead” this author has a point: it’s not (yet) a zombie show. http://bit.ly/fvhIlj [He overlooked some scenes tho] — @marick
Does Brian have a thing about zombies, or what?
47% of parrots are left-handed, 33% right-handed, and 20% ambidextrous. (It varies by species.) http://bit.ly/hmZ6UE — @marick
That’s better.
Meat-eating furniture: http://n.pr/hQPOq9 — @marick
That’s not.
This Coding Life
West coast is starting to arrive at the office; it’s now email o’clock it seems. — @adamgoucher
Hi, my name is Chris, and I NSLog() too much. — @invalidname
“man ascii” has been my friend for more years than any living human. — @marick
I just discovered droidwords. Now I have to convince my wwf buddies to switch to Android. — @pragdave
Caught up on 2 days worth of tweets. Strangely, I’ve had two productive days. #hmmm — @adamgoucher
OH: Why are all vocal proponents of Software Craftmanship consultants? #speakerconf — @aslak_hellesoy
When is the last time you read something in an ACM or IEEE journal that changed how you program or the tools you use? Ever? — @gvwilson
Is it weird that I download all three PragProg ebook formats to the same device? And use all three? — @noelrap
I wish my IDE had an “I’m Feeling Lucky” button. — @chadfowler
I’m often surprised by what Rubyists think they need a gem for. — @JEG2
Amending previous tweet about how fast FF4 is. It’s fast during the times when it’s not beachballing. — @jeffcohen
Do Swedish Mac users call the command key the “campground key”? #just_wondering — @jeff_lamarche
The Internet is now full—RT @IPv4Countdown: The number of allocatable IPv4s just dropped to zero. #IPv6 — @benrady
Phew. Sure glad there was an IP address left for me to get on the Internet today. That was close. — @bphogan
So... Canada’s ISPs have implemented very low caps on monthly data. So users are now paying to see ads. This changes Google’s model. — @jaredrichardson
Canadians: have things downloaded in America, burned to disk, and shipped to you, avoiding bandwidth caps: http://twitpic.com/3vt1cs — @marick
“@jm: Figuring out really concentrated but non-contrived examples *has* to the hardest part of writing a tech book.” // seconded — @noelrap
I’m kinda glad I don’t have a way to know how much I underbill due to my hatred of time tracking. — @adamgoucher
I’m going to coin the term SPDA: Sales Pitch Driven Architecture. — @wfaler
Untold story of the Egypt crisis: thousands of farms on Facebook are going untended. — @jamesmarcusbach
I wouldn’t be surprised if they wrap the Presidio in a Faraday cage this year after what happened last year. — @jeff_lamarche
Getting the Hang of this “Real Life” Thing
So, listening to the Indigo Girls while driving a big honkin’ Suburban is kinda like a carbon offset, isn't it? #guiltyHippy — @scottdavis99
Anyone else feel like lamb tastes sort of like wool? Need backup on my claim. — @brynary
Have you tried almond milk? Sorry, goats, but the almonds are giving you a run for your money. — @chadfowler
As requested, pictures of deep fried peach pie. twitpic.com/3w9e12 — @rit
21st century problem: strangers who share enough of my genome that we are probably related want to meet. — @neal4d
Apparently “tedia” is not a real word. What's a good one-real-word alternative? #lazytwitter — @dchelimsky
After showing http://youtu.be/H7FEK3_6QaE to the office the general consensus is none of us should have made it out of our 20s. — @adamgoucher
Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun: As if being a rocket scientist weren’t bad ass enough. — @noradio
Thankfully, the poolside bar opened at noon. — @jeff_lamarche
This month we were captivated by the tweeting chops of Chris Adamson, James Marcus Bach, Kent Beck, David J Bland, David Chelimsky, Jeff Cohen, Scott Davis, Ian Dees, Esther Derby, Bill Dudney, Neal Ford, Chad Fowler, Alan Francis, Adam Goucher, James Edward Gray II, James Grenning, Aslak Hellesøy, Bryan Helmkamp, Ron Hitchens, Brian P. Hogan, Mike Hostetler, Andy Hunt, Ryan Irelan, Dave Klein, Jeff LaMarche, Brendan W. McAdams, Brian Marick, Marcel Molina, Michael Nygard, Tim Ottinger, Ben Rady, Noel Rappin, Jared Richardson, Venkat Subramaniam, Dave Thomas, Jim Weirich, wfaler, and Greg Wilson. Feel free to cast a critical eye on our twitterings. It’s only fair.