MetaFilter posts tagged with programming and software

Yo dawg, we herd you like webapps...

Mr. Anthropomorphism — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 21:19:28 -0800

Software startup 280 North today announced Atlas: a rich, web-based environment for developing Mac-like web applications. The company garnered praise last year when they released web-based slideshow app 280 Slides, which offers powerful features in an oddly familiar motif. The similarities are more than skin deep, for 280 Slides, though a polished and capable product in its own right, is also a showpiece for even more ambitious projects: a programming language and open-source framework that allow developers to write cross-platform applications for the web (nearly) the same way they would for the Mac. Atlas, then, is a place to put it all together—an online Xcode for Mac-style web development.

Animata

Blazecock Pileon — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 00:46:02 -0800

Animata is an open source real-time animation software, designed to create animations, interactive background projections for concerts, theatre and dance performances.

Visualizing your email as microbes.

Rumple — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 10:44:10 -0800

It's not a bug, it's a feature: Carolin Horn has designed Anymails, which represents your email messages and folders as micro-organisms. The morphology of the individual organisms and their behaviour within colonies imparts information about the state of your email. You can view QT movies of the application in action (1, 2), download her thesis, and download the Anymails code itself. See some of her other work here (predominantly in German). via Madame Martin, the "French Metafilter".

Rethinking Software Look&Feel

Gyan — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 23:14:35 -0800

Magic Ink - Information Software and the Graphical Interface

Super Mario World level editor

Tlogmer — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 15:51:21 -0800

Level editor for Super Mario World.
You'll need a SNES emu lator and a Super Mario World ROM.
(Ctrl+right-click to insert objects.)

I don't need a widget for that, though

nthdegx — Tue, 02 Aug 2005 11:05:17 -0800

Is Mac OS X Becoming Crufty? I definitely think so.

The Commentator

Lectrick — Tue, 02 Aug 2005 07:05:03 -0800

Time commenting could be time coding. Day in, day out, you pull off star moves: gnarly algorithms, wicked refactorings, stunning optimizations. Why should you stop and explain? Yes, you've got plodders on your team, but hey — youAreAStar and yourTimeIsExpensive. Time spent explaining, documenting, commenting — dude! — that's time you could be using to crank out yet more mind-altering code. Welcome The Commentator.

GriffX — Fri, 09 Aug 2002 10:48:34 -0800

"A Contrarian View of Open Source" - Bruce Sterling on the open source attitutude: "Don't like it? Hey, just reconfigure it yourself, don't bother me!" It's the Hippie Squat Model of software architecture. "If I want to paint the doors and floors bright blue and put the toilet right into the kitchen, why not?"

ed — Fri, 31 May 2002 11:20:16 -0800

The Dark Side of Google? Google's first annual programming contest was a shrewd way to encourage Java and Python programmers. But this may be shrewder than the programmers who entered the contest realized. David Egnor may have nabbed a cool $10,000 as the contest winner, but for all the other entries, Google nabbed "worldwide, perpetual, fully paid-up, nonexclusive" rights.

jragon — Sun, 17 Mar 2002 18:50:45 -0800

CBT Cafe, for those who learn visually. I was scouting around looking for Flash tutorials and stumbled on this site. The gimmick: they don't just teach you the code/effect/design, they actually walk you through it with a narrated Quicktime movie.

Currently serving Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash, Photoshop, Cleaner, Quicktime, EBay, and the MacOS.

lagado — Wed, 21 Nov 2001 06:19:50 -0800

Software projects are notorious for time and budget overruns (examples that come to mind include Mozilla and the Denver Airport baggage system). There are a large number of design methods, development processes, and programming methodologies that claim or hint at objective estimation of development schedules, project complexity, and programmer productivity. Unfortunately, they're all bunk.

"The creation of genuinely new software has far more in common with developing a new theory of physics than it does with producing cars or watches on an assembly line."

Programmers, try telling that one to your next customer.

grumblebee — Mon, 05 Nov 2001 20:52:06 -0800

Java is alive and kicking, and this guy knows what to do with it. Check out his sexy alife experiments (art? science?) and this goofy game. (Warning: his stuff crashed my browser a couple of times, but was worth it. Most applets are available for download.)

moz — Fri, 27 Jul 2001 13:27:34 -0800

Reassembled. Assembler is back -- at least, in its latest, frozen form. Score one for indie content makers. (thanks to Zeldman; his exit page notes the new URL.)

rschram — Wed, 13 Jun 2001 17:22:08 -0800

NYT celebrates 40 (or so) years of FORTRAN
The computer language that started it all is remembered in this breezy Times article (reg. req.'d.). [I think it has to do with some recent reunion of original team-members, but any contemporary event to rationalize printing this is buried in the copy.] Do something high-level with your computer today to commemorate. Here's an ibiblio.org text with more information.

paladin — Thu, 05 Apr 2001 18:30:32 -0800

Article on New Scientist about "software that turns everyday language into computer code".