Friday, January 22, 2016

Three options for a new blogodex

The current blogodex is fine, except it's a bit tedious to type.  I'm OK with it, but it may bother other people.  In addition, it depends on a certain amount of care to not introduce syntax errors.

Thinking about it, three alternatives going forward:

  • stick with current blogodex.  pros and cons as per above.
  • switch blogodex to YAML.  I really liked this idea, until I saw that blogger would put extra formatting cruft in a multi-line block.  Additionally, blogger labels aren't multi-line friendly.
  • Make a new blogodex format, a bit more forgiving typing-wise.
Ideas for new blogodex to try:
  • maintain backwards compatibility.  lines that begin with "blogodex =" are 1.0, lines that begin with "blogodex:" are 2.0
  • format something like this:  blogodex:  optional-TOC / optional-Index Entries
  • B: my toc topic
  • B: toc topic / index topic 1, index topic 2
  • B: toc topic (no index)
  • B: / index topic (no toc)
  • what delimiters are best?
blogodex: blogodex / blogodex 2.0

TechCrunch: The Stack Fallacy

A coworker pointed me to this article which meshes well with my experience:

http://techcrunch.com/2016/01/18/why-big-companies-keep-failing-the-stack-fallacy

my takeaways:

  • It's easier to build pieces below your level in the stack than above, because you are your own customer and know what you want.
  • "Product management is the art of knowing what to build."
  • "the what is 100 times more important than the how."
related:


blogodex = {"idx" : ["Stack Fallacy", "building software"];