I’m a big fan of podcasts, and recently I stumbled upon this jewel. It’s not a podcast per se, but eight audio files containing presentations from Carson Workshops entitled ‘The Future Of Web Apps’. I’ve listened to three of them by now, and here’s what I’ve learnt so far: Joshua Schachter, Delicious [mp3]; Don’t write for scalability, you won’t know what breaks before it breaks. People will molest your server.

“Gordius, the King of Phrygia, once tied a knot that no one could untie. It was said that he who solved the riddle of the Gordian Knot would rule all of Asia. So along comes Alexander the Great, who chops the knot to bits with his sword. Just a little different interpretation of the requirements, that’s all… and he did end up ruling most of Asia.” So begins chapter seven of one of my favourite programming books of all time.

The best things in life are free smart and simple! As code checklists for example. I’m currently reading Bob Walsh‘s recent book Mirco-ISV – From Vision To Reality, which is a book about running your own Micro-ISV (independent/internet software vendor). Micro-ISV’s are often one-man companies, for example single developers producing and selling their own software. Early in the book Walsh talks about ‘developing the Micro-ISV way’, and this is where he gets into code checklists:

Ok, it’s time to let the people of #java on Ef-net let us know what they thought of PHP in the period from July to December 2005 (read: yes, I’ve done a grep -iH “php is” on my #java irclogs). Of course, we all know the PHP developers had strong opinions on Java, so this will be interesting. < @Tenchi> php is terd < @aut> straight php is faster than using php to transform xml < waz> don’t forget “PHP is slow!

It’s great with all these Web 2.0 applications with tools to help with all aspects of our life – like lists & tasks, calenders, project management – and of course, web based word processing. I like the idea of web based word processors, like Writely. I have a laptop, a computer in my bedroom, and a computer at work – and I like the fact that I can just sit down and edit my documents without thinking about where they are physically located.