A Plea for Lean Software An Essay by Niklaus Wirth cr.yp.to Software's girth has surpassed its functionality, largely because hardware advances make this possible. The way to streamline software lies in disciplined methodologies and a return to the essentials. Measured by the number of its featuresEssential vs. nice to haveDependence is more profitable than educationThe most rewarding iterationsNever enough time A grossly obese set of requirementsFeatures and complexity softwareperformancefunction
Of Note: Better Text Annotations for the Web An Article by Brandon Dorn www.viget.com Show image 0 Show image 1 Generally speaking (and ignoring questions of styling, API availability, etc.), an ideal Web annotation pattern follows these principles: Annotations appear in close visual proximity to the primary content. Their design neither distracts from nor hides the primary content. The preceding principles are followed regardless of screen width. The only pattern I’ve found that meets these criteria is FiveThirtyEight’s. ...As it turns out, FiveThirtyEight didn't invent this pattern. It likely originated in medieval illuminated manuscripts which contain “interleave notes” — comments written literally between the lines. readingwwwaccessibility