Articles

by Bill Venners, July 7, 2003 23 messages
Bruce Eckel talks with Bill Venners about why he prefers Python's latent type checking and techie control of language evolution.
by Bill Venners, June 30, 2003 Submit comment
Elliotte Rusty Harold talks with Bill Venners about problems with the JDOM API. Most are general design issues for any Java API: too many convenience methods and checked exceptions, not preventing user mistakes, ignoring conventions.
by Bill Venners, June 23, 2003 7 messages
Bruce Eckel talks with Bill Venners about why he prefers Python's valuing programmer productivity over program performance, Python's you-want-it-you-can-have-it attitude, and Python's zen-like learning curve.
by Bill Venners, June 16, 2003 2 messages
Elliotte Rusty Harold talks with Bill Venners about the problems with the DOM API, and the design lessons he learned from DOM.
by Bill Venners, June 9, 2003 18 messages
James Gosling talks with Bill Venners about his current research project, code-named Jackpot, which builds annotated parse trees for programs and can help you analyze, visualize, and refactor your program.
by Bill Venners, June 9, 2003 2 messages
In this interview, you'll find out how Vienna Teng, a 24 year old Java programmer at Cisco, landed a record contract, quit her day job to pursue her passion in music, and before long ended up on the Dave Letterman show.
by Bill Venners, June 2, 2003 30 messages
Bruce Eckel talks with Bill Venners about why he feels Python is "about him," how minimizing clutter improves productivity, and the relationship between backwards compatibility and programmer pain.
by Bill Venners, May 26, 2003 7 messages
Elliotte Rusty Harold talks with Bill Venners about the five styles of XML APIs, and the problems with data-binding APIs.
by Bill Venners, May 19, 2003 4 messages
This article looks at the role of exploration in software design: the importance that thinking, discussing, experimenting, and getting user feedback has to discovering the best solution.
by Bill Venners, May 12, 2003 11 messages
This article suggests that good API designs happen when designers think of objects as machines, classes and interfaces as blueprints for those machines, and client programmers as users.
by Bill Venners, May 5, 2003 18 messages
Pragmatic Programmers Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas talk with Bill Venners about the value of storing persistent data in plain text and the ways they feel XML is being misused.
by Bill Venners, April 28, 2003 5 messages
Pragmatic Programmers Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas talk with Bill Venners about the importance of programming defensively against your own and other's mistakes, of crashing near the cause, and understanding the proper use assertions.
by Bill Venners, April 21, 2003 4 messages
Pragmatic Programmers Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas talk with Bill Venners about the importance of getting feedback during development by firing tracer bullets and building prototypes.
by Bill Venners, April 14, 2003 4 messages
Pragmatic Programmers Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas talk with Bill Venners about a gardening metaphor for software development, the reasons coding is not mechanical, and the stratification of development jobs.
by Bill Venners, April 7, 2003 3 messages
Pragmatic Programmers Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas talk with Bill Venners about the benefit of programming in a language close to the business domain.