Windows Phone 7 Market-Share Suggests Long Road Ahead
Houston, do we have a problem?
Research firm NPD Group just released some smartphone market-share numbers for the fourth quarter of 2010, and at first glance their data's enough to send even the most stalwart Microsoft executive screaming for the hills: Windows Phone 7's share hits 2 percent, dead-even with Palm's WebOS but lagging Windows Mobile (4 percent), Research In Motion's BlackBerry franchise (19 percent), Apple's iOS (19 percent) and current market-leader Android (53 percent).
Some blogs are already making hay out of Windows Phone 7 lagging behind Windows Mobile, its older and increasingly antiquated predecessor. Certainly it makes for a good instant headline, the tech-world equivalent of "Octogenarian Beats Down UFC Champion." But it's also not the whole story. Read more...
Did Your Boss Thank You For Coding Yourself to Death?
Alain Skorkin's article every geek can find useful.
*Image by Oliver Widder
Programmers love to work long hours! There I said it, c'mon admit it, your job/boss doesn't make you do it, we do it to ourselves. Alright, I'll concede, maybe not all programmers love long hours, but surely with the amount of overtime that is prevalent in this industry at least half of us must love it. Right?
I can hear the excuses already. "No, no that's not it, we just love working with cool tech and don't want to leave a problem unsolved. It is actually a good thing it's what makes us awesome!"
I say – you're not seeing the forest for the trees. Here is some perspective, you're not doing this for yourself, you're doing it for "the man". Admittedly he might be a nice man, but you don't owe him slavish commitment. Here is even more perspective, how often are you actually playing with interesting problems and cool tech and how many times are you churning out code desperately trying to get something delivered and meet some arbitrary deadline that someone has assigned to you? But hey, you're a business savvy developer, you're helping the company succeed, your manager has explained the financial situation to you – it has to be done, we're relying on you. Well, unless that same manager is right there with you, entertaining you with amusing anecdotes at 2 am, his words are worthless.
Let me tell you a story that a friend once told me. Read more...