It’ll be doubly fun, as I’ve never used C# until about a month ago. Sure, I’ve used plenty of other languages, but for some reason, never anything from .NET. (Partly it’s because I’ve used a Mac as my primary machine for nearly six years.) But hey, it’s a great way to follow the advice from Pragmatic Programmer to learn a new language every year. (Next year, I want to pick up Seven Languages in Seven Weeks, and work through that.)

I’ve looked at some of the curriculum previous instructors are using, and while I plan to borrow large chunks of it, there are parts of it that I think emphasize the minuscule details of doing that anyone can pick up instead of the broader theme of how to think like a programmer.

So, for the past couple of months, every time I bump into a programmer I ask, “What’s the most important thing to teach new programmers?” The answers are both varied and consistent. Here’s a partial list of topics I’m considering:

• Data structures (linked lists, queues, trees (and, in passing, tries), and dictionaries/hashtables)
• The difference between the stack and the heap (somewhat less important in a garbage-collected environment like .NET, but important to understand, I think)
• Sorting, especially quicksort, but including bubble sort and a merge-split sort.
• Big-O (which goes nicely with a discussion on sorting)
• Some design patterns; at the very least, observer and MVC
• I’d like to touch on formal grammars, and maybe Regex
• Resource analysis (memory/disk/processor usage)
• Some thoughts on user-interface design (e.g., Fitt’s law, using color)

I’d like to emphasize some concepts by showing them in other languages, just to show how the structure remains the same. I hope I can do this without being too confusing. (Of course, what I’d really like to do is cram an entire undergraduate CS degree into a one-semester course, but that isn’t going to happen.)

Please email me or leave suggestions about what I should (or should not) add.

Post Script: While you’re sending me your ideas, I’m open to suggestions on what book I should use. I’ve spent hours already combing through C# books, and while there are some excellent reference books out there, I’ve not been impressed with most of the teaching books. l’m currently leaning toward Head First C# (2nd ed.) because I’m impressed with the Head First series, although I’m just now going through this book in depth.

I use TextMate for coding, and wasn’t thinking about the CSS bundle item that brings up OS X’s default color picker (Command-Shift-C; the TextMate bundle automatically copies in the color using hex notation), I was pleased by a tip from macosxhints.com showing how to write a one-line Applescript app that shows the color picker.

1. Open “AppleScript Editor.app” (in the Applications folder)
2. Enter the following:choose color
3. Save it. Change the file format to “Application” in the save dialog.

I added an icon I grabbed from iconfactory.com. (Download the icon set you want to use. Right-click on the new application, and pick “Get Info”, and drag-and-drop your desired icon over the application’s icon.)

Even more turbo-charging the Color Picker

I also found two free plug-ins for the color picker. The first was “Hex Color Picker” from Waffle Software, which outputs the hex version of a color suitable for CSS (although I’m using the RGB values more and more). The second was a plugin called Mondrianum which utilizes Adobe’s Kuler palette service. To top it off, I learned you can create your own palettes in the color picker (it’s the third tab).

Awesomeness all around.

A federal judge denies an individual of property (contents of an email account) without notification, with no opportunity for appeal (the person is not a party to the matter), and with no cause to suspect wrongdoing.

Saith Gruber, who dubs U.S. District Court Judge James Ware “Jackass of the Week”:

This is absurd:

1. Rocky Mountain Bank emailed confidential financial information to the wrong Gmail address./li>
2. The bank attempts to force Google to release the name of the owner of the email address. Google refuses without court order.
3. Federal judge James Ware orders Google to disable the email account — which belongs to someone who did nothing wrong and was sent the email message by mistake.

John Gruber, “Jackass of the Week: U.S. District Court Judge James Ware”, Daring Fireball. Accessed 2009-09-25

I think the post from Technologizer stabs at the root issue, though:

The temptation to heap scorn upon District Court Judge James Ware is obvious, but I’m most appalled by the reported initial actions of Rocky Mountain Bank. Why was anyone there e-mailing Social Security numbers to anyone?“Rocky Mountain Bank: Rocky, Rocky Security!” by Harry McCracken. Accessed 2009-09-25, emphasis added

It’s a good question. Why would any company ever allow sensitive information be sent through an unencrypted medium? Back up a step, though: Under any sane security policy, how could an individual even acquire a list of social security numbers on their desktop in the first place?

UPDATE (2009-09-28): Techdirt reports that Google and the bank have both requested the judge reinstate the account.

A book every programmer should read

The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master. Every programmer I hired was required to read this book. It’s a great resource for people managing programmers too. The book is entirely language agnostic, and focuses on how programmers do (or should) think and work. Most programming books do an adequate job of covering syntax, but few actually address the process of programming. My collegiate programming classes typically expected me to already know the syntax and focused more on the theory of the system, but they too offered little advice on how to actually program. This book, more than any other I’ve found, fills those gaps.

This book was so unlike most technical books, the authors went on to start their own publishing house for programming books. (I was fortunate to be a technical reviewer for one of them.) All of their books that I’ve tried thus far have been of high quality.

Another excellent (but less essential) read for programmers is Head First Design Patterns. The book’s example are in Java, but are easily adapted to other languages.

A book every technical manager should read

Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams, by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister. It covers everything from productivity to working conditions and incentives, and explains why programmers are different from “regular” folk. The advice here can be easily applied to all technical and knowledge workers. Highly recommended. Slack, also by DeMarco (which I think is a more recent rendering of some of the same concepts) is on my “to read” list—when I finally get around to finishing it, I’ll comment on it as well.

Two books every manager should read

Influencer, by Kerry Patterson. This book changed the way I think about organizational issues. It begins with the incredible premise that social problems can be addressed by leveraging a single behavior, then delivers example after monumental example demonstrating—with step-by step instructions—how true it can be. From eliminating a parasite in remote Africa, to quelling an AIDS epidemic, to more local and mundane organizational or personal problems, Influencer details in easy language why so many transformation efforts fail, and what to do about it.

Good to Great, by Jim Collins. Despite criticisms I’ve heard from a couple of academic researchers calling it “junk science,” this book is used in many highly ranked MBA programs, and made rounds at several organizations I’ve worked with, including Utah state government. Collins examines the differences between companies that were extraordinarily successful year after year (as measured by stock price) and those that hovered near the industry average. It is an interesting look at many factors that shape the success of organizations.

More worthwhile books

Blink, by Malcolm Galdwell. The book is an easy to read and incredibly fascinating exploration of how we think and, despite our best intentions, are affected by biases. I’m surprised at how often anecdotes and insight from this book were relevant during my MBA courses. If you like Blink and want a more academic and in-depth treatment, I’ve found Judgement in Managerial Decision Making to be similarly facinating.

Once an Eagle, by Anton Myrer. A fictional account of two soldiers spanning most the greatest wars of the 20th century. Through the characters, the author explores the ethics of leadership. I’ve heard it rumored (but don’t know for certain) that this book is required reading at some of the U.S. military academies. An excellent—although lengthy—read.

Others I’ve found worthwhile include:

• Judgement in Managerial Decision Making, by Max Bazerman and Don Moore
• The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement, by Eliyahu Goldratt and Jeff Cox
• The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, by Patrick Lencioni
• Leadership and Self-Deception, by The Arbinger Institute

Is there something else that should be on the list?

Maybe this is too obvious. You’ve probably already thought of it. Here it is anyway: Power users are comfortable experimenting with their system; other users are not.

Anecdotes

On the face, it may seem that it’s the incredible knowledge or experience, not willingness to experiment, that separates power users. But isn’t it experimentation (and, likely, troubleshooting) that precedes experience?

I think back to my time in high school. I had a 2400 baud modem, and no internet connection. There was no Googling for answers, just a few local dial-in bulletin board systems. It wasn’t easy to access specialists, so solving computer problems could be laborious process. Experimentation was inevitable. This, perhaps, led to exploring (read: tweaking, and in one instance, destabilizing) more than one school computer by prying open its operating system with ResEdit and changing system icons, dialogs, and messages.

Contrast this with how my father approched computers years ago: with copious notes and detailed step-by-step instructions. (Whatever level of detail you’re imagining his notes might have been like, double that a couple of times, and you’ll be closer.) With time his comfort level increased, and slowly, so did his willingness to try new things. I don’t know that I’d go so far as to truly call him a power user (except maybe with his geneology software), but over the past fifteen years he has certain gone from “etreme novice” to “competent.”

A couple of weeks ago, I was offering an acquaintance some one-on-one computer tutoring. She and her husband had done me a very significant favor (saving me several hundred dollars), so it was the least I could do. She had purchased a computer on a whim about a year ago, but wasn’t comfortable using it. I showed her the simple things: how to open her email, how to move windows around, how to close windows, etc. I knew I had my work cut out for me when, after I’d asked her to send her first email, she queried, “How do I make capital letters?” As I look back on the experience, I think the most important advice someone in her position could receive is to not be afraid to experiment.

What it means for design

When designing a good interface, it’s often good practice to create multiple ways of accomplishing common tasks. Toolbar buttons, menu commands, keyboard shortcuts, and context menus all provide different paths to the same funcionality.

More important though, is the awesome power of Undo. It makes the system safer, which makes it more likely to be used. It also encourages users to safely experiment—which is what they really need to do in order to understand software.

However, several apps (or “hacks,” if you prefer) broke with the update:

• WindowShadeX, a better minimizer. Unsanity isn’t talking, so no one knows whether this will ever be fixed.
• Megazoomer, because I use a laptop (with a small screen) and the full-screen functionality in Preview.app just doesn’t cut it. (And OS X’s default “Zoom” behavior—the green button—is downright silly in Preview.app.) Actually, Megazoomer still works, just not in 64-bit applications like Safari and Preview, my two most common use cases. The SIMBL library Megazoomer uses has been updated for Snow Leopard, so I wonder whether re-compiling Megazoomer in 64-bit might solve the problem.
• DeliciousSafari. The developer is working on a fix.
• SafariBlock. I was missing this one (partial functionality is restored by setting Safari to run in 32-bit), but I found GlimmerBlocker, and prefer it so far. Instead of working as a plugin, it intercedes itself as a proxy server, so it works for all browsers and is unaffected by browser updates. GlimmerBlocker can URL rewrite, and can also modify incoming HTML, Javascript, and CSS (and thus was the solution to an unrelated problem I was working on).
• Visor. The suggested workaround is to modify the application settings to run Terminal.app in 32-bit.

And most surprising of all (not a hack!):

• Parallels 3.0. If I had known about this one, I might not have upgraded. I’m not terribly pleased with Parallels (sloooow), but switching now would require re-installing Windows and dealing with the registration—which won’t work automatically because I’ve reinstalled it on the same machine a couple of times, so the license key is reported as “already in use.” If I decide switching is worth the trouble, I’m tempted to try the free VirtualBox.

UPDATE (12 Sep):The developer of DeliciousSafari has just sent me a beta of his newest Snow Leopard compatible version. Seems to be working well so far.

UPDATE (13 Sep): A Snow Leopard compatible version of DeliciousSafari has been released.