"Current Location?"

[crschmidt]

Current location is cool. I've wanted to upload it myself in various capacities for a long time.

But linking somethign that people will typically type in as free form to Google Maps is stupid. People will type 'Home', and linking that to google maps won't get you anywhere!

So, I went through and fixed my style so that the location would no longer be linked to Google maps, as well as reordering the 'currents' so that location would be on the bottom instead of the top.

So now, when I type 'Home" in my current location, it won't be displayed as "Maps.google.com/?q=Home" -- because it's not. It's home, in Cambridge. Of course, the rest of you will still see the links on your friends pages, but I've never optimized my journal for the users who are reading through friends pages: I've optimized it for *me*, and for my journal view pages.

I can see why this was done, but I think this is a case where the engineers (or engineer *cough* Brad *cough*) should have pulled in their usability person before pushing it live :p It's still a pretty cool little box, but I don't like to see it off to what I see as a negative start. Then again, is there much on LJ that I *don't* see as a negative start? ;)

Updated code is in Entry::print_metadata in my custom layer if anyone wants to crib it.

Comments

[sherm.livejournal.com]

It's not just LJ. You should see some of the shit that's running at fortune 100 corporations.

[crschmidt.livejournal.com]

For a long time, I kept wondering when I was going to find a business that actually had a *real* development model: you know, the kind you always imagine exist out there somewhere, with proper development, followed by testing, followed by QA, with documentation, etc.

I kept wondering where the *real* programmers were, the ones who were so much better than me that they write government websites and msn.com and all that jazz.

Then, when I got offered a "Senior Developer" position, I realized -- shit. I am the "real" programmer now, and I *still* haven't found that place. Which probably means that it's just a myth. The people out there who are programming the big iron are just as crappy as I am.

It's a really fucking scary thought.

[(Anonymous)]

This is actually one of your more profound posts. There are lots of programmers out there with poor work habits. Why a company of any size tolerates them is beyond me. In the old days, when a big hard drive was 20 Mbytes and a fast CPU ran at less than 1 Mhz, programmers had to be more disciplined and organized otherwise it was real obvious real fast.

Now with super fast CPUs and unlimited hard drive size, there is no incentive for programmers to write concise code or to be clever with resources. Also management seems hell-bent on end results only. I have heard from one very reliable software development management person at Oracle that over 1/2 of what MSN delivers to the end user is code that has been commented out.

This breakdown in discipline is a global problem. I was talking with a software engineer from HP in San Jose last week and he told me that the programmers in India he knows are the absolute worst in documenting their software. No flowcharts (even after the code is written), no comments, no documentation - they can't be bothered.

"I kept wondering when I was going to find a business that actually had a *real* development model" I suggest you try software development for the medical field. The FDA regulates all medical products brought to market in the US including medical software. They have very specific requirements that include testing, documentation, and quality assurance. You need FDA approval before you can sell it in the US. If the medical company neglects any aspect of the FDA requirements they will be heavily fined or their product pulled from the market After all peoples lives could be at risk. Who wants a pacemaker with faulty firmware.

-v-