Three best tech essays of 2006
Following up on Scott’s meme… here’s my contribution to the three best tech essays of last year. And by best, I mean, the essays that stick in my mind beyond the instant I finished reading them.
Bruce Schneier, “The Death of Ephemeral Conversation”
I mean there’s so much in his blog that is great - he’s one of the few tech writers I read regularly. I picked this essay because there’s very little discussion about it and I think the trend is fairly disturbing. I have thought about this topic regularly since I’ve read it, even a bit more so now that I have started this blog.
John Gruber, “‘Beta’ Is Not an Excuse”
I read Daring Fireball (Gruber’s blog) for all the Apple news I can shake a stick at. He’s great at calling out folks who do and say stupid things. This particular post was an indictment of the trend of selling buggy software and hiding behind the beta label when criticism is thrown your way. I hope the beta trend fades away.
Nicholas Zakas, “The dark side of JavaScript libraries”
Ok, I don’t know if this qualifies, he’s a decent writer - but in this post on amazon he touches, bravely, on a topic that is near and dear to my heart. The difficulty with using libraries and frameworks. They are great as a utility on your bat belt, but too often they are used as a crutch, a substitute for real understanding and that’s how you get into trouble. On his personal blog, he covers a lot of interesting topics as well, such as too much standards compliance and the like. Pretty interesting stuff.
