i18n is a hard and largely unsolved problem

After last week's post about the intricacies of dealing with date and time representations in software I promised to write about another seemingly simple yet surprisingly complex area of software development: Internationalization. Some time ago a I wrote about an interesting presentation on i18n and localization in Rails by Heather Rivers of Yammer. If you're in any way dealing with internationalization (i18n) and localization (L10n) of software (which you basically should if you're into software development) have a look at the video of ... Read more

The time! The time! Who’s got the time?

I'm currently working on an app that allows you to set and display dates and times in various ways. Hence, lately I've been working quite a bit with calendars, dates, times, date localization and all the funny intricacies that come with them. To name but a few of those: In some countries the week customarily starts with Sunday, while in others it starts with Monday. Some programming languages and date APIs use 0 as the index for the first day of the week, some ... Read more

Being the build guy

Being the build guy, i.e being the one who is responsible for a smooth build and deployment process on a software project is a role that's usually disliked by developers: It means a lot of system administration rather than coding. If something breaks and development grinds to a halt the burden of getting the project on the road again usually is on the person who manages the continuous integration server. However, I think being the build guy on a project actually is ... Read more

The Tinfoil Hats Were Right All Along

There sure is a lot to rant and be angry about concerning this week's revelations about PRISM and how the US government has been issuing blanket orders to tech companies such as Google, Facebook and Apple requiring them to hand over personal data, effectively allowing agencies like the NSA to spy on all of us. These events mark a turning point for the way of how citizens are treated by their government and the legal system. While until now the presumption of ... Read more

Eine sinnvolle Alternative zu QR Codes

Sorry, this entry is only available in German.Vor kurzem habe ich über den Unsinn von QR Codes in der Werbung geschrieben. Neben Zustimmung gab es auch ein paar Kommentare, in denen darauf hingewiesen wurde, dass es eben doch sinnvolle Anwendungszwecke für QR Codes gibt. Der einzig wirklich interessante Anwendungszweck darunter war meiner Meinung nach für Anwendungen wie z.B. AirDroid. Dabei authentifiziert man sich ohne Passwort und Co., indem man einen auf einem Bildschirm angezeigten QR Code mit seinem Smartphone einscannt. Sehr clevere ... Read more