Bye Bye radio buttons

One of my favourite web widgets are radio buttons. I don't know why, but I always liked working with them. Soon I am going to be working with them less because their usability issues. I went looking for posts of this, but I only really found one blog post about some of the issues.

One of the reasons I was told for not using them is that they don't scale when you enlarge the text. What's the alternative? Use drop-down menus. They function the same way, but they work so much nicer. It should be trivial to switch from one widget to another.

Sadly there isn't really an alternative for checkboxes, so they are still in. I hate checkboxes... They have burned me too many times with forms in session. I know, I know... use request scope...

Here are the 2 widgets. Play with the text size in your browser and see how it handles it when the text gets really big. I swear that the radio button actually shrinks...

my radio button
my selected option

I look the part

I was introduced to someone at work the other day and they said "you're a developer right?". I said that I was and asked how he knew, to which he said that I "looked like a developer". Ooookay...

Today it was pointed out to me again. By someone selling glasses. In the mall. And when I think of it, people have been guessing my profession very accurately in the last year. It's starting to worry me. I look like a "developer"? Is that an insult, complement or just observation? Should I be worried? Proud? Am I a walking stereotype?

If I show up to work in dress pants, shirt and tie, all day I get people asking me "when is the interview? You can tell me, really! *wink wink*". I had to admit that I do that sometimes just to worry my boss, but it's all in good fun.

Maybe I just keep running into psychic people...

Barenaked Ladies in Ottawa

We went to see BNL last night and they were awesome as always. They always put on such a great show. They keep on mixing up their new stuff with their old stuff to keep it fresh. Surprisingly, some of the pictures that I took actually turned out.

This is the first concert that I have ever bought a t-shirt. I also bought that night's concert on a thumb drive, but they had to give out refunds because of a "system crash" and they were not able to load the drives at the end of the concert. Hopefully they'll have the concert available on their website soon. If there is one band that I don't mind supporting with money, it's the ladies.

Code cleanup

One thing that I am coming to a painful realization: it is never too early to clean up code. It needs to be done yesterday. If you let "non-optimal" code sit: it breeds. There becomes more of it. It's like some kind of virus... If you leave it, it just means that it will cause you pain when you try and fix or refactor it.

*sigh*

I think that it's about time to go home...

KISS it

My favourite design principle is KISS. It works so well for software. I find it funny that in life the "right" path is often the harder path, but it's opposite with software development.

I cringe when someone starts to explain a component that's "clever" but complicated. There is a certain threshold that "clever" components pass and you know that they have left KISS far behind.

Don't think that I have never made something more complicated than it was needed, but those are judgement calls that can sometimes go wrong and I will be the first one to rip it out.

6 weeks so far...

I have been sick for about 6 weeks so far. It's been just enough to make it uncomfortable, but not enough to prevent me from doing things. I just hope that some time at home resting (not traveling) will take care of it.

Since we were in Toronto this weekend we figured that we'd make the best of it and actually go up the CN Tower... something that I don't ever remembering doing. I particularly like the glass floor. ;-)