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Steve Yegge

https://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/ · 25 posts · history since 2008 · active

24 Jan 2018

17 May 2017

Steve Yegge 13 min read

Ah, clickbait. Where would the internet be without it? The answer will shock you! But seriously, I didn't mean to insult your favorite language… much. After all, your language of choice is probably getting better at a glacial pace. Right? If your language isn't dead, then it's gradually getting better as they release updates to it. How slowly, though? Well...…

17 Nov 2016

Steve Yegge 20 min read

It's been a while! sorts of stuff to share. Definitely enough for a series of blog posts. But I also have less time than before, because it's all happening in my non-copious spare time, all late nights and weekends. And running an MMORPG is a fearsome task in its own right. beta testing. So if you want to try it…

8 Oct 2012

Steve Yegge 26 min read

This is basically a review of, and a pros/cons rant about, Borderlands 2. If you're not into it, just don't read it! I'll write about stuff you like some other time. Maybe. So! I'm not the kind of person to say "I told you so." Noooo. Never. Well, never, unless, of course, I get to say it loudly, within hearing…

12 Mar 2012

Steve Yegge 48 min read

.dropcap { font-weight:bold; font-size:120px; float:left; padding:0; margin:-4px 5px 0px 0px; position: relative; background-color:none; line-height:0.9; } .note { color: #4169e1; font-style: italic; } Craw is so damn frustrating!!! He and his sidekicks have killed me so many times that I think I am starting to get sore in real life....arghhh need better weapon!! He will die though, oh yes he will…

27 Jul 2011

Steve Yegge 5 min read

I woke up this morning...ish... to discover that Hacker News had finally had enough of me being at Google, so they forced me into early retirement. On Monday I was honored to be able to deliver a keynote talk at OSCON Data. In the talk, I announce at the end that I am quitting a project that I had very…

22 Jul 2011

Steve Yegge 2 min read

San Jose, CA (Reuters) — Online auctions cartel eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) and its collections and incarceration arm PayPal announced that on July 21, 2011, the two companies had jointly been awarded United States Patent No. 105960411 for their innovative 10-click “Buy it Now” purchasing pipeline. The newly-patented buying system guides users through an intuitive, step-by-step process of clicking “Buy It…

1 Dec 2010

Steve Yegge 4 min read

The worldwide Haskell community met up over beers today to celebrate their unprecedented discovery of an industry programmer who gives a shit about Haskell. On Wednesday, researchers issued a press release revealing that 27-year-old Seth Briars of North Carolina, a Java programmer at Blackwater accounting firm Ross and Fordham, actually gives a shit about Haskell. "Mr. Briars has followed every…

28 Jul 2010

Steve Yegge 5 min read

EYJAFJÖLL, ICELAND — Java programmers around the globe are in a panic today over a Wikileaks press release issued at 8:15am GMT. Wikileaks announced that they will re-release the source code for thousands of Open Source Java projects, making all access modifiers 'public' and all classes and members non-'final'. Agile Java Developer Johnnie Garza of Irvine, CA condemns the move.…

15 Jul 2010

Steve Yegge 7 min read

Well! I've sure had a nice relaxing blog-free year. No worries, no haters, no Nooglers wandering by my office and staring at me through the window as if they expect me to crap in my hand and hurl it at them. Not that I wasn't tempted. Nope, it's just been peace and quiet and reading and coding and practicing my…

18 May 2009

Steve Yegge 2 min read

We're getting close to the end of my blog. After today's entry, I only have three left to write. After that, I'll only blog anonymously or (more likely) not at all. This is part three of five in my "Programmer's View of the Universe" series. I struggled for a while with how best to introduce the ideas in this installment,…

9 Apr 2009

Steve Yegge 24 min read

Over the holidays I read a neat book called Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions, by Dan Ariely. The book is a fascinating glimpse into several bizarre and unfortunate bugs in our mental software. These bugs cause us to behave in weird but highly predictable ways in a bunch of everyday situations. For instance, one chapter explains…

13 Mar 2009

Steve Yegge 30 min read

So I've got all these fancy blog posts planned. More than planned, actually — they're well underway. But it's also been a busy couple of months, so nothing's really ready yet. To make my schedule even worse, I kind of sort of got myself a little bit addicted to the writings of this one blogger. Normally I can't frigging stand…

27 Dec 2008

Steve Yegge 20 min read

This is the second installment of a little series of discussions. They're not much more than that, just discussions. And I hope I'm inviting discussion rather than quenching it. But I'll be honest — the goal of this series is to pound a stake through the heart of a certain way of thinking about the world that has become quite…

25 Dec 2008

Steve Yegge 16 min read

I finished Fallout 3 maybe six or eight weeks ago, and it was hands-down one of the best games I've ever played. A game like that gets you in the mood for more gaming, so I thought to myself: "Hey, I should plop down $160 for Fable II!" Actually that's not exactly what I thought, but it's what happened. I…

17 Nov 2008

Steve Yegge 17 min read

So! I have all these cool things I want to write about, but I broke my thumbnail. Can you tell that's a long story? See, this summer I got excited about playing guitar again. I usually switch between all-guitar and all-piano every other year or so. This summer I dusted off the guitars and learned a bunch of pieces, and…

29 Oct 2008

Steve Yegge 10 min read

I write a column for computer programmers called "Stevey's Blog Rants." It's basically a magazine column — I publish to it about once a month. The average length of my articles is about 12 pages, although they can range anywhere from 4 to 40 pages, depending on how I'm feeling. But for precedent, don't think blogs: think of Reader's Digest.…

20 Oct 2008

Steve Yegge 55 min read

This idea that there is generality in the specific is of far-reaching importance. — Douglas Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher, Bach Note: Today's entry is a technical article: it isn't funny. At least not intentionally. Update, Oct 20th 2008: I've added an Updates section, where I'll try to track significant responses, at least for a week or so. There are three entries…

29 Sept 2008

Steve Yegge 12 min read

I haven't been blogging much this summer. Mostly it's because all my free time has been spent engaged in an important research project called "What Would Niko Bellic Do?" I've been enrolled in a high-quality Management Scenario Simulator with the unconventional name "Grand Theft Auto IV", probably some sort of inside joke, and I've been going through all its Developer…

10 Sept 2008

Steve Yegge 16 min read

"And as for this non-college bullshit I got two words for that: learn to fuckin' type" — Mr. Pink This is another one I've wanted to write forever. Man, I've tried a bunch of times. No ruck. Not Rucky. Once again I'm stuck feeling so strongly about something that I'm tripping over myself trying to get my point across. So!…

12 Aug 2008

Steve Yegge 24 min read

Some CEO emailed me the other day. I don't remember who it was; people mail me all the time about their blah blah yawn product service thingy, and on the rare occasions I bother to read mail from strangers, I don't usually remember anything about the email, even if I respond to it. I can remember broad categories of questions…

17 Jun 2008

Steve Yegge 22 min read

Disclaimer: I do not speak for Google! These are my own views and opinions, and are not endorsed in any way by my employer, nor anyone else, for that matter. Everyone knows and quotes Joel's old chestnut, "Smart, and Gets Things Done." It was a blog, then a book, and now it's an aphorism. People quote Joel's Proverb all the…

14 Jun 2008

Steve Yegge 51 min read

I will once again plagiarize myself by transcribing a talk I gave. First: be warned! I offer this gesture of respect to you — yes, you! — when I say that this is at least 20 minutes of reading. This is long even for me. If you're surfing reddit, gobbling up little information snacks, then it's best to think of…

12 May 2008

Steve Yegge 58 min read

Some guys at Stanford invited me to speak at their EE Computer Systems Colloquium last week. Pretty cool, eh? It was quite an honor. I wound up giving a talk on dynamic languages: the tools, the performance, the history, the religion, everything. It was a lot of fun, and it went over surprisingly well, all things considered. They've uploaded the…

28 Apr 2008

Steve Yegge 22 min read

"We're going to get lynched, aren't we?" — Phouchg And you thought I'd given up on controversial blogs. Hah! Preamble This must be said: Jamie Zawinski is a hero. A living legend. A major powerhouse programmer who, among his many other accomplishments, wrote the original Netscape Navigator and the original XEmacs. A guy who can use the term "downward funargs"…