Father, Husband, Coder, Cook.

The Innovators Dilemma, but NOT.

Jan24
2012 Leave a Comment Written by fatgeekuk

The Innovators Dilemma describes a mechanism whereby the business model of incumbent players in a technological field are displaced by players in adjacent areas of business who survive on lower margins. The lower margin businesses expand their product offerings by development into the areas of business held by the higher margin organisations.

Now, that describes a system of enforced instability. Continual churning of the ‘top dog’ as new players ‘arise from below’. That sort of mimics biological life. Constant renewal, opportunities for mutation/change.

Now, lets look at another situation.

Google / Facebook / Twitter.

Where is the churn? What? no churn? Oh wait, where is Altavista, Yahoo. Maybe the timescale is off and we will see these big players supplanted.

But wait, there are examples of churn actively NOT happening. Google+, Bing.

Google+ has all the signs of being a ‘from below’ sort of successor. And Bing, well, lets not talk about Bing.

But this has got me thinking. The Innovators Dilemma is based upon the principle that smaller companies/players can succeed on lower margins where bigger players flounder.

In the case of Google, Facebook and to a degree Twitter, this is not the case. In order to present a competing product to Facebook some smaller company would almost certainly have to create comparable installations while having lower user bases. This means that smaller players cannot exist on the profit margins of the larger incumbents.

This means that in the area of social media/internet applications the ecosystem is one of self balancing stability. The current crop of companies can only be ousted from above.

So, the only competition for Facebook, Google, Twitter is each other. Even then, it is an up hill battle (Google+ anyone?)

Posted in architecture, innovation

Not dead, just resting.

Jan15
2012 Leave a Comment Written by fatgeekuk

Reports of this blogs demise are (thankfully) exaggerated.

It has simply been resting, like a parrot, maybe a norwegian blue. pining, quietly, for the fiords.

Anyway, here are a few things…

I like…

Somebody that I used to know – Walk off the Earth

And yes, I know, it is ‘bah bah black sheep’ I simply don’t care. The lyrics are good, the presentation is excellent and I can’t stop watching it.

I don’t like…

That my ipad has just forgotten 90% of the apps I had installed on it.
Am currently re-installing from icloud, but if I have lost my tiny tower (over 60 stories!) and some other in app content, I will SERIOUSLY not be happy.

Posted in Uncategorized

Coders / Crystal Singers.

Oct26
2011 1 Comment Written by fatgeekuk

There is a book, called Crystal Singer by Anna McAffery.

It is about these people who cut crystals to be used in communications and space drives (Yes, it is a sci-fi book).

One of the dangers of Crystal Singing (of which there are many) is Crystal Thrall.

Once you have cut crystal, you must pack it right away, or risk losing yourself in the beauty of the crystal and find you have spent hours gazing at it.

Sometimes, at rare moments, coding can be like that. Sometimes, you write something that has a beauty, clarity, cleanliness that is just nice to behold.

Sometimes it is in the apprehension of the difference between your first draft and your last that the most acute appreciation of the beauty is.

Sadly, it is often a beauty that only a ‘mother’ would love. The appreciation is ONLY in the eye of the creator. But, non-the-less. Code and move on, code and move on, lest you be lost to code thrall.

Right, next.

Posted in Algorythms, beauty, Coding, Django, python

Where would we be?

Jun08
2011 Leave a Comment Written by fatgeekuk

If the software industry had started out working like the Music industry.

If, like any one hit wonderband, I had done a really nice days coding in the early 80s and from then on, lived off the royalties…

Would we be using “Numbers” on a shiny Apple Macbook Pro or Visicalc on an Apple ][ europlusplusplusplusplusplus?

 

Posted in Uncategorized

Marauders Map (a webapp)

Jun08
2011 Leave a Comment Written by fatgeekuk

Well, on Friday last week my calendar told me I was due to have lunch with some old friends over in Alderley. Unfortunately, it told me I was due to meet up with them at 11:45am AT 11:45am. I was at home. As I rushed out of the door, dialing one of my friends I had an idea.

Idea: wouldn’t it be neat if they could track my progress in getting to them?

So, as I was driving, I got thinking, whats the easiest way for people to DO that sort of thing?

A webapp using HTML5 geolocation API would probably be simple.

Go to a website, ‘make’ a map, forward link to map to my friends, job done.

So, over the weekend and early part of this week, inbetween my other tasks, I put together a truely UGLY site to do just that. Now, what to call it….

And so the Marauders Map is born.

This site is not IE friendly, IE does not run on mobile devices.

So far it is a bit clunky, it needs some refinement but it works.

If you visit that page and click to create a map, you will get your very own ‘marauders map’ that you can share with your friends, it will track your locations (it updates every 10 seconds). When you have finished, close the tab or browse away to some other page. No fuss, no muss.

 

 

Posted in Uncategorized

Bloody Scousers.

Jun05
2011 Leave a Comment Written by fatgeekuk

I am a Liverpudlian. I know, it does not show (mostly). But sometimes, it shines through.

Sometimes, rarely, I can’t help myself. I have to SAY it. The ‘funny oneliner’. It just springs to mind, and before my brain can engage and rational self interest can stop me, out it comes.

Mostly, this happens in the real world, and in front of people who have had a chance to get to know me, know what I am like and forgive my mild insanities.

The internet can be a wonderful thing, but in this respect, it really is not my friend. I can insult more people, more quickly and with less possibility of my being recognised as mentally deficient and so deserving of forgiveness or at least forbearance.

So, if recently, I have said anything that may be construed as insulting, please forgive me. That is not how it was meant and certainly no reflection on the high regard I hold all those I have come to think of as friends and colleagues.

Cheers, FG.

Posted in Uncategorized

A New Project

May30
2011 Leave a Comment Written by fatgeekuk

I have started a new project and am inviting all and sundry to critique and laugh at my ineptitude.

So, here it is http://fatgeekuk.org/iphone-project/ .

I could really do with your ridicule comments.

Posted in Uncategorized

Rails vs. Django?

May22
2011 4 Comments Written by fatgeekuk

A while ago, I posted an article about the difference between Ruby and Python.

As a contractor I tend to get to work in many different environments, it’s part of what I love about the work. I can get to know soo many different developers and organisations, and along the way I can learn soo much. Well, recently I have learned a lot.

I came to web frameworks by way of perl and php, spent over 5 years in the land of rails, and have more recently been a django developer. I initially felt that Django was an inferior framework for several reasons, lets spell them out, if only to give a shape and dimension to my ignorance.

Rails uses Ruby, which is a very simple and expressive language that uses a few core tools (blocks, objects and modules) to handle just about all your coding needs. Django uses Python which feels much less, ‘gemlike’. I have never worked on two django codebases that where layed out in the same way.

Rails is a very clearly and strictly structured framework, there is the MVC way or there is well, nothing really. Thats your lot. In django you can anything goes. Indeed, more recently, I have come to realise there is a whole ‘nother way of structuring django code.

While working with the guys at Cahoona my eyes have been opened. As well as being able to use the standard MVC way of structuring code, using standard apps like basic.blog and then customising pages by poking holes from the templates directly into your models by way of custom template tags is an incredibly powerful toolset.

I can’t help feeling that this is an incredibly sharp axe. Like all sharp things it cuts both ways. Going against the MVC partitioning has its price. Template complexity and general lack of system coherency. For web applications these issues would be killers, but for the flatter, simpler logic of commercial websites, it really is difficult to see how Rails could compete.

I have to draw a comparison here between my initial post about Ruby/Python. the Rails/Django comparison feels to be more of the same (with bells on). Ruby and Rails feel to be very much more restrictive. Django and Python more fluid.

I started off thinking that they where both tools aimed at the same market. I have ended up thinking that this could not be further from the truth. Rails is incredibly beautiful and its very structured approach make it ideal for APPLICATION type websites. Djangos looser control and ability to work in multiple ways lends it to, well, everything else.

Posted in Uncategorized

Improved Cucumber find tag feature.

May05
2011 2 Comments Written by fatgeekuk

I have started using Cucumber for my latest rails project and am loving it.

Some of the ‘rules’ I have found are a bit lacking, case in point is the

Then /^I should see a “xxx” tag with attribute “yyy’ of value “zzz”/

the one I found did not detect when there where NO tags, also, it reported false fails if there where multiple tags that satisfied xxx that did NOT have attribute yyy of value zzz even if one of the others did.

Finally, it felt ‘orrible when looking for an ‘A’ tag.

so, here is an updated one.

Then /^I should see an? "(.*)" tag with attribute "(.*)" of value "(.*)"$/ do |selector, attribute, value|
  nodes = Nokogiri::HTML(response.body).css(selector)
  
  # if we don't find ANY of what we are looking for, well, thats a fail dude.
  nodes.should_not be_empty
  
  # now, look through the matching nodes to see if any pass.
  failed = true
  nodes.each do |node|
    if node[attribute] == value
      # and at least one does, so all is right with the world.
      failed = false
    end
  end
  failed.should_not == true
end

Posted in Uncategorized

A New Beginning

Apr14
2011 Leave a Comment Written by fatgeekuk

I have transferred my blog from Typo to WordPress. This is for several reasons.

First, it’s easier to use. Second, I want to learn how to customise WordPress.

Posted in blog, Meta
« Older Entries