The Software Universe

UK advice on User Centered Design

One of my students,  Michael Carrano, suggested a great article by UK Government User Centered Design experts on Design Principles.  I especially liked the Need-O-Tron  for needs management, available at github. Their ten principles are augmented by examples and, of course, Principle 3, Design with data and h Principle 6, build for inclusion, "accessible design is good design," are my favorites.

I will follow the evolution of their principles and report back when warranted.  They are currently at the alpha version and it is an impressive start.

The last few weeks of the year signal the deluge of log books and I hopefully will have other chestnuts to share from my students, along with a few of my own.  Later!

Spacey Ergonomics

I usually devote a few slides to ergonomics, discussing human reach and comfort.  Today I ran across a real application for the Dragon capsule of SPACEX.  Note that they spent a day examining the human factors and ergonomics of their Dragon spacecraft design meant to accommodate up to seven astronauts. 

I have been a fan of spaceflight since the 1960's following the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs.  I  am a fan of robotic spaceflight too.  The space fellowship is a great site to follow advances in studying the universe.

Update on my fignition post.  I ordered and received the fignition kit and am following their blog.  Now all I need is time to solder and test the board to get my forth computer running!  I will keep you posted on progress.  Later!

Go FORTH

Early in December I tweeted on a great little board that ran the FORTH language called FIGnition.  It entranced me for two reasons, first it reminded me how much I missed the computer language, FORTH and second it reminded me of the days of building your own machine to experiment with softwaare (and hardware concepts).

FORTH is a great language, having both high level and low level aspects, it still is used in some boot loaders.  One of its unique aspects was that it used RPN, Reverse Polish Notation - think old school HP calculators.  RPN is postfix, to add two numbers one would enter " 3 <enter> 4 +", the <enter> was a real key that would push the first number on the stack.  This inspired a popular (for geeks at least) bumper sticker of the era, "FORTH love if honk then" that you can still purchase here.  It was low level in that it defined an entire very simple OS with primitive file management that made it very popular with microcomputer hobbyists. 

My recommendation for the best page to begin discovering FORTH is the homepage of a defunct organization, the FORTH INTEREST GROUP, aka FIG.  I was once a member of FIG and still miss FORTH, that is why I will probably reacquaint myself with it by building a single board computer that runs it, the FIGNITION.   It is under $35 dollars when delivered form the UK.  Note it is a kit and you should have the hang of soldering, but at the end you can claim you built your own computer with far fewer connections than my original ALTAIR.  I will keep you posted on my progress on my twitter account, SWUniverse.

Hopefully I am back in the blogging swing of things.  Have a bunch of great blogs from my students that I would like to post.  Happy 2012!  Later!

 

Valentine's Day Recommendations

This entry re-establishes a tradition on my blog suggesting technical books and novels for your significant other on Valentine's Day.  What better way to show you care than providing someone with a riveting book on Computer Science or Software Engineeirng!

My first recommendation is an edited compilation from Diomidis Spinellis and Georgios Gousios (Eds.), Beautiful Architecture.  This book provides some great chapters on software architecture and will be part of my software architecture and design course in the fall.  Diomidis is no stranger to my Valentine's list.  Year's ago I recommended, Code Reading, a book on reading code and it too would make a great gift.  Moving onto HCI, for years I have been pressing for including an anthropological approach to user experience work.  I gained this appreciation through a book by Bonnie Nardi and Vicki O'Day, Information Ecologies, and am using a new book by Bonnie Nardi in my HCI course at Penn, My Life as a Night Elf Priest: An Anthropological Account of World of Warcraft.  Night Elf Priest is a great companion to these cold winter nights with your significant other in either real or virtual worlds. My final recommendations for technical books that would make great Valentine's Day presents are: HTML5: Up and Running by Mark Pilgrim and, in case your significant other loves to learn a new software language (and who doesn't!), Getting Started with Processing by Casey Reas and Ben Fry.  If your significant other also likes to build things, you can supplement the last book with an arduino kit.

My science fiction recommendations this year start with some classics I am rereading.  The first is Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, an excellent read even the nth time around, a gift that will keep giving.  Note that I provided a link to a used book store, alibris, which I frequently use for older technical books.  A great service and a hedge with a less expensive gift, in case you think your romance will not survive another year!  I also am in the midst of rereading the Dune books by Frank Herbert.  The two of you will gain a new appreciation for a glass of water.  Some more modern recommendations are Richard K. Morgan's, TH1RTE3N, Morgan's books will certainly encourage togetherness since they are great scifi thrillers with a new concept almost every page.  Another mind blowing idea a page flip author is Charlie Stross' Glass House, a bit of gender bending and a truly fascinating read.  Stross's books are always mind blowing.  I once communicated with Charlie and he actually gave me a manuscript version of Halting State (a great book) but alas when I got swamped and did not return any comments, he never responded to any further emails.  My loss, but don't make it yours, highly recommended.  Other authors I will cover in future posts are China Mieville, John Scalzi - Old Man's War is a modern classic as is Stross' Accelerando, all fantastic reads for your valentine.  Last I could not close the science fiction section without mentioning a novel that is hard to classify but excellent to read William Gibson's, Zero History.  Actually it is best to read the earlier novels in the triology before you gift this one, Pattern Recognition and Spook Country.  Definitely the triology would make a special Valentine's gift.  Gibson is also an avid tweeter, if you are interested follow GreatDismal on twitter. 

Phew!  Finally if you really want to make Monday special, cook for your valentine.  If you are at a loss for what to prepare, I recommend a good marinara sauce (gravy in new jersey) with pasta from Marcella Hazan's book, Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking.  A no knead bread with a great crust would complement this menu and one of the best is from Jeff Potter's, Cooking for Geeks.

Later!

HCI course on web

No crazy title for this entry,since it is a shameless bit of self promotion! If you are interested, I am conducting a web based HCI course on the web at Stevens, CS 545WS. This course will be using a new text, Press On, in addition to texts by Stone and Maeda.

My new goal is a blog entry a week, but you've heard that before! Later!