blog.mignault.net

Android Priests

So Jeff Jarvis has made a bet with Dave Winer that in a year’s time Google’s new App Inventor will have “not have had any effect on the priesthood of programming.” I’d be interested in the metric used to determine the winner, but that’s not really the question. Winer is incredulous at the idea that AppInventor will disintermediate coding, despite having in the past been an ardent cheerleader for the Internet end run around any other number of middlemen, most notably journalists. To Jarvis’ credit, he’s the only person I’ve heard in this discussion refer to programmers as a “priesthood,” though he tones down his usual slightly breathless revolutionary rhetoric:

As much as the web breaks down priesthoods, it created new ones. Developers are merely the latest. They say that mortals can’t do what they do. But what if they could? What if they could translate a thought not just into words and design but into action?

I think Winer is going to win, however, and the reason is that AppInventor is a solution without a problem. The “priesthood of programming” has already given its blessing to Android. The geek blogosphere talks about how it is only a matter of time before developers stop building apps for Apple’s evil, closed ecosystem, and the iPodiPhoneiPadiPhone 4 dies. It’s why developers are reacting with hostility to AppInventor. Developers are already developing for Android. They neither need nor want a Visual Basic like tool. The intended audience for AppInventor- the end users – don’t need or want it either. Google, having failed to attract non-developers to the platform with the ease of use and attention to user experience that somehow only Apple is able to deliver, are now trying to disguise a stick as a carrot. It won’t work. End users don’t want to be able to build Android apps. They want to be able to build iOS apps.

Some deal, Amazon

From an Amazon “deal” in my inbox this morning:

So the Mac version of PShop Elms costs more? The version that’s a full point behind the Windows release? How can I resist. Not. Almost makes me want to buy the PC version and run it in VMWare Fusion. But then you have to deal with Windows “UI.”

Applescript made sane

Graphing Your Favorite Feeds with NetNewsWire and Ruby :: dot unplanned:

After the election, my list of feeds in NetNewsWire became the source of some consternation. I’m still not completely recovered from the “must … know” paranoia that grips me, so I’m loath to unsubscribe to the political stuff: What if the world starts to end? How will I know?

mph has been doing some very interesting posts about using Ruby as a potent antipsychotic for Applescript. Here he builds graphs of attention scores for his feeds in NetNewsWire. I need to do this myself – too many damn feeds. Interesting and fun series. Check it out.

Silencing spam calls

macosxhints.com – Silence certain iPhone spam callers forever:

“Like most people, the iPhoneWriter.com team hates spam in all it’s forms and permeations. Electronic mail, snail mail, Boy Scouts selling popcorn, and unsolicited telephone calls all qualify as ‘spam’ in our book and they’re all obnoxious. We find unsolicited telephone calls to be particularly irritating. How many times have you been in a meeting or driving or whatever, and had your Apple iPhone ring only to find a ‘phone spammer’ on the other end? Ugh.

Well, after one too many calls wondering if we were interested in having our carpets steam cleaned, enough was finally enough and we decided to stop the madness once and for all. The end result is a simple (and dare we say elegant) way to silence telephone spammers forever. Ah, the sweet sound of silence. Here’s how you can silence the telephone spammers on your Apple iPhone”

Excellent – no more “warranty is about to expire on my car” calls. Which infuriates me every single time it happens.

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