Caffeinated Coder

The October 2007 Caffeinated Codey Winners Are...

1. For Best Software As RoadKill Analalogy...Ben Scheirman on Don't Make Squirrel Burgers. The next time your boss tries to haggle you over the estimate, just pull out Ben's squirrel burger story. If that doesn't work, you may want to just feed your boss a squirrel burger when he's not looking, thereby earning you a several day deadline extension as he  recovers from getting his stomach pumped.
2. For Best Hate Mail Magnet Post...Rob Conery for his post Imploding Rails, Jesus DHH, and the Uncle Ben Principle. Note to self: Calling DHH, the creator of the uber-trendy Rails framework for Ruby, a "foul-mouthed, prissy Dane" is apparently not the best way to win friends and influence people. Nevertheless, an excellent software debate on dynamic languages, the scalability of Ruby, and the role of DHH in the future of the language emerge through this provocative post and the hundred plus heated comments that it inspired.
   
3. For Most Productive Meeting Day Dream...Mark Miller for his post on Test Bot Kicking Ass. Everybody daydreams during meetings about being attacked by rocket launcher toting killer robots and then slicing their heads off with a crack shot from their steel blade shooting gun, but it takes a true genius like Mark Miller to turn it into the inspiration for an innovative testing solution. You have to admit, the idea of a software bot continually downloading the latest version of open source projects and running thousands of unit tests against them is pretty slick.
   
4. For Best Inspirational Speech...Fake Steve Jobs for his post My Message of hope for the Borg. Since reading this post, I've tried to fit the phrase "I'd rather make love to a bag of broken glass" into as many conversations as possible. The post provides excerpts of a speech that he gave on the Microsoft campus, where he tells it like is to the Microtards like only the Jobmeister can.
5.  For Best Advice on How to Comment Code...Phil Haack for his post The Greatest Compliment A Developer Can Receive. Phil offers a perceptive rant about every developer's propensity to be overly critical of other people's code. I have to admit that I have never heard someone say that they just inherited a code base that was well written. Ok, perhaps the extra space between the if and parenthesis doesn't make the code totally worthless...
   
6. For Best New Start-Up... Rory Blythe for his post A New Religion - A Neopoleon Religion. Pass around the collection plate, because there is a new religion in town. Rory has gone on a divine hiring spree and with the help of some questionable recruiters has already amassed an impressive head count in his quest to create a "religion with more gods than any other religion in the history of religions". I'm personally putting in a request for a mighty espresso bean god that has a twitching stat of 99 and that smites Folgers drinkers with a terrible caffeinated vengeance. 
7. For Most Long-Winded Title for a Post Advocating Minimalist Writing...Raymond Chen for his post The most important choice in writing is not what you say, it's what you dont' say. All kidding aside, it is solid advice with a helpful before and after writing sample. It reminds me of the saying, "I didn't have time to write a short article, so I wrote this long one instead".
8. For Most Valiant Mort Defender...Oren Eine (a.k.a. Ayende) for his post ALT.NET and the Enterprise. For a lazy 9-5'er, poor Mort has been busting his tail this last month being a favorite topic of conversation in the blogosphere. This post sparked one of the more lively debates on the true capabilities and value of average Joe developers in the software food chain. Whether you're a Fascist Mort Hater or a Commie Mort Sympathizer, you'll find food for thought here.
9. For Most Egregious Geek Blasphemy...Jeff Atwood for his post Why Does Software Spoil?. Jeff challenges the typical geek compulsion to automatically upgrade at the drop of a hat and makes an interesting argument that new versions of software are often worse than their predecessors because of decreased usability and performance due to  feature bloat. It will make you think twice before agreeing to that next upgrade.

1. For Most Diplomatic PowerPoint Slide...Mark Miller for his post My Last VSLive Session Ever? I can't imagine why has been black-listed from conferences before. I also can't figure out how people who fail the first prerequisite are able to sit down in the first place...
   

Special Announcement about Awards- Once again, congratulations to all the CC recipients for winning this most prestigious award. Unfortunately, the squirrels drank all the prize beer that I had set aside for awards this month. Perhaps Rory can retrain one of the out-of-work Norse gods to replenish my home brew stash so I can give each of these talented bloggers their proper recognition.

Until then, happy blogging.

* No squirrels were harmed in the making of this blog post.

** In case you missed them, here are the prior CC winners for September, August, and July.

Print | posted on Wednesday, October 31, 2007 7:19 AM