The Pragmatic Bookshelf is about to release a new book with the name “The Passionate Programmer” by Chad Fowler. It may be not as inspiring as the masterpiece “The Pragmatic Programmer“, but a perfect read for entry-level programmer and people new to lean, agile and pragmatic thinking. I highly suggest the reading of this demo-chapter (pdf), about “incremental development”: Just be a little bit better, than yesterday. From the chapter:

“You also need to be happy with small amounts of “better”. Writing one more test than you did yesterday is enough to get you closer to the goal of “being better about unit testing”. If you’re starting at zero, one additional test per day is a sustainable rate, and by the time you can no longer do better than yesterday, you’ll find that you’re now “better about unit testing” and you don’t need to keep making the same improvements. If, on the other hand, you decided to go from zero to 50 tests on the first day of your improvement plan, the first day would be hard, and the second day probably wouldn’t happen. So make your improvements small and incremental but daily. Small improvements also decrease the cost of failure. If you miss a day, you have a new baseline for tomorrow.”

E-book download is already available for purchase. The printed version will be shipped around the 10th of May 2009.

Screenshots from 2000er Music Tech V2.0 Game Boy

Chipmusic-musician and music-lecturer Pixelh8 decided to put up a free-for-download version of the software-synths he made for GameBoy Advanced and Nintendo DS, called the “Music Tech Pro Performer“. He says, that already music-students of his lectures use the software. But he is “getting more involved in music education and software it’s nice to see something being used by lots of people instead of just me and few others.” Well, pragmatic thinking? At least, the software is free for download, but you should be aware, that the copyright remains at Pixelh8. Yes, you can use it in music productions, but no you can’t use the sounds for making sound-libraries or distribute the software yourself. (via)

Music Tech Pro Performer Nintendo DS / GBA

Indeed an intense exploration of a video-game “side character”. (via)

This post is dedicated to the category “Colorful Entertainment”. The podcast-show “They Might be Giants” is especially suited for kids, but also I am enjoying it as well. It somehow is reminding me on a renewed version of the “Sesame Street”, with the same sort of… freshness. Lots of music, lots of colors, lost of things to learn.

This might be no new stuff, sorry when I discovered it at least now. Some quick googling did not bring any official website on my screen. But maybe there are some “They Might Be Giants” experts out there?

Breakpoint 2009. This year, like every year. Bingen am Rhein over the Eastern days. Starting this Friday. Man this invitation rocks!

ToneMatrix: This pattern makes a perfect ringtone.

Flash-Audio guru Andre Michelle, the very creator of the Hobnox-audiotools, made a new soundtoy! The ToneMatrix is a simple sinewave-synth, that is visually and conceptional similar to the Tenori-On or the Monome.

I just managed to make some great ringtone-like loops, that fitted perfectly into the ambient-music that was playing here. Smoothing and inspiring. Well designed. Definitely worth a try.

Less is more, really.

King is a perfect casual game for download. The design is clear, everything fits and it is quite minimal. You play the “King”, in order to destroy all enemies in your kingdom (I have to guess the story a little bit, because I do not understand Japanese). Well, you are the King!

Most of the levels just have one single-screen and the levels are designed very concise. There are different types of enemies, that have different basic abilities, like jumping or throwing things around. The level of difficulty is increasing, just in the perfect rate. New enemies are introduced, just at the right time. The style of the graphics is as minimal as the overall design – perfect in details. Soundeffects are as well.
Read more »