We managed to catch some footage of senior editor, author, and blogger, Andy Oram at the Jolt Award ceremony last week. The host of the ceremony was writer Robert X. Cringely with Amber Ankerholz of Think-Services assisting in presenting the awards. Here’s the clip, if you’d like to share in our moment of glory.
Other business–win a free book
Michael R. Bernstein wrote to let me know that I had neglected to announce the winner of the free copy of Ajax: The Definitive Guide that I offered in my post What’s in a Definitive Guide?” This was quite a coincidence (assuming you believe in coincidence) because Michael, himself, was the winner we arbitrarily chose. Congratulations, Michael and thank you for posting your insightful comments.
For the next book contest, I’m giving away a copy of the Jolt Award winning Beautiful Code. Just post a comment about the subject: what makes code beautiful to you? What makes it ugly? Can code be beautiful? Write whatever you like on the subject, post your comment before Friday, March 21, and I will arbitrarily select a winner from the posts. The odds of winning are great—just ask Michael!
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Code is beautiful when it does what it's suppose to do, and you can actually tell by reading it what it is suppose to do. When the phenotype and the genotype are in perfect harmony, when the code itself really is the best commentary on it, then code is beautiful.
Beautiful code fits in my head.
Beautiful code is layered, and comprehensible at multiple levels of abstraction.
Beautiful code minimizes the need for abrupt mental context switches.
Beautiful code encapsulates an 'Aha!' moment.
Beautiful code is haiku-like.
Beautiful code is working code.