Topic: Software Development
BBC Backstage is the umbrella term for an evolving set of feeds and APIs that the BBC has been offering since 2005. Ian Forrester updates Jon Udell on what progress has been made, and what obstacles remain, as the BBC navigates toward its digital future.
Brian Ellin from JanRain and Doug Kaye of the Conversations Network discuss some of the technical issues related to implementing OpenID and other identity systems. Doug first talks about some of the problems he experienced when trying to add OpenID to SpokenWord.org and how he was able to solve issues using RPX. Brian then gives the background of RPX and how it works compared to other OpenID implementations.
Jonathan Christensen is Skype's General Manager for Video and Audio. Listen in as he discusses the history of audio compression, the human voice and Skype's new audio codec to be released for free. Achieving higher quality sound at a more efficient rate included partnership with hardware and software manufacturers.
Joel and Jeff discuss lessons from a year of building Stack Overflow, the mysteries of COBOL, some YSlow website optimizations, and magic numbers.
For those who thought Microsoft had become a sleeping giant resting on the laurels of its popular Office franchise, Stephen Elop has news for you. In this frank discussion with Tim O'Reilly, Elop discusses Microsoft's intention to embrace interoperability and apply the results to its business model.
HTTPWatch is a commercial add-in for Internet Explorer that provides detailed statistics on HTTP traffic. In this presentation from the 2008 Velocity conference, Simon Perkins of Simtec Limited demos HTTPWatch and outlines its key features, including the ability to see the effect of local caching and HTTPS traffic before it is encrypted.
Joel and Jeff discuss the disappointment of Google AdWords, the difference in skillset between programmers and testers, and the value of standards groups to working programmers.
One drawback of most maps is that they only show two dimensions. In this program from Where 2.0, Brandon Martin-Anderson discusses examples of maps which attempt to depict events in three or four dimensions.
Joel and Jeff discuss the Mythical Man Month problem, keeping communication in check, Windows 7, and web scaling.
"Code against the eBay and PayPal APIs; make money," is Mark Carges' message to developers. About eight years ago eBay realized that there was a huge business potential in providing an economic opportunity for developers to leverage their API. Today, there are 85,000 developers that code against the eBay developer API and make money; some of them make lots of it. Last year alone, the sellers on eBay sold $60 billion worth of goods worldwide, and developers who provided real value to these sellers made a cut.
