Idiot's guide to programming

I have been performing the annual round of appraisals and thinking about my contributions as well as those of the other members of our department.

In the current climate of off-shore, rapid implementation times (Internet time), resource pools and benchware the management seem to forget that we don't just learn our trade from an "Idiots guide to computing". Becoming proficient at a computer language (let alone experienced designer of distributed applications) takes time and effort. It is simple to learn the syntax and concepts of a language, but it takes years to become proficient and experienced. I will spare you the programming horror stories that seem to haunt me on a daily basis, just let me say, "How to teach yourself programming in ten years"

RSSReader beta supports ATOM

Blogger.com seem to have gone against the grain for syndicating content by using the ATOM XML specification (the designers currently don't recognise ATOM as even in draft let alone submitted!). Anyway, I have been struggling to find a reasonable reader that supports ATOM as well as the various flavours of RSS. RSSReader seems to be the best of a bad bunch. See what you think... (although I can't wait for the excellent Bradbury software's FeedDemon to come up with the goods. If you haven't checked out Bradbury soft-wares then you should - TopStyle is an excellent example of quality software development.