December 2008 - Posts

• The new Fog Creek office

  Remember the Bionic Office ? Fog Creek moved in there in 2003. After a couple of years we had outgrown the first office so we expanded to take over the whole floor. By the time our lease ran out in 2008 we had about 25 people in a space built for 18 and... Posted Dec 29 2008, 07:16 AM by Joel on Software

• Stack Overflow is a Wiki

  Stack Overflow launched about three months ago, and is already serving 8.3 million page views per month. The growth has been incessant. Most of the criticism I’ve heard of Stack Overflow reminds me of the early criticism of Wikipedia: “I went to this... Posted Dec 27 2008, 06:07 PM by Joel on Software

• From the Department of Badly Chosen Defaults

  Alert reader Chris S. emailed me to point out this post by a developer at flickr about how to make IE scale images more smoothly. All you have to do is add img { -ms-interpolation-mode:bicubic; } to the stylesheet. It worked! Note that all the other browsers... Posted Dec 22 2008, 11:17 AM by Joel on Software

• Future of Web Apps

  I’ll be speaking at Future of Web Apps , in Miami, the last week of February. If you’re going, and have any ideas for what I should talk about, drop me an email! Need to hire a really great programmer? Want a job that doesn't drive you crazy? Visit... Posted Dec 21 2008, 03:53 PM by Joel on Software

• Snowy day in New York

  I’ve been debugging the new site. The first problem: hopelessly messed up rendering on IE6. The best way to fix CSS problems with IE6 is to generate random mutations on the style sheet until it looks fixed. That’s really the only way to approach these... Posted Dec 19 2008, 10:14 AM by Joel on Software

• A new design

  Alert readers may notice a little bit of a redesign around here. Why the redesign? I’ve been plugging away at this site for about eight years now. There are approximately 1000 bits ‘n’ pieces of published flotsam throughout the site: a lot of ephemeral... Posted Dec 18 2008, 02:40 PM by Joel on Software

• Amnesia

  Mysteriously, about a week ago, Dan, the program manager designing most of the new features in FogBugz 7, came to ask me what features I thought should go in the timesheet reporting plug-in. The timesheet reporting plug-in? What’s that? It sounded dangerously... Posted Dec 09 2008, 05:06 PM by Joel on Software

• Stack Overflow Podcast #32

  This week Jeff and I talk about software piracy, some performance improvements on the site, dealing with criticism, great programmer’s offices, and more, in Stack Overflow Podcast #32 . Not loving your job? Visit the Joel on Software Job Board : Great... Posted Dec 03 2008, 02:04 PM by Joel on Software

• My Style of Servant Leadership

  “As for the sergeant major’s job, it basically consisted of two main duties: being the chief disciplinary officer and maintaining the physical infrastructure of the base. As such, he was a terror to everyone in the battalion. Most people knew him only... Posted Dec 01 2008, 07:34 AM by Joel on Software