Newsgator has announced that a bevy of their RSS/Atom clients, including the excellent FeedDemon is now free:

FeedDemon 2.6, NetNewsWire 3.1, Inbox 3.0 (beta), and NewsGator Go! for Windows Mobile 2.0. Each of these is a pretty major release on its own - tons of new features in all of them.

But second, every one of those applications is now free! Free as in beer, that is. And add to the free list NewsGator Go! for BlackBerry as well. And not only are they free, but our online services (including synchronization) are now free as well! Not to mention our iPhone reader, HTML mobile reader, and all of the other applications that are part of our online platform.

Hat tip to CleverClogs for spotting the news.

Ben Abernathy writes a poignant observation about computer science and the kinds of people that come (or don’t come) out of college programs.    The first group ditches computer science altogether, the second delights in making things work, but the third strives for something more elusive: elegance and beauty.  Ben is right to note that if you’re looking for beauty in software, you can very well end up a miserable idealist.

Personally, I’ve had to come to a place where I resolve to plant beautiful code wherever I can, even if it is surrounded by weeds I’m not allowed to pull.  Even when I fail at it, I find that the effort of striving to improve, rather than just make do, makes me a better and happier software engineer.

Having been in software for over a decade, I have found one easy way to spot the differences between coworkers and competitors in Group 2 (”Get it done”) and Group 3 (”Make it beautiful”): Regard, or disregard, for craft.

Doghouse Software

It’s pretty obvious when you look at carpentry, masonry, or cooking which people care about their craft, and which people just “got it done.”  Unfortunately, craft it much easier to see in the physical space than in software.  Even a gorgeous GUI can hide some unspeakably gnarly code.

I heard Grady Booch speak at Java One many years ago.  He said that most people build applications like they build doghouses:  Bang together some wood, and if the dog is mostly dry, you’re done.  Enterprise applications, he noted, are usually skyscrapers composed of a bunch of doghouses duct-taped together.

Doghouse software is built with little regard for craft.   This problem may not show up right away, but as soon as the requirements or use cases expand, the shoddy craftsmanship becomes painfully clear.   Ask anybody trying to retrofit web services on a legacy architecture, and you’ll see what I mean.

Process and Craft

Process, I must say, should not be confused with craft.  Craft should involve some process , but I’ve never seen process generate craftsmanship.  (I have seen beautiful code in CMM-4 shops and in startups.  I’ve also seen hideous crap in both.)  The difference invariably comes down to regard for craft by the individual.

Questions Asked and Unasked

“Does it work?”  If software is just a job, this is where a programmer stops asking questions.  If she cares about craft, she also asks questions like:

• “Can I prove it will work reliably? (It it testable?)”
• “Is it easy to use, does it eliminate excise?  (Is it usable, user-friendly, intuitive?)”)
• “Can I easily swap out visualizations? (Are there clear boundaries between model, view, and controller?)”
• “Will it work if it becomes modestly or even insanely popular? (Is it scalable?)”
• “Will it work if I have to add new features, or change the persistence layer, or play well in SOA?  (Is it modular, loosely-coupled, platform-agnostic, maintainable?)

These questions get at the heart of true software craftsmanship: Be in the business of building products that will stand the test of time, not one-offs with zero shelf life.

Application-wide craftsmanship can be, as Joel Spolsky rightly notes, “incredibly expensive. “  I firmly believe, however, that individuals can improve their craft and stay on budget in most situations. I have found that improving my craft improves my productivity and the maintainability of my code.

Go to the Source

Source code it often a great way to tell whether a programmer cares about craft.    Is it clean and easy to read?   Are design patterns leveraged?  Was attention paid to loose coupling, encapsulation, dependency injection?  Are there an appropriate amount of comments?   Are complex methods broken down into simpler ones?  Are there unit tests?  Does the code, and the compiled product, look like something the programmer took pride in?  Or does it “just work?”

Finding Craftsman

My quest for interviewing new hires is not just to discern talent, but a regard for craftsmanship.   It is rare that a candidate can present source code, however.  I’ve found it difficult to really learn in an interview how much a person cares about the quality of his work.

Joel of Joel on Software uses summer internships to find the kind of people he wants, but most companies can’t reproduce his model or, honestly, draw that level of internship talent.  And, lets face, it, you can’t bring in senior engineers as summer interns.

Can craftsmanship be discerned in an interview without having the source code?   If you have any suggestions, please share them in the comments below.

Wondering if your New Years’ resolutions will make it past February? While there is no substitute for personal discipline and all that stuff, it is nice to have some help along the way. Here are some ways that technology can make that resolution just a little bit easer to keep:

Get Things Done

Do you just need help remembering all the stuff you didn’ get around to last year? Go no further than Remember The Milk. This free service has it all: To-do lists with calendering, email/SMS/RSS/instant message reminders, and integration with everything from the iPhone to Google homepages.

If you want to embrace hard-core efficiency, read Getting Things Done and then check out this list of GTD software tools. The list has both buyware and freeware for Palm, Pocket PC, Linux, and Windows.

Get Fit

The coolest exercise gadget this year has to be the Nike + iPod Sport Kit. If you own a pair of Nikes that can accomodate a special sensor, this kit turns your iPod into a performance monitor and coach. At $45, it beats buying a new treadmill.

Need help with a exercise program and fitness tracker? Here is a Online Fiteness Tracker that helps you manage both your diet and your exercise plan, monitoring nutrition, and creating weekly and monthly reports of your progress. There is a free version of this service as well.

Eat Right

Counting calories? If you have a personalized Google homepage, you can add this Calorie Calculator widget. “Use the calorie calculator to see each meal’s calorie details and sum up your daily total. Use the settings to see your recommended average daily intake.” If you want something more portable, try the Nutrition Assistant. Or if you own a Windows Mobile device here is a roundup of diet software for smartphones.

Need to completely overhaul your diet? I personally recommend The South Beach Diet website. You get lots of tools to help shed the pounds, including a diet profile to track your progress, forums and diaries to share successes and struggles with like-minded people. Best of all, it has a meal planner that lets you pick and print recipes, including a coalated shopping list. (If you pick four recipes that each call for a 1/4 cup of minced onion, for example, the shopping list will combine the amounts and let you know to buy a cup of mixed onion for that set.)

Get Going!

Good luck in 2008! If you use any high-tech tools not listed here, drop a comment and let us know what works for you. Happy New Year from TechBrew!