Simplification of triple-choice prompts to dual-choice

I have a lot to say about the modern trend in graphical user interface design which aims to achieve an impossibly clean look at the expense of usability, but this is going to be the subject of another blog post. In this post, I want to talk about simplifying the user interface when the simplification is clearly a win, both from a usability point of view and, incidentally, from an aesthetics point of view. Specifically, I want to show how a yes/no/cancel prompt can be reduced to just a yes/cancel prompt.

Buienalarm vs. Buienradar

So, today I had the chance to observe an example of the relative accuracy of buienalarm.nl vs. buienradar.nl

Audit Testing

Abstract

An automated software testing technique is presented which spares us from having to stipulate our expectations in test code, and from having to go fixing test code each time our expectations change.

Artificial Code Coverage

Abstract

In this paper I put forth the proposition that contrary to popular belief, 100% code coverage can be a very advantageous thing to have, and I discuss a technique for achieving it without excessive effort.

The most important quality of software

What is the most important quality of software?

Correctness, they say.

And what is the second most important quality of software?

Readability, they say.

That is right, but only in theory.

Types of dependencies

The term "dependency" is used very often in software engineering, but depending on context, it may mean slightly different things. To avoid confusion, here are the different meanings of the term, and their explanations.

Call Graph Acyclicity

Abstract

In technical design of software systems as conventionally practiced, call graphs often contain cycles. We show that cyclic call graphs are highly problematic for a number of reasons, the most important being that they require careful handling on a case-by-case basis by custom-written code, thus preventing the standardization, and therefore the automation, of system assembly. We discuss refactoring strategies for systematically eliminating call cycles, including a universally applicable technique for trivially eliminating a certain common type of call cycle. We conclude that since call cycles can be avoided or eliminated, they can be comprehensively disallowed, thus paving the way for the standardization and automation of system assembly.