Ever since we started Offroadcode we’ve taken the stance of never giving fixed price quotes for projects. Some people think this is crazy but allow us to explain why it makes sense for clients and ourselves.

Intuitively, this seems like it would work out as a great strategy for some design/development agencies. It is a more formal approach of my own ideas about agency proposals:

• Inverting structure to budget first, features second
• Working closely up front with the client to define and prioritize their goals
• Allow for a flexible and efficient development process

Two hurdles that could make this difficult to implement:

• Need to educate the client on the advantages of this approach
• Trust in the agency’s willingness to fit in extra features as time allows

However, examples of success on previous projects and from other agencies can help make this a viable strategy.

In fact, if I had to design a mechanism for the express purpose of destroying a child’s natural curiosity and love of pattern-making, I couldn’t possibly do as good a job as is currently being done— I simply wouldn’t have the imagination to come up with the kind of senseless, soul- crushing ideas that constitute contemporary mathematics education.

— Paul Lockhart

This essay completely explains my struggles of learning (and lack of enjoyment in) mathematics. It wasn’t until a computer science graphics class in college that I was able to re-discover geometry and see the wonderful side of mathematics.

Download the full essay from Mathematical Association of America

Summary:

If you’re fighting Git’s defaults, ask why.

Treat public history as immutable, atomic, and easy to follow. Treat private history as disposable and malleable.

The intended workflow is:

• Create a private branch off a public branch.
• Regularly commit your work to this private branch.
• Once your code is perfect, clean up its history.
• Merge the cleaned-up branch back into the public branch.

Full article by Benjamin Sandofsky here.

paleochallenge:

I’ve been looking for ways to generate a real live book from a Tumblr log. The only thing promising I found was www.feedfabrik.com which, while pretty cool, doesn’t have the level of customization I want. It also doesn’t handle lists at all, which is a deal breaker.

So I registered for…

(via Instapaper)

(via Instapaper)

cameronmoll:

There are so many things right about this app. The lovely watercolor, miniature sketchbook icon. The marketing site. The “take this everywhere life takes you” video above. And the undo gesture: Place two fingers on the screen and draw a circle counter-clockwise to undo and clockwise to redo. (Though the number of undo/redo steps are limited.)

Download the app for free, and then purchase additional brushes for $1.99 or the entire set for $7.99. But I bet you’ll be really impressed with the calligraphy brush, which comes with the free app. Handwriting and sketching have never looked so good on iPad.

/via @gt

yieldthought:

On September 19th, I said goodbye to my trusty MacBook Pro and started developing exclusively on an iPad + Linode 512. This is the surprising story of a month spent working in the cloud.

It all started when I bought my first MacBook a couple of years ago. Frustrated by the inconsistent…

Interesting approach, although I do wonder how much time was spent getting this all setup. Definitely wouldn’t work for a web developer, but might work for other types of programming. +1 for CLI + VIM!