One of the really interesting things I've noticed is how learning to program affected the way I think in general.

In high school, no one would have used the words 'logical' or 'rational' to describe me. I was definitely a 'thinking with your heart' kinda gal.

Now, I tuck my emotions away when I have to make a decision and use cold hard logic instead. Has anyone else experienced this?

Maybe we need to teach Congress how to program...

Megan Taylor

263

Currently at edutopia.org, we're not developing for the iPad per se, but we have taken steps that are making us more iPad friendly. For example, we removed a flash object from our front page because the flash object had a large file size and was cumbersome to update. The side benefit was that its replacement shows up on the iPad nicely. I'm also in the process of examining how certain roll-overs work, as they behave differently on the iPad then they do on the desktop, which will most likely end up with a simplified replacement.

Geoff Butterfield

10

How about these parallels from http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html:

• Learn to write your native language well. Though it's a common stereotype that programmers can't write, a surprising number of hackers (including all the most accomplished ones I know of) are very able writers.
• Develop your appreciation of puns and wordplay.

Personally, puns are not permitted until after midnight, but there seems to be some correlation between wordplay and programming.

After all, the analogies on the verbal portion of the SAT exam are more strictly logic-based than the math questions.

(Full disclosure: I got a perfect score on the verbal portion of my SAT exam, and almost completely flubbed the math portion. This does not seem to hinder my ability to program in any way.)

Megan Taylor

263

I'm really interested to see how media sites will adapt to the iPad.

Will they rely on their existing websites and optimize that experience?

Will they build applications that provide a customized experience that really fits the format?

Or will they make the same mistake they made at first with the Internet, and just publish .PDF versions of their content as apps? (I've already heard of a lot of this going on.)

Megan Taylor

263

If it's a new site, I certainly not go the user-agent route and send iPad users to the mobile ghetto. Unless you're doing some multitouch sorcery, just swap out Flash container formats for JavaScript, and you're good to go.

Dave Stanton

80

Agreed. There is really isn't an iPad-friendly website. Just pull the Flash content and replace with HTML 5 video or another alternative.

dale

10