Jan 5, 2011 2
Looking back on 2010
These are some of the things I found helpful for me or discovered in 2010.
It’s a very mixed up compilation and partly very techy :-).
The video I liked the most
Way back home (set to 1080p). Amazingly beautifully shot.
Most interesting websites I discovered
GitHub: For me social coding is a big thing, I like discovering new projects based on coders or projects I follow.
I like the concept of a whole community dedicated to develop open-source projects further and exploring ideas.
Having social interaction and a way to reputate yourself online fits perfectly with what Prof. Norbert Bolz calls “the age of recommendation and reputation” and “to brand yourself”.
Flattr: I think micropayment is a great concept and I hope it is going to change the way we see and think about content.
Twitter: I now use twitter on a daily basis, I found it very helpful in getting the information that I am interested in.
The best analogy I heard in 2010 was that twitter is like your personal radio station that plays information you are interested in. Of course you have to follow the right people.
Most interesting feed/newsletter
The cryptogram is a monthly newsletter by the legendary cryptography researcher Bruce Schneier. He writes mature thougts on current security topics and discussions. I found it really helpful in getting a reasonable opinion about topics and staying up-to-date.
Most interesting video lecture
JavaScript, the evil parts. Quite some interesting ideas.
Most surprising programming language
Haskell: Very clean design. I first got into contact with functional programming in 2010 and found it very intuitive and useful.
Since parallelization gets more and more important these days, languages that are inherently designed without side-effects have a great future.
Most helpful podcasts
Linux Reality: 100 episodes about linux related topics. Good for starters.
Chaosradio Express by Tim Pritlove: German podcast, I can recommand TeX, Coffee and Mobile Ad-hoc networks.
Most interesting projects I discovered
node.js: Server side javascript at it’s best.
Cinder: High performance creative coding framework for C++.
Ethersex: A project that enables network facilities like IPv6 or HTTP for microcontrollers.
Most used software
Bash: Maybe I will look into zsh in 2011, for now I am very happy.
Vim: Hands off, best text editor out there.
LaTeX: Just great.
Git: For me git made a big change in my coding workflow and the way I keep the development, staging and productive environment in sync.
Project I learned the most from
Setting up a company server from scratch (hardware, archlinux os, web-server, wiki, backup system, vpn, etc.).
Especially getting handy with Unix and Linux had some big insights for me.
Best article/paper/etc
Reading the famous RFC 2616 in it’s completeness was really helpful for understanding the concepts behind the world wide web.
Most interesting persons of 2010
Dr. Michael Schmidt-Salomon: German philosopher, if you are interested in faith, humanism, ethics and the “free will”-debate listen to this interview.
Daniel Domscheidt-Berg: I think this is pretty much ideally how one should present himself: Sophisticated and calm.
Robert Hodgin: Very inspiring. Co-founder of Cinder and the barbarian group. Big one in creative coding.
