Last Post today: Three good reads!
1) Peter Hallam from Microsoft, pointing out the important thing of a good IDE. He starts with the experience that developers spend 2-5% of their time in writing new Code, 20-25% in modifying existing Code and the rest of the time in reading and understanding old Code, and therefore concludes:

If we spent a ton of work, making intellisense, designers and wizards so good that writing new code took no time at all. Zero time. The ESP coding interface. That would still have less developer impact than a 10% reduction in the amount of time developers spend understanding the code base they are working in.

Looking at Xcode: Apple is near to zero time for producing new Code. The Sceleton of a simple app can be made on a rainy afternoon (how great is Core Data combined with Bindings? Whoooha).
But then? Modifying Code is horrible. No refactoring at all. If you have ever used eclipse oder intelliJ, you know what would be possible, and you will miss it. I mean, XCode doesn’t even let you change a Class name without giving you a headache. And how easy would it be to automaticaly prepare an Interface-File?
But reading Code is even worse. No block-folding. No Class-Inspectors. No Jump-to-Class-Definition-Shortcut. No visual Flow-Representation.
I really do like coding in XCode. I really do like fast results. But if I am honest to myself: It’s an IDE from the old days, where Marketing Features were everything and real use didn’t count. I really hope that Apple goes into a direction, towards which even Microsoft is headed for some years now…

2) Eric Lippert, taking on Hallams post. Why Programming looks like Rocket Science, but really is more like brain surgery, and why software engineering should transform it to Rocket Science again.

3) Paul Thurrott ranting about Windows Vista. Thurrott, the guy dissing OS X for not running Minesweeper, the one who accused Apple of stealing Spotlight, Aqua, Filevault, the Dock and even Expose from Microsoft, this Paul Thurrott blames Microsoft failing with Vista. I always knew that Microsoft will fall someday. Sometimes I even thought, that it could be within the next 30 years. Sometimes I even hoped, that Linux will be the Destroyer, and very rarely I dreamed of Apple winning the next round. But know, with a Microsoft-Fan like Thurrott ranting about Windows Vista and blaming Redmond to fail miserably, not being able to make a big OS-transition anymore, there’s only one thing left to say: „Welcome back to the fight. This time, I know our side will win!“